Well, as we are short staffed at work I
offered to be a night nurse on Thursday night, so by 8am Friday I had finished
work for the weekend (ok so I had been up for 12 hours but I didn’t feel tired
at all!). Tried to have a couple of
hours sleep but it didn’t work so instead I had a lazy day.
Don’t you just love them! I snuggled on the sofa with dug, watched
Cocktail and Music & Lyrics (had that song in my head all weekend) and then
rode in the afternoon. Just did some
interval training with J, as I had missed it on Thurs. We are doing 4 mins trot, 2 mins walk
repeated 3 times, followed by 2 min canter, 2 min walk repeated 3 times. Once the clocks change we will build this up
and include some hill sprints up the field.
Although it doesn’t seem like much I can tell that J is feeling fitter.
Anyway, sat wasn’t really a horsey day
other than Helen, (with hubby) and I went for a hack. I helped John take loads of rubbish to
the tip, went for a dog walk, then fed the sheepies together - I filmed a very
sproingy sheep –
All in all a good day :D
On Sunday it was the Almond Riding Club day
at SNEC, I went with Helen in her lorry, taking her Mack and my Jack. We both did prelim 13 and we were on at
3.30! felt weird leaving after
lunch!
Anyway J was a bit spooked by people but we
managed a mixture of hap hazard and calm to become 6th (60%).
Onto jumping :D I had entered the 90cm and
1m, I felt a bit rusty as it was our first show of the year, but J jumped a
clear in both classes and had a pole in both jump offs – all rider error
Videos:
On Monday we then went up to Gleneages for
a XC schooling session with St David Gatherer. I
was a little annoyed that there were 7 in our group especially as it was £52
each! Not sure if anyone else feels that
was a bit steep. The lesson lasted about
2 hours as there was so many of us, and J was quite tense about having people
in front trot/canter off without a word behind them. That really annoys me when
people do that!
Also as there was so many people it was a
bit of a fight to try not to be last to go, with J getting very worried as
people galloped off to jump a couple I got talking to a lovely lady whose horse
was being perfect, she kindly let me go in front of her and I spent most of the
lesson close to her horse as he was a calming influence for J (so thank you –
sorry I can’t remember your name – your horse Freddie was lovely :D)
Anyway David does a great job at balancing
everyone, so although I felt the lesson had too many people for the price, I do
feel we got out of it what we set off to achieve.
We all jumped the first 3 fences but got to
choose the height, I stuck with intro at first them moved up to PN, with a
couple of Novice heights. There were
roll tops, gates, stone wall with drops to roll top, some doubles of gates
& logs, water jump with palisade 3 strides to hanging log, then slosh
through the water to a skinny jump out. Coffin
to palisade, brush fence then arrow heads to a golf ball (!)
I didn’t do the trochanter as I’m a bit
windy about them and J was jumping his heart out, despite the jockey riding
like an idiot – David would like me to improve my upper body position over the
fences, I think you can see that I fold a bit on landing on the videos above,
but happy for any CC you can offer :D I am also riding a couple of holes longer
than I do normally, after having a winter off my ankles require a bit of time
to get used to being in short stirrups again so I am riding longer than I would
prefer!
J also gave a couple of people a lead over
the jumps, he was jumping anything I put him to and I think he enjoyed
himself. He did not feel tired by the
end at all so I think his interval training is getting him fitter. Sorry I have
no photees/vids of the schooling though. I think people liked him as I had a couple of
people tell me what a lovely horse he was, one very nice lady came over to give
him a treat – I don’t think she believed me when I said that he was nervous of
people – since the treat he kept sidling up to her for more!!
So looking forward to the season ahead
now. Planning on doing some more xc
schooling this weekend, then heading to Montrave for their hunter trials and
ideally Auchinleck intro (although I may do PN depending on his Montrave run?)
Anyway, thats all for this week :D
