a) I got wet
b) lots of times!!!!
c) there was mud
d) a lot of mud!!!!
e) my horses tried so hard for me
f) I had a really fun day with great company
g) silly errors cost me dearly!!!!
h) VERY dearly!!!!
i) but still delighted with the effort my horses put in, in VERY testing conditions!!!!
I started the day on Arrow doing the 90, she’s never done an event where I have had other horses onboard Queen Wendy and I will admit I was very sceptical as to how that would go but to be fair apart from a little talking in the dressage warm up she was very well behaved and pretty focused on the job. A nice dressage but the judge said needed more activity for better marks, I think I was just happy to remain focused, on our feet and inside the boards given the weather conditions, so I’m not going to let that worry me. She got 32.8. Showjumping she was very grown up in a busy atmosphere and arena, but had a spook at some skid marks someone had left into fence 4, she jumped fence 4 fine but crossing the skid marks in a related distance between 8 and 9, spooked, trotted lost focus and just couldn’t quite get her front end out of the mud in trot and tapped 9 out of the cups 🤦🏼♀️ Onto cross country she gave me a peach of a ride. The ground had started to cut up quite badly in places but she was very grown up and took the course on coming home with 1.6 time. We ended up 11th, the 1.6 time cost us 7th place and the fence cost us 4th. For a 5 year old in tricky conditions I’m pleased with her.
Next up was Elfie, the weather had got worse and was pretty rotten and the ground very yukky. I would say Elfie isn’t a mud lover apart from when he can roll in it, but on Friday he turned into this Irish Bog pony and tried his upmost to put in a great performance. I was one of the last to go in the dressage so had the worst of the ground but the judge loved how settled and accurate he was and gave him a 31.3. On to the SJ and he bogged round the course and put in all his best effort to get his toes out of the way keeping all the fences up. Very clever pony. On to the xc where he set off like a rocket and was loving the game, up until fence 10 where a flag fell off the fence next to his just on our approach , momentarily taking his full attention and me totally losing my line into our fence and not being able to get to the fence so having to represent, then completing the course with ease just 1 second off the time for 0.4 time penalties. Along with my BIG FAT TWENTY 😱 to say I’m gutted was an understatement. Something so stupid has cost him 2nd place which after his fantastic efforts in the mud he really deserved but instead it’s left us with a whooping great big dent in his record which has been spotless for 3 seasons apart from a baby mistake in his first event. I could cry 😭 Yes I’m majorly disappointed with Elfie’s bad luck but I can’t take away from either of my horses what a lovely time they both gave me. A typical day of highs and lows in eventing. On we go to the next one.
Thank you to mum and Ruby Doe keeping me company. Ruby was a star marching up and down in sometimes torrential rain taking pictures and Helping me out with the horses.
Thank you also to David Shard for some lovely pictures.
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