Mum was away at the start of the week so I was left in charge of Fiddle, which is fine, until he decides he's going to be strong when cantering. The double reins quickly got taken off and I just had one rein on the gag giving me an extra chance of being able to hold him. Monday morning saw me at Lambden riding out, then I came home and rode Fiddle and Coco. Unfortunately on Tuesday I was wiped out so did nothing, Wednesday back to Lambden and then gave Bumble a jump when I got home, he was really good, only small but we were making sure that he went and was thinking forward! Coco then went for a very good lesson with Sarah Rodgers, she always manages to get my horses going well in a short space of time and we have come out of it very positive.
On Thursday I took Bumble for a hack before heading off to Carlisle races with 2 from Lambden. Friday we took Bumble and Rupert to Holefield for some cross country schooling, well Rupert came as the nanny and behaved better than I thought he would, it was the first time that Bumble had been xc schooling and he was very good and took it all in his stride and grew in confidence, again he only jumped the small ones as he's not fully off my aids yet but that will come in time I'm sure. He popped over the ditches, through the water and jumped everything on the way round. He is now on his holidays and will have some time off over the winter. So now we are quite quiet at home with only 3 in work which is quite strange but also quite nice for the moment. It's a rare quiet weekend for us with no competitions this weekend but I am hoping to get Coco out in the middle of the week for some jumping practice. I am excited to be joining team Stevie Purves Photography, he takes fab photos of everything and he's hoping to come to more events with us and the rest of the team next year. He has already booked time off work to come down to Badminton with us which will be great fun! Photos from cross country schooling are on my Facebook page - L.C. Eventing Thanks for reading
0 Comments
We have had a busy season this year. Having just looked it up on the BE website I have completed 18 events with 9 top 10 placing’s, 5 finishing on my dressage score and 2 events where I just added a few time faults to my dressage score, on 4 different horses.
Connie had a slower start to the year due to some training setbacks but she produced some good results with 2 2nds at Belsay and Warwick Hall and a 6th at Kirkley Hall. She was truly a special pony who is phenomenal cross country which I had forgot until I took her round Floors for our first event of the season where we picked up a few time faults for going too fast across country. She has now gone to a lovely home up in Aberdeen. She has done two events up there and gone quite well and they loved her cross country, her new jockey is just getting his strength back from a broken leg so his dad got to compete her. I am looking forward to watching Fin on her and can’t wait to see them out next season. She was sold 2days before her 1st novice but I am sure she will do a Novice in time with them! Daisy has had a year of learning the ropes and although she can still get a bit excited at times as long as you are sympathetic with her she will help you out. The dressage is getting better I feel and with a change of bit she seems more consistent, we just need a trip out to see how she copes. However her jumping is just awesome! She went to Eden Valley at the end of the season to see how she would take it, the dressage wasn’t great but she made up for it jumping, one down Show Jumping but flew cross country, we took it steady to build confidence as she hasn’t done a huge amount, she took it all in her stride and locked onto the skinnies and all her fences and just after half way I let her run on a bit more to make sure we made the time, safe to say she loved it. Today she has just come home from an Indoor Cross Country Competition where she just had 1 pole down in the 85cm, I put her on the wrong line for an offset double to ensure that we went clear but I made the stride just too short in the middle of it for her. I am thrilled with her though. Coco has only done one event this season as I have been so busy with the others and I know they are slightly more reliable than Coco! She went to Floors and produced a nice test, had a few poles show jumping after I was trying a knew biting system, then she didn’t like that there was so much to look at at the hanging log to drop, she backed off too much for me to get her over first time but then she stormed round the rest of the course, she is very frustrating at times. She has spent the rest of the year doing a bit of dressage, show jumping and Side Saddle which she has taken too well. She has competed in 2 side saddle classes and seems to enjoy it. We took a trip up to Perth where she came 2nd in the class which isn’t bad for only our 2nd competition. Last weekend I took her to our Riding Club Area Novice Dressage where she was 2nd in her warm up test and the team test which helped the team to win so we are off to the Championships at the beginning of next year. She will spend the winter doing some Dressage, Show Jumping and Hunting hopefully. Boo has had an excellent year! She started off with 2 BE90’s where she had a pole in the 1st event and was double clear in her 2nd event on the season for a win! She then moved up to BE100, we had a couple of problems early on in the season with some stops in both the cross country and show jumping. She overcame these issues with a fantastic double clear at Warwick Hall where she finished 3rd, she then pulled out a 4th at Hendersyde and 6th at Dalkeith. We then headed to Aswanley for our BE90rf, it was a fair trip up but we had lovely people to stay with, they had our old pony on loan for a number of years so it was great to see them (and amazing accommodation for us!!) She pulled out a fantastic dressage, a clear show jumping and annoyingly I hadn’t looked at my minute markers so unfortunately I was in BE100 speed so clocked up a few time faults which knocked us off 1st place, however the aim for going up there was to qualify for Badminton Grass Routes, which we succeeded in doing which means next year we are going to Badminton!!! We finished the season at Eden Valley doing the BE100Plus, she produced a good test for our first BE Novice test, a couple fences down, partly my fault as our jump session earlier in the week hadn’t been great. She then flew round the cross country in the pouring rain, she flew over everything I was worried about as there were some technical obstacles, however I had seen a few people have a stop at a fence and I have a feeling I was thinking on the approach ‘why has everyone been stopping at this?’ and wasn’t riding confidently too it so Boo decided she wasn’t going if I wasn’t committed, a hard lesson at the end of the season but I’m sure I won’t do that one again in a hurry!! She has now had 2 weeks off and will have a few more off, although she is telling me that she isn’t enjoying it and is always following me to the gate and trying to get in! She will concentrate on dressage and show jumping over the winter before we start getting her very fit for heading to Badminton! I am hoping to regularly keep you all up to date with how the horses are going through the winter with regular blog posts to the website! |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |