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 2^nd 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 14^th 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 24^th, and 2^nd in the region, helping the northern team to finish 6^th.

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 2^nd 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

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 

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

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