Did seem a little backwards to be heading 90miles to Oxfordshire when Tweseldown unaffiliated was running next door but you cant win it unless you're in it and Regionals are the aim of the game this yr.
Due to the orange one's behaviour at Larkhill I decided to get there with enough time to pop him on the lunge when we arrived before going to walk the XC course. Did 15mins of very sensible lunging so popped him back on the trailer and went to investigate the jumping. Looked at scores in my section so far - judging very very varied. Some really good early scores in the low 20's then the entire mid section of the class in the high 30's, 40's and even 50's! Walked the SJ and apart from a seriously dodgy dogleg from 1 to 2 it looked fine and not at all big/scary. Am liking 90cm these days :) Walked the XC and the only thing that concerned me was a double at 7ab of 2 skinnies with plants growing out the top on a curved right hand line on 3 strides which came up all of a sudden after galloping up a steep hill through woodland. Interesting!
full course pics
So, back to get on board for dressage. Plan was to warm up long and low for a bit then pick him up and in we go. Had a few discussions about the pick me up part, a sudden inability to do walk to trot, only walk to canter but sorted that so off we went. Did what I thought was a bit of a backwards test but fairly good outline held throughout and no banana/giraffe moments.
Haven't uploaded the vid as taken from miles away so cant really see much but here is a little pic from our lesson on Wednesday:
Onto the SJ - the warmup was worse than concrete. They had done a fab job everywhere else with the ground but I have to say the SJ warmup was atrocious. I popped him over each jump once and took him in. Ground in the ring was lovely and we had a super round. They did announce my crazy dressage score of 25.5 (!!!) just as I was headed to the first fence which kind of put me off completely so got in too close to 1, fluffed the dogleg and got close to 2 then gave myself a mental kick and rode the rest of the round super forwards which included rather a flyer at 9 and a super stride into the final line of 1 stride double, 3 stride related distance to upright. Result: clear!!! Pleased with myself for riding more forwards after the 1st couple of fences and having a nice, fun round :D
piccies:
fence3:
So, off to the best bit - XC - yay! Unfortunately yet again the orange one was not impressed with the start box and it wasn't easy to get round the front of it to walk in that way which is our current preferred technique so when the starter ended up saying go we were still practising our Spanish Riding School moves 20yards away! Eventually we got going but conscious that the clock started when she said go we had to get a move on. He jumped fab up until the double at 7 which because I was worried about I tried to set up far too much and we fitted 4 strides in which was a little uncomfy. He then powered on over a log pile, a log with a ditch 2 strides later that he totally took into his stride, a flower garden and then turned to the water. He saw the water after the scary fish carving with flowers in front of it and baulked slightly so resorted to some rather loud vocal encouragement and he flew it and actually cantered through the water, meeting part c spot on, flew down the drop, over the wall and onto the last few straightforward fences. Another double clear in the bag - yay!
video of last fence:
piccie over last fence:
So, finally we get a sub30 dressage score exactly a year since we did our first event - unaff 80 at Tweseldown. Not only sub30 but 25.5. We get a double clear inside the time (only by 2secs due to pre-start antics!) and where do we end up??? 5th in a section where top 4 qualified for Regionals. I am very pleased with the orange pony but that is a little frustrating! This season he has jumped 4 double clears inside the time. He has been 3rd, 9th, 8th and now 5th. He so deserves another Regionals qualification and I really want to move up to BE100 now. Winner of the section on 19.5 so judge obviously in a nice, generous mood. Certainly wont complain if we get her again - she gave me an 8 for my riding!!! Also got 8's for all his trot/canter work on the left rein, his canter-trot-walk on the right rein, the medium walk and the free walk and his paces. Comments: "Lots to like. A happy partnership" :D
Got ourselves a nice pretty frilly thing and a cheque to help with some of the diesel.
Next stop Milton Keynes BE90 in 10d time. I hope the jumping has a bit more influence. At Tweseldown we moved up from 23rd after dressage to 3rd overall. Today we were 8th after dressage but only made it to 5th. In the mean time we have 2 dressage lessons and N35 BD down the road at Merrist Wood on Saturday. We will crack this dressage lark if it kills me!
No comments:
Post a Comment