Oh not AGAIN!
We've actually had quite a good day, all spoilt by one horrendously cross country unfair fence, at which I fell off. I'm not hurt, neither is George, and after I've had a jolly good sulk and some food, I'll post about it later.
C
Mmmm, wonderful what a huge chocolate brownie can do for you, isn't it.
First the dressage. I didn't warm him up for long enough because I didn't want to wear him out, and he was back in a snaffle for the first time for a couple of weeks. But in spite of that he scored 57% and there's an awful, awful lot more to come from him yet when he has had another winter's training. I can see people watching him and smiling, so he is clearly becoming quite an eyeful to see, because they aren't laughing, but definitely admiring.
The showjumping? Bingo! Pop the champagne. Set off the fireworks. We did a perfect round. I got the technique bang on for the entire round. We were a pair of pros and it felt goooooooooooooooooooooooood.
The cross country was a very, very twisty course. Last time he took a corner too fast, he fell over, so I set off intending to be careful and not go too fast. It was all pretty straightforward and we did fine until we missed a not-at-all-obvious detour and missed fence 12. I'd walked it right, just forgot it on the course when fence 13 was in sight and 12 wasn't. But we didn't know we'd missed one, so it wasn't until fence 16 that we had a problem.
Now I'll try and describe this. You jump a double and then shoot through a gateway. The water is on the right, with a sweep of fir trees lining a right angled bend to the entrance to the water. And on that bend, with NO line from the gateway, and NO line to get away on, was a flower bed fence. I was afraid that if I went for it, he would spin on landing and fall over. Or jump the fir trees. So I steadied him right up, turned him into a corner, lined him up, and lost all his oomph. He was tired and just would not pick up again and didn't ever get going for it. I turned and drove him in hard, and he picked up in front, put a foot into the flowers and stopped. I, of course, completed the fence and found myself rolling in the dirt.
I got back on, after two ambulance men and three fence judges had checked that I was OK, but he was having none of it. I went and jumped a showjump warmup fence and he popped a big spread absolutely beautifully and we brought him home.
Several things went wrong.
1) I did not have him fit enough. He was tiring, and the break of rhythm blew him apart. I will be doing a lot more work with him for the next two weeks.
2) I was scared of him falling on the turn, and I should have trusted the fact that although it was a twisty turny course he had been solid on his feet to that point and put away my fear.
3) I should never have broken the rhythm, I should have bounced him through that gateway and jumped the fence on an angle.
It's good that we were eliminated by missing an earlier fence because he won't now be recorded as eliminated for 3 refusals. A lot went right about today and I must focus on that if we are going to finish this season on an up note.
C
posted by cptrayes @ 4:35 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
Oh dear C. I am glad you are allright, so is George. I keep my husband updated of your adventures, he is glad NOT to be married to an eventer.
My sincere sympathies to SH.
Oh, dear as well! Glad you are OK. I will be interested to hear about the unfair fence. One with a ditch and no ground line ended my eventing career as neither I nor Russell knew how to approach it. So I decided, "better safe than sorry" and made that my last cross country. Kind of took the fun out of things.
third that Oh Dear! glad you're in one piece, though! looking forward to hearing about that one, if it foxed both of you.
a difficult one. but thinking about it, you haven't been doing huge amounts of hacks up your hills with him (or if you have, I missed it!) so that would account for him tiring/not being as fit as you would have liked.
Understandable your being cautious in relation to bends and fences on them, as you describe - but hey, you wouldn't have got me over the first one, let a alone the rest.
Shame you missed one, though.
You have competed on a high note. The show jumping was brilliant!!! Congratulations beyond congratulations.
I recall almost missing a fence and going off course myself in a brushy/semi-wooded area. It's easy to get confused after you have walked the course and viewed it from "human height and human speed," as opposed to being up and astride a galloping horse.
The same with the tricky flowers. Everything looks different when you are on the horse.
The only solution I ever found was walking the course and actually visualize my jumping it, even imagining as I did all the mistakes I could make (short of falling off. *S*) So, I'd walk to see where the fence was and plan my lines of attack. The one time I won big, I had done that and selected a longer approach line to one fence because the next fence, a combination, was at an angle in to the shadows and down into the woods. When I walked it, it looked fine to cut the corner to the first fence, but then I realized my horse would see the next fence at the last second, and approach it from too much of an angle to be sure he'd get over the second element.
Turned out I was one of the only ones who took the long option and there were a ton of stops from the other riders.
Walking a course and planning all that strategy can be a tricky business. And even then, the plans oft go awry when horsie takes charge or you make one slightly different decision from the saddle.
See, you non-event riders out there? It's a lot harder than you may think!!
Meantime....job well done. Now leg that boy up so he can jump the moon without having to catch his breath. *S*
Flipping heck!thats a shame about the fall but at least it wasnt a bad one and you are both okay.
The restorative powers of chocolate is amazing isnt it:)))
Glad to know that you are both OK.
I'm also glad to know that George has enough self preservation to know when to say "no thanks." He was getting tired and it is better than he turned away rather than try and scramble over.
It is a long day for a novice horse, the travelling, the dressage warm up, the show jumping and then the cross country - and what was the ground like. It is very holding around here.
The show jumping sounds wonderful, well done to both of you.
Judith
You are so right Judith. Scooby used to be dangerous he was so bold. He would have jumped a fence on the edge of Dover cliffs. Tia fell over a fence because I told her to do it when she couldn't. George had too much sense to listen to me.
THe ground was absolutely solid, and believe it or not they had watered!!! the showjumping overnight.
Nicola - chocolate - nothing like the recuperative powers of a nice hot cup of tea (Wallace) or a bar of chocolate.
C
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