Its been a while (since Apri) finally a BE report!

Hello all

Its been a rubbish summer so far with the events being cancelled. I ran Jack at Eden Valley in the BE90, then took him to Scone to do the unaffiliated BE100. since then he has had no events due to cancellations (Central Scotland, Balcarres, Floors, Oatridge) and when we did get an entry into an even that ran, he developed an abscess in his foot so we had to withdraw! Typical

Anyway, for various reasons his fitness has slipped as galloping has been a bit lacking so I set off yesterday to Hendersyde hoping to go clear XC. Not bothered about time I just wanted to go clear.

Usually we have Dressage scores of 38, which is something we have been trying to work on but its a slow process as I'm not a dressage diva, and J is 'workmanlike ', however to start the day we did get a 34

We even got an 8 for centre line, and 7's until the free walk in the middle of the test (BE test 106) where he had a fright, leapt forwards and proceeded to do the rest of the test tense, mainly 5's and 6's. Pleased though as the canter work has improved as well as the trot.

Onto SJ. Helen M (big thanks for the tea making/entertaining) came along for the day and we walked the SJ track following collecting my number. Thankfully she noticed the track had changed later so I managed to walk the new course (with more fences) so at least I didn't go wrong . Unfortunately for my friends, one jumped the wrong course and the other missed the last fence, cantered round, pulled up only for someone to point this out so then picked up, cantered round to pop it - she jumped clear, with 24 dr and ended up with 37 time faults in sj such a shame as she was leading after dr, went clear inside the time xc so would have won.

Anyway getting back to J, we jumped a nice round - he had a lazy fence down at number 2 (on video below) and then backed off fence 3 so I smacked him with my stick, which worried him and we ballsed up fence 4 but managed to leave it and the rest of the course up to finish on 4. Warm up was very sticky, but the ground was fab apart from that. I jumped 5 fences in the warm up - 2 cross poles in trot, an upright and the spread off both reins. didn't want to do any more.

Oh yes, forgot to mention the rumbles of thunder which made J worried too - thankfully they stayed away long enough for us to remain dry. sadly for hendersyde, the rain came down heavy the following morning and it was abandoned

Onto the xc. Well as it was my birthday I decided to change my P2 and buy a hybrid. Spent ages looking into it and P2 were extremely helpful - answered all my questions openly on Facebook. I felt with my racesafe and P2 I had too much bulk so I am pleased to say the hybrid is very comfortable. Just waiting for the orange customised cover to arrive (I'm sure that comes as a big surprise to you all)

Must also say it was lovely to catch up with Mark and Adam who I haven't seen for YEARS!!!  and thanks to Helen for making them coffee (I'm pretty rubbish at it!)

For the xc, I just wanted to go clear - Jack hasn't had a fault xc (except for his very first unaff one which we can forgive him for) and I would like it to stay that way but I knew that time would be hard for us to get as we are both a little out of gallop/xc practice. I had entered hopetoun xc schooling with David Gatherer but that was also cancelled

the course at Hendersyde is pretty nice, I even thought the novice course was nice (in preparation for next year) with the exception of the trochaners they are eeenormoous!
Jack jumped round for fun, except he backed off fence 5 - a log at the top of a hill - as I tried to jump across it to save time. He still jumped it when asked so no complaints. came home clear with 12 time penalties. To be honest, he recovered quite quickly once finished so I think lots of strengthening uphill work would boost his fitness more than just galloping so from now on its wed night galloping up my fields!

all in all a good day, lovely to get a run at last - felt a bit rusty, both of us a bit unfit, its a long time between a noon dressage and 5.30pm xc so Trudy was brilliant to chill out in. I gave Jack a small feed between sections (recommended by my Mum) and he thought this was pretty cool. Think he might get demanding if I keep doing it!

http://youtu.be/Lt3jE9QclUU