Well, second event of the season on Saturday. It was rather mixed, once again! At the moment it appears to be impossible to get all three phases right on one day!!! For a start we had to take the trailer as the lorry was in repair as its brakes had a little to be desired! So not a good omen!

The Dressage was an incredibly long walk from the lorry park, 10-15 mins on a horse, walking THROUGH the xc course. That was not a good start for Belvedere; he was jogging sideways by the time we reached the dressage. However, I was quite pleased with the test, I thought his second leg yielding was very good, and his canter down the center line, trot at X, halt at G, was perfect. Turns out we got 36, so very pleased with that! When I got my dressage sheet back, I saw that the middle section of the test we got all 7's, which is excellent!

Onto the show jumping, this had much to be desired today. We got a clear at Gatcombe last weekend, but rubbish Dressage and XC, and this week, good dressage, but show jumping was rubbish. I sat and watched for a while and saw loads and loads of problems, it appeared to be a course designed to catch Belvedere out. Twice there were oxers to an upright, the triple was a spread in, then one strides to both uprights. It was also uphill and I saw lots of horses struggle to make the distance. So I was very nervous before I went in, and consequently forgot to tell Belvedere we had started. So we had a stop at the first fence!!! Popped it very nicely the second time around, and proceeded to do a nice round, but had three down. So got a cricket score in the show jumping. 12 for the poles, 4 for the stop, and 3 time= 19!! However, two people in my section did get 24 for poles down, so I was not the worst by a long way!

The Cross Country, this was back to its normal fantastic self! The first question was at number 4, a line of three barrels on a turn, getting progressively narrower, it was just after a hill, so I was worried about getting Belvedere back to me, however he was fantastic. We flew around the rest of the course, and came home 7 seconds inside the optimum time!! So very happy after the cross country.

All in all, it was a disappointing day in terms of results; we came 22nd, which obviously is not good. It is also doubly depressing, because the first two events this season, have been my worst ever BE placings!! I thought I was meant to get better as I get used to Belvedere!! Got dressage and xc right today, but show jumping right last week! You never know, maybe next week we will get all three phases right. However, I did have a good time, and enjoyed myself.

Unfortunately, Belvedere appears to have hit himself cross country, and had a swollen off fore the next day. He is slightly lame on it as well, so we have done a lot of cold hosing and polticing/bandaging, and we hope he will be okay in a day or two.

Leave a Reply