Was at a wedding last night so feeling a little delicate this morning. Possibly not the best thing to go SJ but for this reason I had pre-entered to make sure I didn't wimp out at the last minute! Early again, so an hour hanging around while they finished the British Novice but lots of lovely people I knew to talk to this week so big improvement on our lonely trip to BCA last week.
This week we started with the Discovery. Walked the course and liked it much better than nasty twisty BCA course last week. No tricky distances and no tight turns (only as tight as you wanted to make them in the second phase). They were running single phase which I really like as even if you knock a pole in the first phase you still get to carry on and do the second phase against the clock so more fences for your money. It was a little scary knowing I was going to have to do the second phase though as it looked rather large! Long wait again as we were 42nd to go! He was yawning his head off in the lorry when I went to find him. Made sure I had him raring to go in the warmup and he was jumping really well, despite some scary sunbeams on the floor of the indoor school! Went into the arena and he jumped a cracking round. Really unlucky to just get a touch too close to part a of the double which was the very last fence. I even rode some tight-ish turns (for me!) and was really enjoying myself!
Bit more of a break while they finished another 20 or so in that class then walked course for the 1.05m Open - our first one! Another nice course, just the last line from an upright to the final one stride double which was on 6.5strides and the first part of the double was a ginormous oxer as wide as it was tall - eek! He jumped the first bit brilliantly and was again unlucky to just rub exactly the same fence as he did in the Disc which was fence 6 this time (I clearly didn't learn much from whatever I did the first time although it was on an awkward turning line in my defence!). Onto the huuuuuuuuge jump off section (allowed to be 10cm higher than first phase so up to 1m15!) and he was flying - fence 10 was a humongous oxer that he flew, then round to the upright at 11 and I didn't get the line I wanted so ended up on a weird dogleg to the final double which I might have wanted to hold to if it wasn't the size of a house so I just kicked like hell and hoped for the best. We were just a bit off it so he didn't quite make the width but totally my fault, not his and so pleased with how he jumped and how he took me forwards into everything. Also pleased that I didn't hook once and how much smoother that made our round! Even Badminton will look small after a winter jumping that height! Brilliant photos thanks to the lovely Gary Horner. He still makes it look so easy - he's clearing them by miles - plenty of scope left to go bigger! I reckon Newcomers (1m10) by the end of the winter!!!
Next stop is tracking Chris down for a last couple of lessons before he heads back to Australia for a couple of months. He has been in Europe for the last few weeks competing but he's back tomorrow and I'm feeling in the mood for working on our SJ some more before Monty has a bit of a break in November. Just hope I can remember to ride like this after a few weeks off!
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