I posted a couple of weeks ago about my run at Auchinleck when we got a 24.5 dressage for the first time ever. Well my usual scores this year have been around 38 so to get this was AMAZING!
having then lead after Dr and SJ we had a stop on the xc which was quite unusual and I was worried that my horse was backing off after his Novice runs haven't gone as smoothly as planned.
Anyway, we went to Hendersyde this weekend to try and replicate our dressage again, this time deciding to warm up for as little as possible and ride a quite test. So my warm up consisted of leg yeilding, walk/trot transitions and a couple of canter transitions to get him off the leg and light in my hand.
headed to the arena and set off. the test felt nice but not as good as Auchinleck, he trotted in the FWLR as i'd been doing almost walk transitions in the warm up so perhaps not do these next time!!
Finished Dr and went off to walk the SJ and XC, score went up and we got a 28!! not bad again, this left us around 10th after DR.
SJ was a funny arena. Quite undulating and all the jumps had the fillers on the sides of the fences - which is sometimes worse than being underneath - but I think this is due to it being windy. The hanging baskets on all jump wings were flapping in the breeze and the course was causing lots of issues in the BE90.
Got tacked up and headed over, J was jumping well in the warm up so headed in. Got half way round to the first fence and he had a porky at the crowds and flags! spun round and shot off. Gathered him back up and trotted past fence 8. circled round thankful that I have 45 seconds to start, and headed back to fence 1. He popped round lovely, clear round with a couple of spooky bits but jumped super
So came out clear, with just the xc to go!
headed to xc, a bit apprehensive. there were elephants and a skinny thistle fence that was making me a bit nervous that he would spook. I even checked out the thistle skinny alternative!!
Headed off to the first few fences and he flew them, ears pricked looking for the next fence and boldy taking them on. He did back off the elephant but I was having none of it and he popped it, then headed off and flew the bank. I kept a good contact to the thistle fence and he popped that too and galloped home without an issue. I'm thrilled he went clear and inside the time. He totally ate the ground up - this year he has really learnt to gallop.
And I finished 2nd
the winner is a lovely rider who has a lot of experience and she finished 3.5 penalties ahead of me so I'm super chuffed we were only a few marks off the winner. I checked out our dressage sheet to find I got a 9 for my halt
and a 5 for my walk! so if we hadn't trotted and we work on his walk,
we could almost get those extra marks to put us in contention.I am super thrilled that we have really improved this season. and keeping my fingers crossed that those dressage scores are not a fluke!!
anyway some piccies:
All pics taken by lovely OH
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