Florence and Frankie will be chuffed when I show them they are on a front cover, I may have to photoshop Percy on to it so he doesn't feel left out.
How amazing to have a text off a guy I used to ride for asking if it is me on the front cover of the Spring/Summer Ride-Away catalogue....I said that I hadn't actually seen it, so moments later I visited their website to discover that actually the answer was "yes"....so chuffed, another great picture from my sponsor...Shires Equestrian Products!!!!
Florence and Frankie will be chuffed when I show them they are on a front cover, I may have to photoshop Percy on to it so he doesn't feel left out. Awesome day in the office today at Forest Gate Farm for the BE Jump Training. I was on a team with Percy, Florence and also Carrie Childs from Delamere Forest, who I contacted through FaceBook to see if she wanted to be on a team with me....the powers of social media...lol!!! Carrie did the 80cm class, Percy the 90cm and Florence the 100cm. Percy jumped a lovely double clear for a score of 24.5 and 2nd place. Florence jumped a rather excitable double clear for 17.5 and also got 2nd place. This meant that our team were 1st, so not only did my babies qualify individually but also as a team. The prizes were great and in total I came home with £50 Baileys Horse Feed Vouchers and £70 British Eventing Training Vouchers. Happy days!!!
Poor Frankie is having a tough week, Thursday galloping, Friday dressage lesson and today a show jumping session. I took him down to Susie Kings yard which is just minutes down the road from me. I work the odd day for her, helping with her event horses. She put some exercises up for Frankie and I which consisted of lots of bounces and doubles of bounces. Also because Frankie was cutting his corners she was getting me to ride round an obstacle to get my line to the fence. The session went really well apart from one moment where Bonnie could not see a stride to a simple parallel to save her life. It was just a temporary blonde moment...lol
Yesterday I went for my third dressage lesson with Zoe Cappaert. She focused more on our canter today, which was really hard work, my legs and arms were hurting so much by the end of it. Frankie must have been feeling the same because he did have two very minor tantrums!!! I never knew it could be so difficult to sit on my bum, but when someone points out that you don't sit deep enough in the saddle it is very hard to correct, I just tend to tip forward and not sit up straight causing me to lift my bum out of the saddle, must be habit from riding the racehorses!!! Things did pull together in the end but at times I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere, but Zoe is really good at getting me to ride through the bad bits to find the good. I also find it hard to put all the instructions into play at the same time, it's like I get one bit and then forget to do it with the bit I'd learnt previous. It is defiantly starting to sink in though. At the end of the lesson we worked on the trot and that felt amazing. He felt really bouncy and floated along in lovely trot. It felt like what ever I asked of him he understood and was happy to do.
It's now 24 hours later and I'm still shattered, but it's all worth it!! :-) Well today was my first event of the year. I headed to Somerford Park with Frankie for the Open Novice. I was up at 5am, on route by 6am, arrived at 7am, walked xc by 8am and then turned round and came home because they abandoned - arghhhhhh!!!! What an annoying start to the season. The organisers did let us pop round the showjumps on the surface, so it wasn't a complete waste of time. Now I've got the problem of finding a run before Weston Park, as I've entered the Intermediate there and was hoping for a novice run to get my eye in before a big one!!!!
Had a really fun day today with Percy and Florence at The Wynnstay Hunt Team Jumping. It was run as arena eventing with teams of 4. I rode Percy in a team that I actually didn't know, but we were 2nd in the 90cm class. Percy, despite his eyes popping out of his head when entering the arena, jumped a lovely round with just 4 faults in the showjumping phase. Florence also did the 90cm for Twemlows Hall Stud Farm team. She was rather excitable but was double clear and that team finished 3rd. I also rode her in the 100cm class with the Dave Futter Equine Dentists team, she was alot more chilled and we did some quite fancy turns for another double clear and the team finished 2nd. One of the highlights of the day was certainly watching the Puissance at the end of the day, altough I was rather jealous that I hadn't taken Frankie along for a go!!!!!
Yesterday I headed back to Zoe Cappaert for a second dressage lesson on Frankie. After finding it quite tough last week I was a little nervous but was pleasently surprised when Frankie seemed to pick things up where we had left them last week. He did some lovely trot work and felt great in some of his leg yield. We found moving right a bit of a struggle, but to the left he was like a proper dessage horse. Canter still has a long way to go but definitely an improvement on last week. No dead right arm this week, just achey legs for me!!!
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Bonnie FishburnAmateur event rider Archives
August 2022
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