It has been one of those weeks that has shown just how bad and then how great this game can make you feel. Last weekend I had a lovely day out spectating and shopping at Badminton, I walked the xc and decided that of course I could tackle it, easy peasey, (lol, why is it that courses look so much nicer when you dont have to ride them) and then we watched some of the action, Sussex was well represented but I had to feel sorry for Tina Cooke - that water looked very cold, and Francis Whittington who rode such a great round only to have Lady Luck turn against him so close to home.
Our next outing was to Moreton Morrell. First out on the Wednesday was Lite My Fire, she has been improving every time out so I was hopeful that things would go well, however for some bizzare reason our dressage was nearly half an hour late, by which time her limited attention span had well and truely run out, so we ended up with a mark of 41.5. However she managed to redeem herself somewhat in the jumping with a lovely double clear, and is definately starting to feel much more grown up about the xc so all in all I was pleased with her and optimistic about her next outing in which she is going to have a crack at a BE100.
Then came Tickeridge, who as ever performed a beautiful test spoiled only by the fact that I had a total mental block and forgot where to go! We managed then a nice clear showjumping and then a fab clear xc in which he really started to gallop and jump much more fluently only to be told that I had missed out a fence, which made me feel like a complete idiot. His owners Bill and Jenny Cooke were lovely about it, saying that it didnt matter as he had gone so well and looked really good but I still felt a bit of a prat.
The following day began with Nyala in the Novice, things started out well, she can be a somewhat opinionated young lady to say the least, but she worked in well, the begining and end parts of the test were good but her tantrum in the middle knocked down the mark to 37. The jumping side of things posed no problems however and she jumped an easy double clear, although we did add a few time faults but just scraped into the ribbons to be 10th.
Last of all came 707, he has not been quite himself recently and pulled a muscle on his last outing at Burnham Market, which did at least explain a lot about what went wrong there. So this time out we thought that he could have a nice easy run in a ON. His dressage was super with one of his best ever marks of 28, he was almost so quiet that I was concerned that he may still not be right so I warmed up for showjumping with a little trepidation, however he very soon showed me that he was feeling absolutely fine and jumped a super round just making up a bit too much ground through a double and having the one fence down. He then proceeded to cart me around the xc in his usual style, but 3 fences from home he had a very naughty duck out at a step up, bounce, to a small log, he has never refused with me without a genuine reason before so I was quite cross. He happily popped through it second time and completed without further incident. However bearing in mind his recent issues he will have a visit from the physio on Monday to check him out before maybe going for some schooling! So all in all it was one of those trips that could have been really good but ended up being rather depressing, but as my Mum keeps telling me 'You cant win 'em all'.
Saturday and Sunday were spent at Hambleden, with Coevers Diamond Clover (Flynn) having his Novice Regional Final and Boundalong for an Intermediate. It is not an event I have been to before but I will definately be going again, it's a lovely event with a strong but nice xc that rides really well. Flynn did himself proud, a 34 dressage mark in his first ever attempt at an intermediate test was good, he did get a little strong but was still rideable and I think that having more to do in a test will suit him. He had the very last fence down in the showjumping but felt awasome across the country, it was by far the toughest course he has met and he just devoured it adding just 1.2 time faults (only 5 horses made the time in the whole section), we finished up 18th, but it was all very close, with a clear sj we would have made the top 10, but he was the only 6 year old in the section, at least a year younger than any other horse there so I was very very pleased with him.
It was a lovely relaxed weekend, being stabled on site with just one horse each day, we even had a bit of a lie in on Sunday as Boundalong did not have dressage until 12. Her test was a huge improvement on previous outings, I hope we are starting to understand each other better now and although she was still a little tense she was much more rideable than she has been before. 37.7 was about what I expected for her mark, I did have to smile at the judges comment that she was 'aptly named'. The showjumping caused us no problems and she stormed around the xc in amazing style, the whole thing felt much more in tune than our previous outings.The course itself didn't cause too many problems in our section however the time was having a lot of influence, and by virtue of being the quickest in the section we won, by just 0.2, with just a further 0.3 between 2nd and 3rd. It was a fantastic result made even better by the fact that it qualifies us for the Intermediate Championships at Gatcombe, hopefully by then our dressage will have significantly improved.
The other big piece of news this week is that we have a new sponsor to welcome on board, Gary Mold and his company For Animals are based in West Sussex and sell everything you might need for horses, poultry, pigs, dogs cats and pretty much every other animal you might have, all available through their online store or by telephone or email with free delivery across West Sussex, they are now looking to expand into the Eastern side of the county so please do check them out.
