I took both horses to Aldon on the weekend and day one was Belv's turn. He was doing the BE100 running HC because the BE100open was on the Friday when I was at school!
He warmed up really well for the Dressage and I was pleasantly surprised to find him incredibly fresh! Last weekend at Tweseldown he had been decidedly dull and bored so it was nice to see him looking and feeling more enthusiastic about it all! He was doing extended trot everywhere which, although may look pretty, wasn't what I was going for! Anyway, I went over to do my test, went down the centre line and then had a massive panic. The arena had been moved across after Friday's tests and so the marks made on the Friday were visible in different arenas in the arena and I had a massive panic thinking that I was no where near the centre line and thus leg yielded over to the previous days centre line...then realised I was wrong again and leg yielded back! Needless to say the judge got out of her car and I started again! Opps! Not the best start and I lost 2 marks for error of course. After the centre line fiasco Belv did a very pleasing test and after we had finished got some nice comments from some onlookers, so I was a bit disappointed to get a mark of 38 which isn't brilliant for him considering it was BE100. But never mind!
He warmed up really well for the Dressage and I was pleasantly surprised to find him incredibly fresh! Last weekend at Tweseldown he had been decidedly dull and bored so it was nice to see him looking and feeling more enthusiastic about it all! He was doing extended trot everywhere which, although may look pretty, wasn't what I was going for! Anyway, I went over to do my test, went down the centre line and then had a massive panic. The arena had been moved across after Friday's tests and so the marks made on the Friday were visible in different arenas in the arena and I had a massive panic thinking that I was no where near the centre line and thus leg yielded over to the previous days centre line...then realised I was wrong again and leg yielded back! Needless to say the judge got out of her car and I started again! Opps! Not the best start and I lost 2 marks for error of course. After the centre line fiasco Belv did a very pleasing test and after we had finished got some nice comments from some onlookers, so I was a bit disappointed to get a mark of 38 which isn't brilliant for him considering it was BE100. But never mind!
Then everything started to go wrong....!
The Show Jumping was running 20 minutes late so we decided not to go over and warm up until later than originally planned so that we didn't have to hang around up there, what we hadn't taken into account was that I was one of the last few to jump and that if they caught up we were in trouble. I wandered over there and arrived a few minutes after my allocated time to find to my horror that they were packing up and that I had completely missed the show jumping! Completely out fault and an important lesson to learn, but how horrific!!! My mum then went and grovelled and they allowed me to go cross country!
However, that did not go to plan either. Off we set, flew around the first half of the course, and through the water. It was as I was approaching one of the fences after the water that I noticed to my horror that me cheek piece (which attaches my bit to the bridle) had come undone and was flapping! So I had to pull up and retire as the bit was only in his mouth due to the flash and my reins!!
Photos below courtesy of Izzy Mears
The Show Jumping was running 20 minutes late so we decided not to go over and warm up until later than originally planned so that we didn't have to hang around up there, what we hadn't taken into account was that I was one of the last few to jump and that if they caught up we were in trouble. I wandered over there and arrived a few minutes after my allocated time to find to my horror that they were packing up and that I had completely missed the show jumping! Completely out fault and an important lesson to learn, but how horrific!!! My mum then went and grovelled and they allowed me to go cross country!
However, that did not go to plan either. Off we set, flew around the first half of the course, and through the water. It was as I was approaching one of the fences after the water that I noticed to my horror that me cheek piece (which attaches my bit to the bridle) had come undone and was flapping! So I had to pull up and retire as the bit was only in his mouth due to the flash and my reins!!
Photos below courtesy of Izzy Mears
So all in all a bit of a pa-lava of a day! One not to be repeated ever again please!
