Arena eventing training and competition report 5th/6th Dec 2014

Friday evening I went down to Merrist Wood for a BE organised training clinic on arena eventing.  Having not jumped for a month I was expecting us both to be a bit rusty but was pleasantly surprised to find my eye appeared to be working just fine and Monts was well up for it.  Downside of Monts in that kind of mood is that any kind of softness goes out the window.  If you try and ask him to work over his back into an outline he just sticks his head even higher in the air and fights.  Still, at least he was going forwards although he was a bit looky at some of the fillers.  We did loads of skinnies, difficult turns, corners etc and he was great - no cheeky run outs and really locking on.  Got told to try and anchor my hands into the base of his neck on landing from a fence to stop him plunging onto his forehand and charging off with me which worked well so just have to try and remember to do that.  Something to practice as he needs to learn to land then immediately rebalance, not gallop round half the arena first!

Saturday evening I took him back to Merrist Wood for the 1m unaffiliated indoor SJ/XC.  There were 5 SJ's then 11 XC jumps against the clock, some were knockdowns, some rolltops etc - things moved round from the night before and I missed the course walk as they were running early so just had 4 people to watch to learn the course!

Quick warmup as I was basically last to go.  Jumping well although there wasn't anything big to jump  and no-one to help me so I started doing some angles instead.  Forgot about his nappy streak and put him on a steep left hand angle right by the gate and he naughtily nipped out the left side.  He got a smacked bum for that as he really needs to learn it's not acceptable now and I didn't put him on a bad line or stride - he just took advantage.  Jumped it a couple more times fine and then in we went.

We had a couple of lucky rattles but for once the poles stayed in their cups.  Totally missed my turn from 6 to 7 so had to do a handbrake turn to a very spooky jump but fortunately he was on the ball and we pulled off some other tight turns, I rode forwards and he really responded.  Then had to seriously anchor up for 2nd last fence followed by 90degree turn right on 4 strides to a skinny - worst nightmare as perfect for him to nip out to the left but he didn't think about it - maybe smacked bum in warmup paid off!  Nearly fell off when they announced we'd gone into the lead.  Given we were last in, that meant we won the class!!!  I've never even been placed in a SJ competition on him and anything against the clock normally sees us coming last but he was excellent and we were a bit lucky in places and for once it all came together for us - well chuffed!

pro pics - last page (and 3 on the previous page) - he makes them look like they're tiny and he just can't be bothered with them!