Well it’s been a while since my last Forest Farmacy blog and a lot has happened, but here goes!
Firstly Belvedere – well as you know Tor Brewer had been helping me totally re-vamp his dressage and it had been going really well. At the start of the Easter holidays I went there for a week to work and ride Belv everyday whilst getting tuition from Tor. It all went well and I even started jumping him again, at the end of the week Tor drove me over to an arena in Gloucester with both my horses (Jack was at Tor’s with me) to jumped around a set of fences, both horses went brilliantly and Tor was very complementary. So after that Belvedere came home with the plan of doing an unaffiliated ODE at Stockland Lovell. He continued to go quite well at home and I took him over to Tor’s for a lesson about a week later which went very well.
However then things took a turn for the worse, the Chiropractor came out to see Belv and discovered that his pelvis was out, which meant his shoulders and jaw were also out and that his muscles were really knotted. I was devastated as she concluded he wasn’t fit to canter let alone event. However having spoken to Tor about it, it’s actually quite good news as it explains why things were going so wrong at the end of last year and over the winter! Hopefully once that is all fixed it will be better than ever! So right now he is just on walking and trotting around the roads on a long and relaxed outline to try and build up some top line. He is being strapped daily on his hindquarters and has just started doing 5/10mins very basic schooling in the same outline. However he is going nicely and seems happy!
Onto Jack, well to begin with it was all quite gutting because he was with me at Tor’s and was going really well so I was very excited for our first event of the season. Unfortunately a combination of a sore foot from shoeing and some mud fever meant that he wasn’t fit to compete so we had to withdraw. However, onwards and upwards – we had Withington ON on the weekend which went really well! Jack warmed up fairly well for the Dressage but nothing amazing. However when we were trotting/cantering around the outside of the arena he went around brilliantly about five times. Unfortunately once in the arena he became really tense which caused him to become very unsteady in his head and contact. We ended up with a score of 46.2 which I was very disappointed with. However when we looked at the scoreboard we realised that the vast majority of scores were in the 40's and that it was a stiff judge, so the score wasn't quite as bad as it seemed!
Next up was the Show Jumping, I was actually quietly confident because recently I have been BSJA-ing him over much bigger courses (see video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ltyzh5Cs0uo ) and the novice track at Withington seemed quite small and straight forwards. True to form, Jack warmed up brilliantly, and then posted a lovely clear in the ring. Although I think we lacked a bit of energy at the beginning of the course. Finally was the Cross Country. I was a bit concerned about the ground but after speaking to my trainer I decided to ride forwards to ensure that we remained in a good forwards rhythm throughout the course. I wasn’t worried about any of the fences and was confident that experienced jack wouldn’t have a problem with anything, and I was right! He absolutely flew over everything and gave me a fantastic round! I had kicked on but didn't rush him for the time and we finished with 2.8 time penalties (7 seconds over).
All in all, a very good day - we just need to work on that dressage! However a double clear at our first event isn't bad going! In the end we finished 13th and without the 2.8 time penalties we would have been 7th! Onwards and upwards to Hambleden CIC* in a few weeks and then my first ever Intermediate at Aston Le Walls!
More pictures and videos of Withington can be seen on my website blog here - http://www.katherinebegley.com/1/post/2010/04/withington-on-supplejack.html
