Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear not a good day!

Started warming up for the Dressage and he was going well to begin with. I then tried a technique of doing a big medium canter and then back to collected and so on and so forth! Well it definitely didn’t help at all! It fizzed Belvedere up so much that I could barely ride him. Was so demoralising. I have lost all confidence dressage now. I feel that it has got so much worse and that I just cannot ride him anymore. I don’t know what to do. I got off to allow him to calm down, got back on and it hadn't helped at all! In the end when we went over to do the actual test he calmed down considerably and did a reasonable test. Turns out we got 36.7 which is our best mark for some time now, so fairly happy with the end result!

Well onto the Show Jumping, he was SUPERB warming up, best he has ever felt. He was clearing everything by miles and really coming up through the shoulder and basculing. But that’s the way isn’t it, fabulous warming up, and tits up in the arena! Jumped number one massive, two well, three was very sticky. Good over four, five and six. Came around to the double at seven, I think I got the line wrong, because he didn’t lock onto it at all, we ended up very crooked over the first part and then I couldn’t get him to anywhere to take off for the second part so we had a stop. Came around to re-do the double and had the first element down. Jumped the rest clear. So 8 faults. I am kicking myself as I ruined what would have been a good clear, and I messed up in front on the JRN co-ordinator again!

Well the Cross Country was a lovely flat, gallopy and up to height track. Flew around the course! He was fantastic at the double of corners, straight as an arrow! Flew the massive table before the water. And then he came back to me beautifully for the water which was a house, drop in, sharp left turn, up a step, one stride and over roll top. He popped the house, dropped in well, locked onto the step, massive jump out and over the roll top. The commentary said ''textbook through the water''!! However, as the course was so flat and gallopy and belvedere is so fit we went slightly too fast and ended up getting 2.4 time penalties for going to quick. I have never got time pens for going to quick, and in fact often get them for going to slow. So it was a big surprise, however I did get told off by the JRN co-ordinator for it.

Now the worst part, I needed the JRN co-ordinators permission to do the 1* at Hartpury as I am not 17, however I screwed up the show jumping both times she watched me. (Here and at Arley) Consequently she has said that I cannot do hartpury as my show jumping is not good enough. Also that I am not experiences enough if I get TFTP.
Needless to say I am absolutely gutted and devastated. I will be aiming for the Pony Club Open Championships in august now, and the 1* at Aldon or Weston instead.

Well Vanessa from Horseseekers is adding a News page to her Website.
So she asked me to write something to start it off. I decided to write an article on Eventing Safety as it is a very current issue. Please take a look and have a look round my Sponsors website.

Horseseekers Eventing Safety Article

Well we took Irish Rose down to West Littleton for a Riding club ODE. We were only doing the Novice (BE Intro equivalent) class to give her an outing and to have some fun! The weather had been awful so we thought we were going to get very wet! But as it turned out it stayed dry for us and the rain had done the ground there the world of good!

The Dressage was a Prelim test which I learnt on the way down there! I was very pleased with Rosie's test. She has turned into a lovely little dressage horse in the past two years and for a while now she has been getting high 20's/low 30's. The test was very nice, one mistake where she trotted in the walk, but other than that pretty much her usual good test. I was very disappointed to see we had an awful score of 42. It was harsh judge, but even so I was very put out. Clearly I have done something to offend dressage judges recently!!! haha!

The Show Jumping wasn't very big but was quite spooky and she hasn’t done any for a while. However she was her normal careful self and popped round for a good clear. (Even if she did almost stop coming into the double--the fillers were awfully scary she tells me!!)

Finally the Cross Country, it was a decent track with a lot of ditches and steps! However she sailed round without any problems. Bless, she really enjoyed herself! I even shouted out to a friend as I passed them on the course! It was a nice change to go round a xc course and not be thinking technically about every fence. Like this is a tricky combination belv, you must have a short bouncy canter and you must turn very quickly on landing. I could just point and shoot and have a good time!!!

So a lovely double clear, that would normally have left us in the top three. But it wasn't meant to be, so we came 10th in the end.

XC Photos (Click to enlarge)