After lots of begging and emails sent to Shelford's secretary in order to get a much needed run to avoid a 6 week eventing drought turning into a 9 week eventing drought, we were finally given the green light and some lovely late times that worked with my work schedule.
We set off from the chilly damp north east coast dressed in long sleeved tops, body warmers and joggers only to get 10 minutes into our journey to find ourselves melting in the front seat of the cab!
To say it was hot at Shelford when we got there was an understatement to the point where I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a rider doing their test in a bikini!
We quickly walked the cross country and decided although H should find it easy it would be the perfect test to try our brakes and the advice previously given by Jamie regarding H’s education to cross country as the course at Shelford is rather twisty.
We had a lovely surprise of one of my supporters- Equibright being there to support us throughout the day which was lovely and H was very spoilt with the extra cuddles and pats he received.
We warmed up for dressage rather well especially when I realised that I’ve had a fit horse in work all year which has recently had a 6 week break from eventing due to no fault of his own (just thanks to the British Weather/ abandoned events!). Sadly the canter in the actual test was all a bit too exciting especially because of those white boards. We managed to stay in the arena this time but his rear end was definitely wiggling to its own tune- H could give Beyonce a run for her money! So our marks suffered we still came out with 38 which is another sub 40 score and considering the fact this outing was more like a first run of the season due to the lengthily time off since our last run I can’t totally complain.
H was rather excited to be jumping which wasn’t really helping me and my rustiness, however, despite a rather ugly round we somehow managed to keep all the poles up (despite our best efforts at the last) for a clear round (it must have been due to our new lucky EquiFeast saddle pad which was having its début outing at Shelford!)! Although the pole basher name may have to be dropped if he keeps this up but I won’t mind that!
We set off from the chilly damp north east coast dressed in long sleeved tops, body warmers and joggers only to get 10 minutes into our journey to find ourselves melting in the front seat of the cab!
To say it was hot at Shelford when we got there was an understatement to the point where I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a rider doing their test in a bikini!
We quickly walked the cross country and decided although H should find it easy it would be the perfect test to try our brakes and the advice previously given by Jamie regarding H’s education to cross country as the course at Shelford is rather twisty.
We had a lovely surprise of one of my supporters- Equibright being there to support us throughout the day which was lovely and H was very spoilt with the extra cuddles and pats he received.
We warmed up for dressage rather well especially when I realised that I’ve had a fit horse in work all year which has recently had a 6 week break from eventing due to no fault of his own (just thanks to the British Weather/ abandoned events!). Sadly the canter in the actual test was all a bit too exciting especially because of those white boards. We managed to stay in the arena this time but his rear end was definitely wiggling to its own tune- H could give Beyonce a run for her money! So our marks suffered we still came out with 38 which is another sub 40 score and considering the fact this outing was more like a first run of the season due to the lengthily time off since our last run I can’t totally complain.
H was rather excited to be jumping which wasn’t really helping me and my rustiness, however, despite a rather ugly round we somehow managed to keep all the poles up (despite our best efforts at the last) for a clear round (it must have been due to our new lucky EquiFeast saddle pad which was having its début outing at Shelford!)! Although the pole basher name may have to be dropped if he keeps this up but I won’t mind that!
And then the fun part. And I’m happy to say we had a rather uneventful easy run. We did take it slow but I was happy with how easy he came back to me so hopefully once Jamie see’s the video he will also agree its an improvement. We finished with 5 time faults but not bothered at all about that!
Ended up finishing 9th which is exactly where we finished 6 weeks ago so we have started where we finished so to speak which is a rather nice feeling and hopefully with a much smaller break we can only improve on our dressage and continue our work in the sj and xc phases.
We also now we have a matching pair thanks to BE80T series sponsors Equestrian Clearance !
We also now we have a matching pair thanks to BE80T series sponsors Equestrian Clearance !
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