Welcome to the house of fun ....

Oh what fun we had!

Dressage - who cares
Showjumping - nervous as a kitten (me) - one clonked, one tipped.
Cross country - clear? YOU BET!! AND HOW!!!!

Blow by blow account after I've taken SH out to relax for the afternoon.

C :-)


I suppose that I couldn't possibly admit to myself before what a huge task I had set myself, or I'd never have been able to do it. But nine weeks ago today I was sat in A&E with two broken bones and a broken nerve. Twelve weeks ago George was so raw that he fooled a professional event rider into believing that he was unbroken and advising the owners to give him twice a day longreining. And today, I managed to pilot that horse around an affiliated event. I guess I'm justified in feeling that's a pretty enormous thing to have achieved.

Anyway - the dressage. Well, we have to remember that he had never seen white boards. He's only done one test before and that was in a railed arena. He was spooking at the boards and at the letters and I forgot the test because of it. The canter was wild. We were lucky not to end up with more than our 51.8 penalties. But hey, who cares, we weren't there for the dressage, though you'll see from the pics that he's going to be very capable of a seriously nice test in time.

I've watched the video of him showjumping (unfortunately too poor quality to get any shots off it for you) and I have to say that I was terribly nervous and he jumped in spite of me rather than because of me. Except fence six, where he spooked very badly at the filler, jinked left and then jinked right, came to a halt and then I tapped him down the shoulder and he jumped it. He knocked it down but it was so good of him not to refuse it! I tipped one other, I'm not sure where.

So by this time I'm pretty confident that he's going to jump. We went to warm up for the cross country. I had trouble keeping him away from the practice fences! He's totally different when he sees fixed timber from when he sees coloured poles. He's happy to jump coloured poles when pointed anywhere near them, and he mostly does them from a trot. Give him a fixed timber fence anywhere in his area and he's desperate to get to it at a canter!

Fence one was a small rolltop really close to the start box. He wavered a bit but popped it. Fence two was a short distance after a gap we had to go through in a hedge, so came up a bit suddenly. And it was pretty big and wide. He jinked left, right, propped .... and then popped it easily. At that point I knew we could get round because he trusted me when I told him that he could do it. The double of logs at three had been reduced to a single (big!) log overnight, which was a relief. He popped that, and he went half a stride early at the bench which was next. He popped the post and rails at 5 and tried to jump the novice (3ft 6) part B and had to be stopped from doing that.

There were about five other places on the course where he tried to take me over the pre-novice or novice fences! Fence 6 was a pallisade with a back bar on to make it a spread. 7 was a double of logs. 8 was a steeplechase. 9 was a narrow fence, about six feet wide, of a diamond shape with the middle thick and the ends thin. It begged for a runout. No chance, he preferred just to jump it. 10a was a rolltop close to the water. 10b was the water, no problem he just walked through. 11 was a stream he trotted through. 12 was a set of logs on wheels, no sweat. 13a was another stream crossing, with b a big log just on the far side. I had the line wrong and gave him no chance to see it before he was on top of it, but he just popped it easily.

Fence14 was two steps up, easy peasy mummy. 15 had been removed because of poor ground. 16 was a railway crossing gate, staring white with a red dot. Popped it. 17 was a picnic table, very wide. Loved it! 18 was a double of post and rails, off an awkward line off a road, with the second element two strides away on an angle. He jumped it at about 45 degrees - what a star! 19 was a spread of telegraph poles. Popped it. 20 was a funny sort of pallisade and 20 was a biggish hedge under a roof. Flew it.

I sent him on at a gallop to finish and he did a sharp left and then right jink which threw me right out of balance and I nearly fell off. After all that effort to get a clear round, I hung on for grim death (see the pic!). A fall doesn't count at that point, but I just didn't fancy hitting the ground for some reason, can't think why.

The best thing of all about today is that George just LOVES this game. He is THRILLED to be allowed to event. I had forgotten what a joy it was to ride a horse that really loves to jump and run. I can't wait to take him out again.

Slightly hairy end to XC :-)



I am stunned what a decent horse he has turned into in three short months. He really looked the part today:







C.