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
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