Remembering back to last Sat - BD at Merrist Wood. Staying with combination of hanging cheek snaffle and drop noseband. Warmed up nicely, in front of leg and feeling quite soft and supple. First test was P13. He stayed quite forwards but I did feel he dropped my contact a bit, just tightened through the back and hovered on the vertical but slightly behind my contact. This meant that on the video it looks like my reins are going baggy all the time. I think I just needed to feel that a bit more and ride him more up into the contact when I sense him dropping off. In general though, test was good. He got 65%. Judge was Mary Robley who is List 2. He was 5th in the qualifier but just one more collective mark would have seen him rise to 3rd overall and only 6 marks off the winner so it was v close.
Off back out to the warmup for a chill out wander round for 15mins then picked him up again. Practised our canter-trot-canter changes of rein over X and then in we went. 2nd test was N34 and judge was Debby Lush List One! Generally again v pleased with him - felt he attempted some medium work and he felt better in my contact which video supports. Ended up on 62.5% which was initially a little disappointed with but remembered that would still be 2 points and looked through Dan's old BD results and so far Monty is very much on a par with him with much more to come. Went back later to look at results and found out came 7th out of 16 restricted, 14th out of 24 overall so actually really pleased with that. Sheet was all 6's and 7's except for the medium trots where he got 4's which I thought was rather harsh - she said first one ran and 2nd one was hollow and crooked which is true but he didn't break and he tried something so I thought 4's was a bit on the mean side. 5's I would have happily accepted. he got 6's for his medium canters and he didn't really do an awful lot there either looking at the video. hey ho - that's judging for you.
MW BD pics
Had a Simon lesson on Sunday which went really well. We worked on lateral work on a circle, starting in walk and then progressing to trot. So it was leg yield head out round the big circle then shoulder-in then half-pass into smaller circle turning it into a pirouette. In trot it was half pass into smaller circle then leg yield back out onto the bigger circle. On and back in the trot, collecting it right back as far as possible then big trot forwards. His ability to collect the trot is so much better than when we first started this exercise 6mths ago. Then did some canter work, aiming for a milder version of head out leg yield and then back into trot and his final trot was amazing - if I could have that trot all the time he would be getting 8's!
So, then onto Tue schooling session - felt he was getting a bit heavy and leany in my hand in the hanging cheek so am going to go back to the Neue Schule tranz angle loose ring with the drop noseband and see how he is in that. Otherwise, worked on the same stuff - lots of lateral work in walk to start with, then the lateral work on the circle in trot and got a replica of the lovely big trot from the lesson.
Wed we went hunting with the Kent and Surrey bloodhounds for the first time. Great day out - we were jumping hedges from the word go. Think on the first line alone must have jumped about 5 of them and there were plenty more to come. Monty was jumping really well until the last line when I think he got a little tired and was chipping in some short ones but in general v pleased with him. My legs have been killing ever since - more fittening work needed for me I think!
hunting pics
Yesterday we hacked out and he was obviously not tired after Wed, but thriving after 2 days off in the field, bouncing out of his skin, really lovely forwards going springy trot down the byway when suddenly he grinds to a halt, props and threatens to spin nearly losing me out the front door. All because there were some cycle tyre tracks across the path. Stupid orange thing! Then further down he tried it again and got a serious smack on the bum - talk about taking the mick! He was just full of it the whole way round. Was v grateful I had Kim and Dan's sharer with me for moral support - mental pony! Dan also full of it, kept trying to overtake me in canter which didn't go down too well with Monty!
So, today off to Farley Hall for SJ lesson with Richard Waygood. In a group with Vicky Powley who I know has been competing Intermediate so bit scared the fences were gonna get huge. Started with telling Richard what we had been up to and then cracked on with a gridwork session. Started with 5 canter poles on the ground - Richard warned that distance would be long for Monty so I overrode it, sat too deep in the saddle and flattened him so he ran. Suitable chastised I had to go lighter in the saddle and just keep a nice rhythm - low and behold he went through it lovely! Idea was to go through one way, come back to walk in a straight line then pick up canter on the new rein and come back down. Built up the poles to cross poles until we had 5 fences all on bounce strides and instead of coming back to walk were continuing in canter, doing a small circle to balance them, then a big circle on the new rein and then back down the grid. Monty was ever so happy popping through the grid. Popped them up a bit and he felt like he could do it all day! Took out fences 2 and 4 and made fence 3 into an upright - no probs there. Then he whacked up the height of fence 3 to 1.05m but we still managed that with no probs and he hadn't touched a fence by this point. Then fence 3 got a back rail on it which wasn't a huge spread but back rail was at least 1.10m and I suspect somewhere nearer the 1m15 mark given how much higher it was than the front rail. This rather panicked both me and Monty and also made the distance between the spread and fence 5 rather short. Got told I had to create more energy in him and not let him be behind my leg but ended up coming in rather fast and flat, he took the back rail off the spread with his back feet, and then landed too far out to put in a stride before the final cross pole so attempted to bounce it which nearly resulted in us both eating dirt. Not entirely sure what happened but I think he found a 5th leg from somewhere - I just employed the hunting seat, kept quiet, left his head alone, shut my eyes and prayed! Somehow we both remained upright and went round to jump it again slightly more sensibly - he kept taking out the back rail though - I think it was just a little step too far so Richard put it down to somewhere between 1.05m and 1.10m and he cleared it lovely so we finished there. Clever pony :)
SJ lesson pics
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