At the championships you had to jump in two classes to try and qualify for the Grand Prix on the Sunday. We had a couple of very early starts on the Thursday and Saturday, but both the ponies were fantastic. Each jumping a double clear on both days, qualifying them for the Sunday. Although we were jumping double clears we were outside the placing's on both days, I was amazed just how fast the showjumper's go in the jump off's and of course with my eventers we don't really learn to jump off. This was the deciding factor why I didn't go back to jump on the final day, 48 had qualified from the original 106 and I just thought it was a lot of money to go back and probably not stand much chance in the jump off should we get that far. So instead the horses went out in the field and I watched the class on the internet as there was a live stream. A big lesson was learnt this day..."You have to be in it to win it"....to my horror I watched only 22 go clear and into the jump off, of which only 3 were clear!!!! So if I had gone and popped a couple of nice double clears I could possibly have been 4th & 5th. The course just caused so much trouble, there were fallers and stoppers and poles flying everywhere. I know I can't say I would have jumped double clear on either of them but if we had we could have had a great result. But never mind they both jumped fantastic over the two day and despite being a little bit down having watched the class on live stream, all was not lost as Thomas proposed to me that afternoon, so I'm now engaged....awesome!!!
Both Florence an Percy had qualified for the 95cm Amateur Championships having gone through the first round stages and qualifying at the second stages. The championships were held at Aintree which is an amazing venue. Both horses had been on their holidays and then been got back up into work and this was their first competition for about 7 or 8 weeks.
At the championships you had to jump in two classes to try and qualify for the Grand Prix on the Sunday. We had a couple of very early starts on the Thursday and Saturday, but both the ponies were fantastic. Each jumping a double clear on both days, qualifying them for the Sunday. Although we were jumping double clears we were outside the placing's on both days, I was amazed just how fast the showjumper's go in the jump off's and of course with my eventers we don't really learn to jump off. This was the deciding factor why I didn't go back to jump on the final day, 48 had qualified from the original 106 and I just thought it was a lot of money to go back and probably not stand much chance in the jump off should we get that far. So instead the horses went out in the field and I watched the class on the internet as there was a live stream. A big lesson was learnt this day..."You have to be in it to win it"....to my horror I watched only 22 go clear and into the jump off, of which only 3 were clear!!!! So if I had gone and popped a couple of nice double clears I could possibly have been 4th & 5th. The course just caused so much trouble, there were fallers and stoppers and poles flying everywhere. I know I can't say I would have jumped double clear on either of them but if we had we could have had a great result. But never mind they both jumped fantastic over the two day and despite being a little bit down having watched the class on live stream, all was not lost as Thomas proposed to me that afternoon, so I'm now engaged....awesome!!! A couple of weeks ago, having just got back from Portugal, I received a message via Facebook to say that I had been the lucky winner of a lesson with Jock Paget. I was absolutely delighted until it dawned on me that all my horses were hairy and on holiday and the lesson was just over 100 miles away. Not to be defeated though I decided that I couldn’t miss an opportunity like this and started work on Percy. I had always decided that as soon as I was back off holiday Percy and Florence would come back into work to be got ready for the British Showjumping Amateur Championships which is only a matter of weeks away and they had only been out a short time so wouldn’t have lost much fitness. On the weekend of my lesson, I had a fairly manic time, with a 5.30am start on the Saturday to head to Your Horse Live, followed by the North Shropshire Hunt Ball in the evening, with a 4am get to bed time and a 7am get up time ready to drive to Nottinghamshire. But it was worth it, I had a fabulous lesson and Jock was such a nice guy and gave me some great tips. Percy can be pretty keen to jump and lock on to his fences, but by the end of my lesson we were approaching the fences in a cool rhythmical manner, on a light contact. I tend to kill Percy’s canter a bit normally on an approach to a fence waiting for him to see it and tank, but Jock helped me find a good jumping canter and teach Percy some manners, by not allowing him to tank and stopping him sometimes before, sometimes after the fence so he couldn’t just predict what it was that I wanted him to do. He very quickly learnt that he needed to wait for my instruction on what we were doing, subsequently become not so strong or keen. Jock asked us to jump one exercise which was lots of tight turns and changes of direction and showed up all our weaknesses. But by the end of the lesson Percy gave me a lovely ride through the exercise because I was in control and he was listening and waiting for me. Really happy with his performance and that he didn’t show me up by being too fresh. Just hope I can now put in to practise what I learnt in my lesson back at home. I have finally got round to putting a video together from Hippikos. It shows the moments when I have my first experience of Piaffe, Passage and two/three time changes, this is all about half way through the video. I can't now say I know how to ride Piaffe and Passage but I can sit on a horse that knows how to do it and press the right buttons...lol :-D |
Bonnie FishburnAmateur event rider Archives
August 2022
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