BSJA Coombelands 16-08-15

Very civilised.  Arrived in time to enter then walk the Discovery course.  Pleased to say it all looked doable, even the jump off, although after watching a few and no-one getting through to it I wondered if I'd need to remember anymore than the first 8 fences as our record for making it through the first phase isn't great!  Didn't quite get going enough after the first fence and was lucky to clear fence2 after squeezing in an extra stride but then got into my rhythm and made all the distances and strides fine.  Before I knew it were over fence 8 and no buzzer rang so on we went!  They got rather big but he kept on flying!  I didn't go for tight turns as prefer to go for rhythm than speed but amazingly we went clear - our first double clear at this level.  Turns out he would have won as there were only a couple of double clears and we were fastest.  Ironic given I cancelled our membership at Christmas for not having jumped a clear in a year's worth of competing.

2nd part of one stride double in the second phase:

First part of two stride double in the first phase:

Oxer at 6

Put him back on the lorry for 45mins while the class finished and the next one was built.  Then walked the 1.05m Open.  Always find these are quite a bit more technical than Discovery.  There were some tricky lines, especially in the second half.  Single phase so 12 fences.  Was struggling to get it in my head and no time to watch anyone which wasn't the best idea.  My brain takes ages to learn an SJ course!

Started off ok to 1 and 2 then got a rather long stride to 3 after a really long canter down to it where I just focused on trying to keep the rhythm and not pushing/pulling:

Landed on the wrong leg because I didn't think about where to go next which upset our rhythm.  Just about got sorted in time for fence 4, a big spread but it was getting a bit hairy.  Got through the big one stride double ok then left to a huge square oxer where I saw an absolute flyer - not ideal for a fence that sized!

Onwards to another upright which was fine then swing back round on a bit of an odd line to a huge oxer - just got that wrong, ended up putting a short one in and despite veering right to give himself room he couldn't clear the front rail at that height so we had it down.  Landed on the wrong leg so tried to get myself sorted and back on the right leg but again, disrupted the rhythm and got too close to the upright at 9 so had that down too.  Onwards to big two stride double which we cleared but again on a long one.  Totally forgot that needed to make a really sharp turn back to the upright at 11 so ended up having to take a wiggly line which disrupted both our focus, he was spooking at next door fence and we got too close again although somehow he cleared it.  Sorted our act out for the last upright at 12 and jumped that nicely.  Disappointed to have 12 faults (not sure which was the 3rd fence we had down) as I let him down by getting a bit manic and riding for long ones, then not setting him back on his hocks in between fences so he just got longer and flatter and couldn't pick up off a shorter stride.  Plus, really need to think about where I'm going before I land so I can land on the correct leg.  More homework needed!

Sadly no video of the lovely Discovery round, just the 1.05m: