Katherine Begley reflects on her season

2010 has been a bit of a rollercoaster year for me! There have been many highs thanks to my new ride Supplejack, but also many lows due to very little luck and a lots of injuries! I was hoping that my last two events of the season would finish on a high, but true to form they were both slight rollercoaster’s of emotions!!

Gatcombe was my first ever CIC** and I went into it feeling quite confident. Jack did a very pleasing test and definitely one of our better ones, however the judges disagreed slightly and we scored 64 which we felt was a bit on the harsh side! The Show jumping was quite big, but Jack is very strong in this phase so I wasn’t concerned. For the most part we did a nice round, but unfortunately picked up 8 faults which I was very disappointed with because we have never got more than 4 faults in competition before and I felt a clear was easily within our reach. I wasn’t overly worried about the XC but there was a tricky combination at 4 where many people took the longer alternative, and the duck into the water was also quite spooky. Jack flew around the course jumping all the direct routes until fence 18 which was a skinny log where the landing disappeared. I think I must have dropped him on takeoff because he suddenly stopped dead and we picked up 20 penalties! Needless to say I was pretty gutted about this as this is Jack’s first XC penalty in the UK! However, we didn’t disgrace ourselves and I was very pleased with his Dressage! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=368o8T435HA

Next up was my last event of the season – Weston Park CCIYR**. I was determined to make up for my mistakes at Gatcombe and get a 50’s dressage double clear! Unfortunately Jack was very tense in the dressage and although he didn’t do anything wrong we were understandably severely marked down and got 63.9. So had he been more relaxed like normal, we would have got that 50’s test – very annoying!! The cross country was very big and bold and I was a little nervous seeing as Gatcombe hadn’t gone quite to plan. But I needn’t have worried, he posted an amazing round, clear inside the time! He gave me an amazing feel and I am thrilled with him!! Unfortunately the event finished on a low because he didn’t trot up sound on the Sunday morning so we had to w/d before the Show Jumping. This was really gutting because not only did I therefore not manage to complete my first CCI** but had we show jumped (even with six down) we would have got 5 points. Hey ho, that’s horses for you, and nothing takes away how brilliant he was XC! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdUu_54ujnE

Next season I plan to campaign Jack at Open Intermediate/Advanced level and bring Belvedere back into work and competing successfully at novice level again.