I think it's safe to say that August has had a bad start for us but onwards and upwards, thats eventing for us, highs and lows and horses really know how to keep you grounded. But I can't be too disappointed with them today because they had both completed their first novice in not ideal conditions.
Well it's official.....I hate the unpredictable British weather!!!! I took Percy and Florence for their first BE Novice on Sunday at Bold Heath in Hurricane Bertha. It rained from the time I left home until I'd walked my XC. I had decided that I may as well do at least the dressage and SJ because the SJ was on a surface. Florence did a nice test for 33 and Percy was mainly a good boy but just made a couple of little mistakes for a 38, which I thought was a very harsh mark for how the test felt. And then they both put a seriously big smile on my face by jumping clear round the SJ in their first ever Novice, I was thrilled with the pair of them. The heavens then opened and it poured down for about 20 minutes while I hid in the car and the ponies hid in the trailer. I thought I had better go and look at the ground on the cross country course before i decided if I should run or not but actually it was looking pretty good, so I decided I would give it ago. The course was quite a nice first time novice track with just a few questions but at those questions there were no long routes which I thought was quite tough. I took Florence first and she gave it a really good shot but unfortunately the wind had really got up which was causing the rain to hit our faces like daggers when we were jumping into it and made seeing very tricky. She jumped all the tricky combinations really well but we had a couple of stops at straight forward fences which were both jumping in to the wind, I blame myself for not being 100% committed because I couldn't see very well, Florence does rely on me to ride her very confidently but I don't think I rode her as strong as usual. Then by the time I got back on course with Percy the ground had started to cut up a bit so he was jumping a bit bigger then required, a little bit how he did at the BRC champs last week. At fence 6 which was quite a tricky step up to a hanging long with a drop down to a skinny brush, he just jumped a bit too boldly over the log and I couldn't keep him straight to the brush, so we had to represent and he popped it fine. He then jumped me clean off at fence 10, just put in a huge jumped and pinged me straight out of the saddle. I think he was a little shook up with losing me and my air jacket going off because when I got back on, at our second attempt he ran out at 10B but then we got going again and just popped our way home steadily. He felt green at the water which was a tough question but was clear. I just need to take him schooling again I think before his next event to get some confidence back and let him enjoy himself again.
I think it's safe to say that August has had a bad start for us but onwards and upwards, thats eventing for us, highs and lows and horses really know how to keep you grounded. But I can't be too disappointed with them today because they had both completed their first novice in not ideal conditions. |
Bonnie FishburnAmateur event rider Archives
August 2022
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