Rackham BE90 22-06-14

Took my mind off the run up to Rackham with a wedding on Saturday evening which involved a lot of wine, a lot of dancing and a night camping in the horsebox!  Great way to banish the nerves.  Wasn't quite sure what made me feel so sick on Sunday though - hangover or nerves!  Didn't have the best prep as wasn't able to sit down for most of the week due to my fall at Stratford Hills last week and did wonder if I ought to be going at all.  I managed a very painful 30min gentle hack on Friday and a slightly less painful 30min schooling session on Saturday morning then dosed myself up on ibuprofen/paracetamol and climbed on board at Rackham.  Fortunately it wasn't too bad and although my position was slightly more perched than I would like I found I could ride reasonably effectively.  Monty warmed up quite argumentatively so I did think it could be an interesting test.  Fortunately he decided to cooperate when it mattered most and did a beautiful test, especially his left trot - he just floated.  I could have ridden it forever!  Beautiful halt to finish and a big pat - very happy with that.

On to the SJ and I felt more sick after last week's mishap in the warm-up.  The warmup was quite chewed up surprisingly considering the ground everywhere else was really good.  Monty hates chewed up ground and told me so quite convincingly so I kept my warmup to an absolute minimum.  Jumped a x pole, a vertical and an oxer and then cantered into the ring.  Did a quick ride-by the troublesome line down the arena - related distance downhill from 4 to 5ab straight into the tradestands which was causing problems and off we went.  They did announce my dressage score but I didn't hear all of it - it ended in point five but that was all I or anyone else got.  Good thing really or it might have rather put me off my SJ!  He jumped a beautiful round.  He really sat back and waited beautifully on the tricky related distance to the double which I saw people do on 6 or 7 but 6 was quite forwards and then they were taking out the second part of the double so I made the decision to make him wait for 7 and he did it beautifully.  All our work with Chris on distances is paying off so well.  The other related distance was from 7 to 8 which was a forward 8 or a slightly holding 9 downhill so again sat back quickly, got him balanced and waited for 9 and he really listened.  Soooo chuffed with him.  Clear round - fab!

fence before the double:

1st part of the double:

No dressage score on the board so still none the wiser and time to get on with the most scary bit of the day.  I made a bit of a hash of the warmup.  Even jumped the practice fence the wrong way as in such a tizz.  Kept getting in deep.  Tried my hardest but just didn't seem to be able to see the forwards stride - argh.  Monty started being an idiot once we got close to being called and at 45seconds we were rearing up and going backwards round the warmup.  Have come to learn this is actually a good sign with him.  When he's like this he jumps brilliantly!  He didn't do it at Farley and it was really weird.  Led into the start box and off we went.  He was slightly looky at one but got a good stride, completely cocked up 2 - he went long when I thought he'd put in another, nice stride to 3

Completely cocked up 4 coming out of the woods by getting in far too deep and cat leaping it.  Friends were fence judging here and yelled at me to just kick on and it was just what I needed.  I gave him a kick and off we went.

Got a little close to the first part of the double at 5 but then kicked on to get my distance instead of wobbling and holding and it was fab from there.  Let him trot to the sunken road and then kicked on for distance out. Flew through the woods a bit spookily but the jump itself no probs and easy peasy through the half coffin - don't think he even noticed the ditch.  Round the field and up a small mound to a hanging log on the top - this gave me the wobbles when I walked it as post-Badminton I now have a phobia of any kind of hanging anything with a slope behind it.  I got him back into a lovely canter though and then rode forwards and he popped it no probs.

Up the 2 steps and kick on for the 4 strides to the brush.

Collected him up for the water - he was a bit looky but kept him thinking forwards and forwards to the jump out.

Didn't give the trakehner a second glance

Then onto a double of dog kennels which he met perfectly, the stick pile was brilliant

And then I noticed the final fence (didn't walk it as knew it was there!) and it was quite large and spooky and thought I better ride that one properly and not be complacent but he flew it.  Was so glad to have got round clear and apart from the initial few fences to have had a lovely smooth round.  Jumped off to hear the end of the commentator's spiel about us wanting to go back to Badminton and saying if we kept on like that we'd have a good chance as we'd just gone into the lead on a dressage score of 22.5!!!  Personal best at BE90 level!  Turns out we finished bang on the optimum time XC as well - my slowest BE90 for a long time but I wasn't chasing the clock, just wanted to make sure I took time to set him up and give him time to look at anything he needed to.  Didn't want him to feel hassled or stressed.  So, after time to get Monts cooled off and sorted went off to check the scoreboard and it was a good scoring section but the 21.5 had a rail SJ and the 14.5 (!!!!!) had a cricket score SJ so we won by 3 marks!  Totally not the aim of the day at all, but of course just what he is capable of if I don't mess him up.

A nice 9 for his final halt (did lot of practice this week with my sore bum and reluctance to go faster than walk!)  First time he's had straight 8's for collectives too!

Still feel like we have some confidence rebuilding to do as he wasn't quite the super confident horse he used to be and I wouldn't have wanted to be doing the 100 on him even though it was a lovely course as we just need to learn to trust each other a bit more again but a good start along that road.

Big thanks to Kim Nye for most of the XC photos and Spidge for the others.

And big thanks to Claire Miller for this super video of the whole day:

Just waiting to see if I get into Eridge this weekend now - last minute entry so ended up first on the waiting list and just hoping someone withdraws as that's another nice 90 course we could do with a trip round before our eventing summer break as the ground is starting to firm up and he doesn't much like that.