Well, first BE event on this horse. He is my brother’s horse, that mum hunts and team chases. He is very talented, but so fickle, it either goes really well, or he won’t do anything, and e.g. refuses to jump. So as I said when I was catching up with a friend when walking the course, ANYTHING could happen!

So, dressage, he is rather good at dressage, so I was going for a nice 20's test, but unfortunately, the arena was in a diff field to the warm up, and ALIENS were present!
So it was a bit, tense and OMG MUM ANOTHER ALIEN (no Ross, that’s mum with the camera *sigh*) but apparently it looked okay. I thought it felt rubbish. And major SACK the pilot. I had a bit of a blonde moment, and thought G was between X and where G actually is, so halted, then twigged and had to halt again. IDIOT ME! Anyway, we got 32. Aright (much better than I get with belv) but a bit disappointing as, well, a good test for him is well into the 20's. Ah well!

Show jumping, Well, I knew that we'd either go clear, or get E, as he is SOOOOOOOOO careful. But all was good, clear round, except nearly stopping at the planks where there were EVEN MORE ALIENS!--very very scary. You wouldn’t think he was 13- the pathetic squit! Anyway, very pleased at this point, still on 32, thinking, finally can do well at BE. (Signed my soul to the devil by thinking this!!)

Warm up for Cross Country, and CRIPES is he strong, galloping all over the place, so now worried about my brakes and if we will get out the start box (nappy horse). So just before I go over to the start we have a minor nap attack, but all good once over there, fly out, over one, does two beautifully, round to three, rail with tyres under, he sees AN ALIEN! Stops, circle, sees alien again, but jumps from halt, cue me all over the place, and also like poo no rosettes, SIGH! Kick on, flowers on next fence, more ALIENS, awful jump, so come round to five, he starts almost like he is going to nap, I whack him on the arse trying to get his act together. Then 6ab, awful over 6a. Flies 7 and 8. More aliens at 9- the hedge, actually got quite a nice photo here though! Round to 10, a rather large very upright drop palisade with steep slope afterwards. he is busy looking at the aliens by the intermediate skinny’s and not paying attention to the fence, sees it finally as he takes off, leaves a leg in a spectacular fashion, head goes down, back legs come flying up, I am totally ejected out the saddle and have flying lessons down the slope!!! Him being a cat somehow manages to stay on his feet (NO IDEA HOW!!) and he doesn’t trample me, very pleased! gather my hat silk, gather him, take him back up the hill to the jump and jump judge, get a leg up (takes a while and Ross is still in another land and very wild) then I retire. Stupid to go on, he was jumping so so badly, and didn’t want another accident! So wander back to the start, after negotiating my way around a maize (all gaps in hedges seemed to have massive ditches in them!! haha)

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I have to say BE are very efficient, as soon as we get back, some guy pulls up in a car--BE doctor come to check me out! haha! alls good, but no sympathy from my friends, all Louise can say is ''did you fall off then??!!'' in a really scarky voice! HAHA bless, well she had a good day.
So anyway, bloody typical, good dressage and SJ for once and then XC to pot. Had we gone clear XC we could have been 3rd/4th/5th depending on how close we were to the optimum time.

Ross= fab dressage and SJ, crap XC
Belv= rubbish dressage and SJ, and awesome XC!

Ah well, you never know, I might get it right one day!
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By that I mean, we decided to take Irish Rose and Cloons Master Plan to a local show in order to give Rosie some fun and to give Ross a show jumping round before our PN at Cleobury on Saturday (considering at the Hartpury 1m SJ championships he refused to jump anything!!!)
We had decided to do the 2'9'' and 3'0'' on Rosie, and the 3'0'' and 3'3'' on Ross. However when we got there they had had loads of entries and so we had a while to wait. So we entered them both in both dressage competitions they were running! Prelim 18 and Novice 24. Warming them up was a bit of a hassle as there was no warm up, but we got there eventually, and I did four tests in the space of about 20mins. Off one, on the next, then learn the next test, then do the test, then off that one and onto the other one! It was all very hectic! However, in the end, although I was very hot, worth it, as I gained a stack on rosettes.

In the Prelim Ross won it, with 68% and Rosie was 5th with 62%. (Around 20 entries).
In the Novice Ross stole the show with an awesome 73% and Rosie was 2nd with 65% (Around 10 entries).

Short video of Ross' SUPERB Medium trot that came as a shock to us all!

Then onto the Show jumping which was very under height! The 2'9'' was more like 2'3'', but hey ho, it was just for Rosie to have some fun! Anyway, I spoke to soon, the little madam had a stop at the first! Bless! The Clear round ring, had suddenly wacked their jumps up so they were a good 3ft-3ft3, with a lot more fillers than the main ring! So we popped her in that and she did a very sweet round and gained another rosette! Good girl!

Video of the Clear round, and Pictures from the 2'9'' (click to enlarge)
There was a very long wait while they did the 85cm Top Score until the 3'0'' class, so we sat and got very hot eating an egg in a roll as they caterers had run out of food- humph! But eventually it came to an end and I warmed up Ross for the 3'0''. He was warming up very well, until he suddenly stopped at an upright taking me totally by surprise and leaving me clinging onto the side like a limpet! He must have spotted some monster and was clearly saving both of us from a terrible fate! haha!
However, he went in and did a super round, double clear, not stops, and definitely no touching any poles!

Next was Rosie, and this time I was not going to let her stop at the first. But she had already done two rounds and had had to wait hours for this, so was pretty switched off. This meant that she found the distance too hard to get in the double, put a little one in that really wasn’t there and had it down. Then on the final line, we came to a reasonable height spread, I could feel her backing off, took my hand off the rein and gave her two smacks of encouragement. But it was the wrong decision to make, as she then took advantage of this and ran out. Came round again, another smack, popped it very well. So eight faults. It caused lots of problems in the end, and Ross won, and Rosie was 4th. Si not so bad!

Video of Ross' Novice Dressage test and 3'0'' SJ round, and images of Ross and Rosie in the 3ft (Click to enlarge)
Finally, it was onto the 3ft3. There weren’t many in the class so I was hoping for another double clear and win on Ross. However, as we came around to the 2nd, there was a crow on the fence wing, as Ross took off, it took flight and caught Ross' attention so he froze, and forgot he had back legs, so knocked it down. He was lovely around the rest of the course though!
As it turned out, no one went clear and there were three of us on four faults, so they did the placings on the times of our first rounds which were not speed rounds, so Ross was the slowest and came 3rd. Ho hum, not so bad! (Photographer left after the 3ft unfortunately!)

All in all, a VERY VERY hot long day, but we came home with lots of Rosettes (makes a nice change!) and ponies feeling very pleased with themselves I think!

I just hope Ross can do the same at Cleobury Mortimer BE PN this Saturday!
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Well, not to beat around the bush, it was a bad day!

It appeared to start off well with the Dressage. He was warming up well (even though we had a massive trek through a bog to get to the warm up!) and he was very (for him) soft and supple in his jaw and poll. For a few minutes we also did some fantastic work. Went into the arena, and he did a very nice test, he was flexed in the poll, had the correct bend and was very genuine. The rein back didn’t really happen, one good step and then he froze and ran off. Ah well, that never goes well. Then the final counter canter, I lost the bend to the leading leg and accidentally asked for a flying change, which he very kindly obliged! But other than that it was a very pleasing test, and very similar to Kelsall JRN, where we got 33 (even with a 2 for the rein back). I knew at this stage that it would be in the 30's and was sure it would definitely not be any worse than 36.
You can imagine my horror then when I went to the score boards and saw that we had a score of 44 which was very disappointing! Hey ho...

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Onto the Show jumping, well after the huge show jumping at Chatsworth IN I was hoping that Arley would look and feel small and easy, and that we would continue our SJ pattern of poles, then clear, then poles then clear. Indeed it didn't look very big (apart from one massive upright, that was clearly way over novice height!) but it was Chatsworth’s very small thin light poles, which was slightly concerning. The warm up was atrocious, and he wasn’t jumping well. However, went in, jumped one and two well. Came round to three, a tiny upright, and I lost my head, couldn’t see a stride, so just hooked, ended up too deep with no impulsion so had a stupid stop. Carried on, he was very careful until a double of uprights, had the first element down. Then we also had the massive upright down. So two down (the only two he hit) which in itself was disappointing as I was really aiming for a clear, but not too bad. But then because I made a silly error, we had 4 for the stop, so we ended up on 12. Which I was very disappointed with.
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I was feeling very down for the Cross Country, but mum told me to just get on with it, so apart from nearly falling off leaving the start box (he was leaping about, I was trying to start my watch then we went, and I nearly went out the side door) we had a fantastic round. Although, we nearly came a cropper at fence four as we met it on a bit of a misser. However, the rest of the course was super, with many ABC turning combinations which he was foot perfect in. We also finished incredibly well up on the clock.
So all in all, very very dissapointing, and finished on a pretty rubbish score.
However, I did get permission from the JRN co-ordinator to do Hartpury CCI* and she also felt that doing the OIU21 at Knaptoft would be a good idea.
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Well, very very very long day at Chatsworth!! Set off at 6am and returned home at 10:20pm, so a 16 1/2 hour day! Poor Belvedere! However, we had a reasonably good day, especially considering it was our first IN.

Well, I got very stressed just before the Dressage! We discovered that I had forgotten the camera, and then when I tried to find the dressage I was blind to the sign and got very lost, meaning I had little time to warm up. However the test went okay. There were cows at the end of the arena so his attention was wavering so he was a bit 'heady'. But I was pleased with how he coped with the Intermediate test and I felt his shoulder-in's were very respectable and that although he wasn't direct in the two canter-walk's, he was very calm and genuine about them. Turns out we got 43.6, which although isn't great and wasn't great in the section I was quite pleased. Especially considering it was an Int test with harsher int marking. I wasn't the worst either by a long way :D

I then had a FIVE HOUR gap before the Showjumping, which I was terrified about. I thought the novice SJ looked big, square and wide, and so was very nervous about the IN SJ which is 3'9''-4'0'' (1m15-1m20)!! They wacked it up, and added a jump to make a triple and added another upright. Mum tells me she thought it was huge and was feeling very green about it! Especially seeing as the first person had seven down and retired, the next had 24 penalties and someone else had 8.  In the end we had number 2 down, then the second part of the triple which we only slightly tapped (but they had very very thin light poles) and a big square oxer where he wasn't sharp enough in front. But he was fantastic down the massive final line in front of the grandstand! So 12 faults, but the SJ caused carnage and so 12 faults was pretty normal!

Then onto the very very wet Cross Country which he flew round!!! The ground was very wet and very deep so I kicked on, trying to get as few time pens as possible. But blimey he must have moved his legs quicker than normal because we came 9 seconds inside the time! Thrilled with him. I went to look at the score board and was shocked at the amount of time penalties, no one else in my section came home inside the time. And out of all the Novice and IN sections only 6 people were inside the time, and I was the fastest! I am shocked by this, as I didn’t take risks, I was safe at all the fences, but I just shaved off seconds where ever possible by cutting corners etc and getting quickly away from the fences!

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In the end I finished on 55 which I am very happy with for our first IN. Also because of the XC time pens everyone else got, I moved up to 11th! They gave rosettes to 12th, so we got a rossy! So pretty pleased!
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Just a very quick post, to say that Irish Rose (Rosie) and Cloons Master Plan (Ross) were very good and well behaved at our Pony Club Hunter Trial!
They both did the 2'9'' and the 3'3''. And they both stormed around both courses in fantastic form!
In the 2'9'' Ross came 1st, and Rosie came 2nd. In the 3'3'' Rosie came 1st, and Ross came 3rd.
What a good day! Totally wiped the board!!! Good Horsies!

Photos from 2'9'' (Click pictures to view larger)

Photos from 3'3'' (Click pictures to view larger)

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Well, a slightly mixed day, but overall, I am very pleased with my pone! Withington is a local one for us; the journey was only an hour and a quarter!

The Dressage was very disappointing. I haven’t schooled him/had a dressage lesson for over 3 weeks because of school and competitions on Saturdays, and it showed. Recently it has been much better (remember the 33 at Kelsall!!) But today, he was horrible. He set his neck with his head in the air, and refused to flex. Considering this, I was very pleased with his test. He relaxed considerably, and flexed very nicely. He didn't do anything wrong, and was expecting around 38. Obviously, I was then very disappointed to see that we had 41. Which was bad in the section. The judge took a distinct dislike to Belvedere. On one of his lovely canter circles that deserved a 7, we received a five!!!!

I was very nervous for the Show Jumping because it was mostly very up to height. With a lot of knockable uprights downhill off very dodgy strides! However, we did an immaculate clear round. I couldn't believe it, what a good boy! That’s 3/5 clear this season. Amazing considering last year the best I could do was 8 faults. Louise Skelton (whom we know quite well) also congratulated me on the way out of the ring!

I was then very nervous for the Cross Country because of the clear. I had also been told by Graham law that the striding between the two hedges at fence 6 was riding very badly. And although it walked two strides, he put in one. In the warm up I then watched Lucinda Fredericks have a crushing fall here. I was then thrilled with Belvedere because he listened to me very well, and popped through it foot perfect. He was fantastic around the rest of the course. And was very sweet and accurate over the very large log pile skinnies on a 180 degree curve in the wood. He also flew the MASSIVE table at 13.
Unfortunately, because I was being careful so as not to make a silly mistake, we had 6 time penalties, which dropped us from 9th to 16th. However, overall, very pleased, as we got another double clear and another point. Bringing his total to 9, and our total together to 4.

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Hambledon professional photos are up, courtesy of Ultimate-Images! Finally! Quite nice photos, however, I am a bit miffed that they took photos at two different fences XC, that were the same style (a palisade). When they could have had a photographer at the water and shot gun box. Which would have made fabulous photos! Ah well, what can I do!

(Click thumbnails to make pictures bigger)

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