I took Frankie to Hunters Gate in Cheshire today for a dressage and jumping lesson with Gill Watson. It is a training series that is organised through British Eventing and is aimed at "Bridging the gap" for people moving up to two * or three *. I was quite nervous at the thought of being trained by a lady that is so well known for being one of the best trainers of all time and has trained no end of young riders and juniors and gained an incredible number of European medals with her teams over the years. Gill was very quick to pick up on my faults and iron them out. I was thrilled with Frankie during our dressage lesson, he felt a million dollars. Considering last week I was really questioning my dressage skills, this week I'm buzzing. I felt like I was really in control of him and movements I'd been struggling with are really coming together now, lots of thanks goes to Zoe Cappeart for this. Lets hope I can keep this up. When I ran through my next dressage test, things did fall apart a little bit but I think it may have been because it was the first time I had ran trough the test properly and I was just thinking about where I was going next, but I will keep practising so I know the test inside out. (Also my legs were starting to get tired...least it means I had been using them!!!) In the jumping lesson Frankie started out a little flat (probably feeling a little tired from the flat work like me), then got a little keen and then jumped perfectly!!!! Overall I really enjoyed my day and recommend that anyone planning to move up to 2* or 3* give the training series ago.
I'm a very proud mummy tonight. I took Dudley for his first ever proper party, with other horses and everything!!!! It was clear round evening at Weaver Equestrian. He did come off the trailer a little bit like we were maybe at a race track and it did take a few attempts to get on but he soon chilled out. After a good walk round and once the arena had quietened down a bit, I schooled him round and warmed him up over some fences. He was remarkably laid back. Then we jumped 3 rounds at about 70cm. We had a little stop in the first round but left all the fences up. The second round we were clear (and got his first ever rosette!!!). The third round had more fillers in and he jumped round with just one fence down until we got to a spooky skinny castle filler at the last fence which he found rather spooky but we did pop over it a few times in the end. Overall I'm absolutely thrilled to bits with his performance!!!!! He is pretty sure that he's just won some Grand Prix at Hickstead or something!!!!
Had a lovely day out at Badminton Horse Trials yesterday. The weather was perfect and was great to be so close to the action and witness some awesome, top class riders and horses at work. Also had a nice little surprise in the British Eventing Marquee when I saw my poster, next to Mary King above the main desk!!!
Compare this picture to the pictures of Dudley 5 weeks ago and the difference is fantastic, he looked so poor before.
I took Dudley to Somerford Park Farm Ride today. As far as I know he would never have been schooled over any Xc fences before but he was very brave and jumped everything I asked him to. We did have 4 little run outs but it never happened twice at the same fence and it was only baby mistakes.I went with a friend from work, Nikee Hudson and her youngster Saffy, who has come on amazingly well since we first went Xc schooling together. Before Saffy was the baby of the group but today she was the grown up one giving confidence to Dudley, particularly at the water where she gave us a great lead. I was really impressed how chilled Dudley was between fences, we could be cantering and jumping at one point then next minute we could be walking along on a long rein. There was one moment where he ran off with excitement, but I managed to pull up, he just briefly forgot he wasn't a racehorse anymore. He is really showing great potential. Exciting!!!
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Bonnie FishburnAmateur event rider Archives
August 2022
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