Wednesday 11 October 2017

A tremendous season for Sam, finishes with one of her favourites winning the HOYS Foxhunter

The 2017 BE season is now over for me and it's been full of ups and downs but it has been fabulous. When we last caught up I had just enjoyed a rare weekend off due to the disappointing cancellation of Skipton because of the weather. We headed off to Bold Heath not knowing quite what to expect. After a 4 am start I was more than frustrated with Freddie's dressage score after what felt like a fabulous test.  He went on to jump his best ever double clear so I was feeling a little deflated as I watched the online scores showing us lying in 5th place. The class proceeded but no one seemed able to do a double clear and we ended up winning the section by quite a few marks and gaining the all important Osberton qualification we were looking for. Upsalls Lorna was unlucky to do her dressage in a monsoon and took quite a dislike at first but once she settled her work was so good she finished in 2nd place. The babies expertly piloted by Jasmine were also fantastic with Bollywood jumping her first BE double clear and Houdinii finishing in 6th.

Dayton scored another brilliant BD result the following weekend finishing 2nd in another area festival, I hoping he is saving his win for the semi's next month. With the gorgeous British weather putting paid to another event at Cumwhinton we decided to head for some showjumping at Sykehouse.  As a few end of season championships are getting close it seemed a good opportunity to introduce some of the horses to a bigger test. Both Freddie and Lorna stepped up without an issue; Lorna finishing 2nd in her first newcomers class and Freddie at just 5y/o doing his first 120 class, in the dark under floodlights.  He had a really unlucky pole but learnt so much.


Shelford saw us add a new member to the string in the form of Joanne Pullan's Diamante.  She made our debut together a winning one in the 4y/o qualifier, this was the first show this special young mare has competed in her life and I am very excited about her. Freddie stepped up to Novice without any hesitation.  He scored 29 in the dressage and flew double clear, just a couple of cross country time penalties saw us finish 3rd in good company.  This was also my first competitive appearance at this level. 

This was a great warm up for Burghley where the competition was stiff, as was the challenge, but as always Freddie stepped up well. He just missed out on a top 10 prize which would have been a fairy tale ending after the year we have had but I still wouldn't want to take another horse home. Every time out he gives me 100% and our partnership is becoming pretty strong. At Richmond, Dayton picked up his third consecutive Badminton qualification, even when the worn out jockey forgot her test for the second time in two days, whoops!  I also forgot it on Diamante but luckily she was so prefect that she still won the class on an amazing score of 23 almost 10 marks ahead of her rivals. Dayton finished 2nd in his qualifier so luckily all worked out fine and I think it was a kick up the backside I needed to slow down a little and get my head focused on the important events coming up.


Walking the course for the big class at Frickley on Friday evening was a bit daunting! Neither Freddie, Lorna or Doodle had seen anything so demanding and the championships were looking competitive with some seriously competitive combinations qualified. Doodle kicked the day off with a fabulous dressage which held her in 3rd place but her inexperience showed at the tricky water combination. Nonetheless I was so proud of her, she completed confidently and jumped a great showjumping round to end her season and in my opinion, has learnt so much in her 3 events she is looking very interesting for next year. Freddie did his best dressage test to date with Lorna not far behind to both go to the tough cross country in the top 10. I was conscious that the course asked things they hadn't even yet seen in training so I was prepared to train round but they both picked up the reins, pricked their ears and answered every single question without fault to finish inside the time, moving the both into the top 5. The showjumping was also a tall order for Lorna and an unlucky rail out of the combination was costly. The course was well inside Freddie's capability but I wondered if he would feel tired being only young and inexperienced.  However, he tried 110% and flew round clear moving us into the lead.  Unfortunately the winner followed us as she was closer to the optimum time even though our dressage scores were the same.  It was quite an emotional moment as there was a time that we didn't even know if we would have a Freddie so for him to give me his all and finish 2nd in this class where most of the horses were already double his age felt really special and exciting. Lorna also finished in 7th position which if you had told me as I walked the course on Friday evening she would just finish I would have been proud.  To win a prize blew all my expectations out of the water, she was only gingerly doing 90cm in March and this equaled a pretty decent Novice track. Dayton also had some of the limelight winning his 100 section on his dressage score after we decided the challenge format wouldn't suit him, I was pleased with my decision after his confident performance.

The weekend had been an excellent warm up for this years main aim the BE young horse championships. With a few bits to tweak with training I was feeling confident that I had done all the preparation I could. We had a fabulous draw as the times we had meant we did dressage on Thursday and the jumping phases on Friday. I felt this would be great as it meant I could really focus towards each challenge, as we left on the first day both horses were top 10 with Freddie in 8th and Diamante in 3rd. I was more than thrilled as there were some of the best riders in the world in the class. I really felt that both horses had given me their absolute best. Diamante made a silly error in the jumping that dropped us a place but her faultless cross country and confident performance at only her 4th ever show left us feeling so lucky to have found her. Freddie was just a superstar jumping one of few faultless double clears to pull up to 3rd, with the winner only two marks ahead. 

Bishop Burton was on the agenda for the following day but arriving to knee deep mud was not at all funny.  I attempted the dressage on Fleur and her bold attempt gave us a score of 29 but I decided against jumping and withdrew, my ponies are far to precious! Houdini and Jasmine having already done their dressage they decided to continue and jumped a brilliant double clear to finish 4th in their section and end their season in a fabulous place.

I made a special journey to watch a very special combination at HOYS and was totally blown away with their performance.  To think it was a year to the day that the outstanding Ebolensky gave me my first ride in a professionals championship at this very show it was a dream come true to go and watch her win the world famous and much sought after Foxhunter title with Mathew Sampson in the driving seat. They made me so proud, the team behind this amazing mare always knew she was special and for the 4 years I was privileged to ride her we often joked that one day she would win this class so to be sat their when this incredible combination made it look effortless was definitely a highlight of my career and a very emotional experience that I can only thank Ebolensky, Matt and the Evison family for making possible.  On that note i'm going to say bye for now as I sit and ponder what to do for the next few months now the season has ended.  I have a few things up my sleeve so I'll catch up soon and let you know how things go.


Sam x

Tuesday 3 October 2017

Angel looks ahead to a winter of dressage

This month has been a fun one; we've been concentrating on a lot of dressage training and have decided that dressage is going to be our thing over the tough winter months that are ahead! 

Tom Tom was sent on a dressage boot camp earlier on in the month with Sonia (our dressage coach) to work hard while I was away from a few days.  Since then we have been practicing lots on our canter transitions as this is something we both struggle with during competitions. When I went to my last dressage competition, although Tom was super and came 2nd, the transitions were what let us down as he can fall into them rather then staying elevated in his frame. We have been practicing our dressage at least 4 times a week and have also done some lovely hacks to keep his fitness up in preparation for dressage and perhaps a bit of winter showjumping to!

Tom Tom and I have also been training in the technical side of showjumping.  As he is so big and I am so little, practicing harder turns and balancing over the jumps has benefited us both.  I taught Tom to listen to me and I then respond to him quicker. The last couple of months I haven't competed as often as I would have liked, much of this has been down to time pressures, so I made the decision to take some time from competing to focus on dressage to get the little mistakes corrected so that those extra marks could be added on.  Over the next two weeks we will be out and competing now we are finally starting to get everything together!  

Our aims over the winter are to compete at novice and and hopefully progress to medium.  We are going to join BD and see where our journey takes us.  With the practice we have been putting in he is really starting to pick himself up, this has made a huge difference to how he goes and something we'll be continuing to work on.

So for now it's been all about preparation - hopefully next month we will have some winning stories to tell! 


Angel

Tuesday 26 September 2017

Ellen joins the GB Youth Development Programme at the Millstreet International Horse Trials

It's fair to say that as my event season draws to a close that it has been one I certainly will not forget! However the star moment will forever be trekking overseas to compete in Millstreet International Horse Trials, to contest the CIC* as a part of the GB Youth development programme last month.

With my competition due to start on the Thursday, we aimed to arrive late Tuesday night, which would allow Kidogo a day to settle in and loosen up after the 15 hour trip across! With alarm set for 2am on the Monday, we loaded up and set off for the 5-hour journey to western Scotland, where we caught a 2 hour ferry to Northern Ireland. When parked on the outside deck we realised that the Kidogo (K) and a fellow young riders horse were in fact going to have an open view of the sea whilst travelling, which didn’t seem to bother them as we traveled smoothly over the Irish seas. On landing in Ireland the horses were inspected by officials, before we began the 7-hour journey down to the bottom of Ireland, stopping every few hours to water the horses and top up haynets. When we finally arrived at Millstreet, we unloaded the horses, and had a look around the enormous facilities containing 6 huge outdoor arenas!

On Wednesday I walked the cross country course with one of the six U18 coaches who had traveled out to help, and was very impressed by the turn out of the course: running alongside fountains and the second water jump was even boarded by an actual mill and waterfall! I also took the opportunity to give Kidogo a school in the dressage warm up, as well as watch a few of the tests that were running in the afternoon, there I realised that I was going to have 3 dressage judges the following day! After a meeting with the rest of the youth squad and coaches to discuss the course, and also the plan for the dressage, I washed and plaited Kidogo for the first day of competition.

With dressage and show jumping on surfaces the stress of studding was removed, so after finishing quarter markers and putting on my tails, I set of to begin my warm up 35 minutes before my test. He warmed up really well and after taking off his brushing boots we headed down the centre line, where we did one of our best tests to date. On return to the stables we were gutted to see that my mark was far from what we were hoping. Even though we did very accurate movements, we were criticized against the flashy horses for not having the basic paces. Having to put the disappointment behind us, I soon set off to watch the first few show jump to confirm my thoughts on the lines I would take before I hopped on board to warm up. I warmed up doing a figure of 8 over a tall cross pole to loosen K through his body, then followed this by opening up his jump over some low and wide oxers, and taller uprights. Ready to go in I set off up the shoot into the main ring; I trotted in before pulling up and saluting in front of the judges. We set off confidently and jumping a solid round, however just had one hiccup when we landed disunited and I cut my corner to fence 3 meaning he never saw it and we lost our balance, picking up some annoying penalties, but not touching another fence. After untacking K and carroting him, I set off to walk the xc course again with GPS to mark out my minute markers, for the xc the following morning.

 The Saturday morning saw me going for a third course walk, before tacking up and heading over on the 10-minute hike to the xc start. Having not show jumped that day I warmed up over some show jumps before angling some xc jumps, and heading over to the start itself. K gave me one of the best rounds yet, and the commentators absolutely loved him! Having not known much about his breeding, it turned out that his sire lived only a mile away and one of the commentators actually had a foal with the same father as K! 

K was a complete saint all week and really deserved his union jack on his numnahs! We gave him a day relaxing and grazing on his Equiblox Original forage blocks on Saturday whilst I watched the 3* competition, before setting off back home that night for the second 15 hour journey! I can’t thank my trainers enough for pushing me throughout the season to get to this level, and Fulmart Feeds who are such a big part of my team, and offer so much support.



Ellen

Wednesday 30 August 2017

Frickley Park National U18 Championship gives Ellen and her Northern Team mates in a 6th place

In a space of one month we have two of the years biggest events of my eventing season.

Opening the month saw Frickley Park National u18 championships. On arrival on Wednesday afternoon, we parked up and stabled with the rest of the northern region, and then set off for a leg stretching hack before I took Kidogo to familiarise himself with the arena and grandstands. I had an early night before getting up first thing in the morning to give Kidogo a quick school before trot up, which he passed.  As the rain kicked in I began watching back the video of my last dressage lessons, before tacking up and heading to my warm up for 35 mins. I will be the first to admit that only two weeks before my test our dressage was at rock bottom. About 5 dressage lessons in 2 weeks, I felt like everything was on the line. He warmed up difficultly, with the slopping hill giving him every chance to run through the shoulder, but we worked through it and when called to the ring we had done all we could to prepare. As we went down the centre line I had never felt so proud, knowing where to optimise each mark after going through my test with judge Andrea Peel, he went through each movement accurately. Scoring our first 9 FEI, finishing with a total score of 46.9, with one judge giving us over 70%, this put is in 2nd place in the region, when I looked it up in the stables we were literally jumping around for 5 minutes.

That evening we went to the welcoming cocktail party before watching a demonstration out on the front lawn. Friday saw a relaxing day with no competition for me, so I spent the day watching other team members, K went on a hack and I walked the xc course with the u18 team coaches. We warmed up over some show jumps and xc angles, but with two people to go there was a hold on course so my warm up had to stop. Unsurprisingly K bossed around the 7.5-minute course inside the time easily. But I felt very strange when the rest of the team took Kidogo for his wash off and I was left jobless. The afternoon was spent walking K and checking his legs to make sure he was feeling his best for trot up Sunday morning and show jumping afterwards. After his sound xc performance we moved up into 14th out of 80 going into show jumping. Kidogo had a half hour loosening up school before trot up which he passed. As the course was changed for the one star, I watched the first few people jump out of the bottomless mud. Knowing that there had been only about 5 clears out of the first 50 to jump, I had to ride K more forward than ever before. A positive round meant that he touched a couple of the oxers in front. These three performances meant we finished 24th, and 2nd in the region, helping the northern team to finish 6th.


A week off work for K didn’t mean holiday for me, as Finnegan went to the pony club open area eventing at Northallerton. Where he posed a lazy dressage test, but scored his personal best mark of 29. He jumped an improvingly mature round show jumping round, but was caught up at a turning line to have the square oxer down in front. He followed this by jumping the quickest round xc of the day, placing him in individual 2nd and qualifying him for the pony club championships. However I am not able to take him as I am leaving for Millstreet International, Ireland with K at the same time.

Next month I will be writing about our adventures to Millstreet.

Ellen




Tuesday 29 August 2017

Dressage preparation pays off

So what have I been up to this month, well I finally managed to take Tom Tom out to compete in the novice 27 at Ilex farm!  It has been a while since we have been able to compete but all the hard work and training finally paid off and he was amazing. Firstly, Tom Tom is super chilled out and he takes competitions in his stride, but as soon as he put one hoof off the lorry his big ears lit up like there was no tomorrow! The sun was shining and the atmosphere was calm and collected meaning that we could both properly focus on the test. We had only practiced the test a handful of times, but each time we continued to improve! My name was called and the test begun, Tom was cool as a cucumber and even though he decided to throw in a fancy flying change across the diagonal (personally I think that deserved a bonus point), we managed to come first in our section and second highest overall individual! I was over the mood and we still have so much to give, but to be fair the test it’s self wasn’t a huge ask for Tom but what it did do is help improve our accuracy during a dressage test.

Tom Tom has continued to improve in his dressage and is proving to be quite the dressage diva! We have spent a lot of time with our dressage trainer Sonia Baines this summer; he has just undergone dressage boot camp for 5 days so has come back very much competition ready, now we are just finding which competition will be next! A lot of our training has been based on improving Toms uphill paces and working on an advanced outside, really practicing to push him through his paces and pick his entire body up. Even though Tom is using immense amounts of energy he is still having a bag of his Fulmart feeds haylage everyday along with the conditioning cubes and it really does help to make a difference, Tom is never fizzy from the haylage, he always has enough energy to keep going though!

Next we are aiming to start doing some affiliated dressage as this is our main focus for the next couple of months and also to begin competing in BYRDS. Toms dressage is good but we still have a lot to work towards and when hopefully my next blog will be as positive in results as this one has!    

Angel 

Monday 7 August 2017

Qualifying has been tough but patience pays off for Sam


After a shaky start to the season I'm pleased to say that things are ticking along quite nicely right now. As I'm writing I'm just on my way for a very exciting experience... a lesson with the world class duo that is Tim and Jonelle Price, hoping that I can learn lots after the 4 hour journey.

After I last checked in with everyone Brahman was my next big event, unfortunately things didn't quite go to plan, with 5y/o Freddie still well out of action the two 4y/o found the whole experience a little bit much.  They both behaved well but just not as focused as I would have liked which at 4y/o sometimes you have to accept they just aren't quite ready.

With that behind us we set about getting busy with the whole team. Skipton was next on the agenda and we had a great weekend, quite a long one with competing both days but it was worth it, both Uppsalls Lorna and Dayton were brilliant.  They were both placed with not quite perfect performances leaving me with a little homework. The babies were back the following day and were all fabulous, Jasmine rode my own Houdini for the first time in competition and flew round, he's quite a big lad for such a little jockey and having only had him two weeks they had improvements to make but a good solid start. Both my own Fleur and Joanne Pullan's Charlie Harper did brilliant tests and jumped double clears to finish in the prizes as well.



The next week was the week we had been waiting for but with his final bloods due it was a little nail biting waiting to get the go ahead for Freddie to return to competition.  We had been working him quietly at home and had a catch up plan in mind if he was strong enough and he surprised us all, even the vets, with everything coming back clear and his muscle enzyme levels back to normal so it was back to business. We took him to Sykehouse for a quiet round to see how he felt and he loved it, it was like he had never been off although afterwards he was exhausted bless him, time and patience and lots of TLC was all we could do.

After a light week he headed off to his first BYEH class at Weston Lawns, he was such a good boy.  The dressage was less than perfect after he stumbled in the medium but I really felt he tried hard and he jumped a beautiful clear round.  After a long wait for the top 10 he did feel pretty tired but he pulled it out to put in a great performance and after giving me 100%. I was gutted for him to finish 4th and miss his ticket by half a mark but I was obviously thrilled by his performance and how well he coped.  It would have been a fairytale achievement for him but with more chances later on I remain hopeful.



Eland lodge and Aske were interesting events, Charlie Harper was a dude at Eland scoring his best dressage ever and showing huge improvements and flying round the showjumping and cross country to finish 5th in the open section.  Grafiba can only be described as frustrating. After doing the most beautiful test to score 18 he couldn't give the showjumping the same level of concentration, finding a demon behind a banner.  At this point I didn't know about my amazing score so happily plodded round the cross country thinking 'oh well he's only a baby and it's his first BE - we will practise more' but after his lovely clear Neil informed me of my score - he finished 3rd missing qualifying by one place, very frustrating! At Aske the following day I started to feel that I was a show jumper that definitely couldn't show jump any more! Both Fleur and Lorna did great dressage tests but both had a pole down with clears inside the time cross country; Fleur even managed to catch up to the one in front of me on the course! They both finished in the top 5, so I suppose I could use the excuse that everyone was clearly having the same problem as me.

Freddie cleared up my virus the following week by jumping another lovely round this time at Field House in the BYEH his dressage was beautiful and in a tight class where all 10  in the prizes were separated but 4 marks we finished 7th. A slight change in scenery saw Dayton head to Aintree for the Petplan Elementary Regional, he did one of the best tests he has ever done to finish 2nd.  I was early to go in the class and led the whole way to the last one to go and was pipped by .2 of a mark, obviously I was thrilled but gutted too!!! I like winning😉




An early start at Buckminster, one of my favourite events proved worthwhile. Upsalls Lorna won her section on good company and her performance was pretty faultless. She gave me the best ride all day and as all the evening riders out there know, it's not often you have a ride that makes you smile from dressage to cross country.  This little mare is growing in confidence every time out now. Freddie made his BE comeback, I was worried about him and how he would cope as he hadn't had much training and only two runs in 2016.   I thought it was a big ask going straight round the 100 but he trusts me and I know he's a jumper so I figured we should be ok. He did an awesome dressage in a tough 5y/o section to be in with a chance at qualifying.  A beautiful showjumping clear followed but a couple of time penalties cross country cost us and we finished 6th.  Sadly for us, just 5 qualified - a scenario which was starting to become the story of my life. I was thrilled with Freddie though, he tried so hard and didn't doubt me once. Dayton also won a prize in his section, he did a beautiful test but his showjumping demons caught him a little but he redeemed himself with a smashing cross country round.

 Stafford proved a very similar scenario, Freddie was very distracted in the dressage, it's not his favourite phase and although he has improved lots his imagination does tend to wonder when the white boards are involved.  His classy double clear was only good enough to finish 12th in a section which required a 25 dressage to make the top 7!! Grafiba was well in the running for his 4y/o ticket until he found the step into the water scary and decided crocodiles could be in the jump. I can forgive him as he had never seen a step in before so the trip had been an education.


Northallerton saw me start my new ride Sue Cliff's Doodle on her BE adventures.  With this event being only her second show in her life we had absolutely no idea what she would think and being only 5y/o she would either love it or hate it. She was a dream from start to finish with her dressage score of 26 to finish 2nd. Fleur was her usual confident self to finish 6th and Shelley Cleave and James Askew's Bollywood made her BE competition debut a brilliant one with Jasmine riding, it was a sink or swim approach and she definitely swam.

Ryedale proved successful and Freddie finally got his Burghley ticket finishing 2nd and this must have been all the warm up he needed to go on to Frickley and win his 100 section with a 26 dressage. Frickley was probably the best weekend eventing we have ever had.  All the horses were super consistent with all 8 winning a prize. Lorna was 4th on her section after getting reverse time penalties. Dayton finished 5th with two slow time penalties, the jockey definitely forgot how to use the stop watch! Jasmine beat me on my own horse!! Houdini won his section with a 26 dressage beating me on Doodle at her second event finishing on 27. Fleur was 2nd finishing on a score of 27, Charlie Harper finished 7th and Jasmine on Bollywood finished 9th in their sections.  To say I was proud of them all and Jasmine is an understatement, it's not often all the plans come together at once with horses, they like to keep things interesting.


We were a little disappointed that the event at Skipton this weekend was cancelled but I have to admit to enjoying less rushing round and actually catching up on a few jobs.  We did sneak off for a bit of practise to the local cross country facility with the new boy who has come to sell, Kate Musgrave's Larry.

We are still very busy but things are winding down a little now, the whole team now seems focused and they all are enjoying the routine of training and shows.  Let's hope the rest of the season runs smooth and we can enjoy what's left of the summer, with lots of lovely events coming up and all the horses feeling smashing it's looking promising.

Sam

 X

Thursday 27 July 2017

Everyone has a favourite event and our rider/blogger Angel writes about hers; Hartpury International

Well everyone it is a hot one this month! The grass continues to grow and the events continue to flow… The ground is perfect for those of you competing out on the fields this month, not too soft to slip and not too hard on the ground, perfect for clear rounds, I’m not even trying to rhyme anything either!

Summer here at last!
So what has been happening this month for us? Well, Tom Tom has been enjoying the grass very much, however he wasn’t very conditioned, and I decided to put him on the conditioning cubes, they worked a treat and he was strengthened, tones and conditioned in no time, no doubt he also had endless amounts of energy but isn’t too hot and fizzy!

No doubt everyone has a particular event they are excited to see, mine is definitely Hartpury International! How can you not like it? Every large event has an atmosphere that just makes you feel like you are at home and that is where you are meant to be. I remember going to Chatsworth international and watching as the crowd’s heads moved with the horse over every jump, I loved to watch all the dogs getting to know one and other and going on an adventure to each of the different stalls filled with my horses favourite treats… what we don’t always admit to ourselves is that no matter if you promise yourself that you won’t buy a single thing, you end up going past he perfect bridle, saddle cloth, boots, cross country colours, next thing you know you have 5 new matching outfits for you and your horse… oops how did that happen?

Loving my new Fulmart Feeds cap
Every event has its ups and it’s down, but one thing going to an event does do is inspire you to be the better you! I remember watching Charlotte at London 2012 winning the gold, that summer I spent 6 solid week doing dressage pretty much every day with no stirrups, thinking one day I could be just as good, and although I’m not quite up to that level just yet I did become a better rider for it and that summer taught me a lot. One thing everyone should do is find something that gives you that drive to want to improve and do it! You don’t have to be the best rider in the world to improve, but it’s those of you, who might not be the best, but put the best effort in, and that will eventually pay off and you will come out on top. My top tip for this summer is to make sure that every time you get on your horse, no matter how big your aim is or how small, you give you self an achievable goal and work to achieve it, the difference might start off small but soon you will see the huge difference it is making.

Angel