I seem to have taken a few steps back with Frankie today, well I say that but I was in a very negative mood and Zoe said it wasn't as bad as I thought. I just felt useless in my lesson, really couldn't ride today!!!! We were practising some simple changes but I couldn't put all my instructions into practise at once. My brain was like a sieve. Very frustrating. Poor Zoe having to put up with me. So next time I've promised I will be more positive. :-)
Headed off to Bradwall Horse Trials today with Percy for the BE90 and Florence for BE100. Percy was much more chilled then last weekend and did a lovely dressage test for 30.5. He was also much braver in the show jumping and he jumped another nice clear round. The cross country was by far his favourite part of the day, he absolutely loved it and flew round inside the time. Such a good boy. Finished off in 3rd place, only 1.5 penalties off the winner.
It was Florence's first run of the season and she certainly felt very grown up about the situation. She had a 34 dressage, which would have been a 33 if her rider hadn't gone to do a canter circle in the wrong place - whoops!!!! She pinged round the show jumping in fine style and clear. The cross country also went very well, she can sometimes be a bit careful and she likes to tip toe through the water, so she doesn't get too wet, she's a proper lady, but actually she really got into the zone and flew over everything, she particularly loved jumping the big hedge at fence 13. She came home inside the time for 10th place. Overall a very good day at the office!!!! Happy Bonnie :-) Had a bit of a shock at work today!!! After taking a collection off one of the stallions, I followed him out of the collection area and got an almighty kick off him on the top of my arm. I didn't think I was too close to him but these horses do seem to have a good reach when they fly buck!!!! It hurt so much, at one point I thought I was going to pass out. I wasn't brave enough to take my jumper off for a look at it, but I did eventually have a feel and it was just a big hard lump. I was panicking that if it was broken I was not going to be able to ride my horses and I've got an event on two of them in three days time. After a trip to hospital and an x-ray I was relieved to hear that it wasn't broken. So arm is in a sling and I've got good painkillers so fingers crossed for the weekend.
Really experienced the highs and lows of eventing today. Frankie did the TCN** at Kelsall Hill. He had an ok dressage with 52.5 (fei scoring system) then jumped a fabulous clear Sj. But on the Xc we had equipment malfunction, my air jacket clip that clips on to the saddle managed to clip itself on to the strap that does my air jacket up round me and I only realised what had happened when I tried to lean back at the drop into water, it was like I couldn't sit up, bit of a scary moment so I ended up circling to undo myself before jumping out of the water. So cross!!! Also had a really silly stop at the bull finch but only because I wasn't focused. But Frankie jumped all the technical fences really well. I'm so disappointed because he has never had cross country jumping penalties at Intermediate level, I was so keen to jump clear so I could get a qualification for a CCI**. We were qualified last year but with all the rules changing we need a TCN** or CIC** clear xc before we can do a CCI**. That's eventing for you, least he's home and safe.
Percy had his first event of the season today. He was a little bit excited to be out at a big party. In the dressage warm up he would have a great few minutes work and then would lose concentration for a few minutes. He was a little bit like that in the arena to, but he didn't do anything drastically wrong and picked up a 35. The showjumping arena had a lot going on round the outside which he found quite spooky but he was good over his fences and jumped a good clear round. He started out on the cross country like you would expect a baby to on his first run of the season, putting in some quite big jumps and spooking a little, but soon got in to the swing of things and had a fantastic clear inside the time for 9th place. Overall not a bad first run of the season. The only drama of the day was when I was leading him back from the xc and a man driving a orse lorry decided to rev quickly past us on a narrow track, scaring Percy and causing him to run off, I couldn't keep hold of him but he headed in the direction of the trailer dodging lots of people who were trying to catch him. I think he must have got to the trailer park and got quite confused by all the Ifor Williams trailers, to him they all loooked the same and he ran round all of them having a good look, but when he saw me stood by ours he wondered over to me, quite cute really!!!
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Bonnie FishburnAmateur event rider Archives
August 2022
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