As usual, since my last update, so much has happened. No rest for the wicked it seems!
I went to the Equestriad event in Camden pretty determined. I put in a fair bit of work to try and improve how things were going in the brakes department, and half halts and all that sort of stuff to not be at the bottom of the score board! On my way over to warm up for my dressage, Astro shied at something while crossing over the causeway and we think he twisted his shoe, but anyhow, there I was lunging a very obviously lame horse, who I’d just been riding 20 minutes ago, who had been rather fresh!
All I could think about was how hard I’d worked, how I’d got up at stupid o’clock, waking Laura up to bring her along, and driving for hours to not even be able to do even my dressage! I very quickly put my damsel in distress hat on, found the farrier, and pleaded “my dressage is in 25 minutes and my horse is lame”. He got to work and he put the last clench in about 5 minutes before my test was due to begin.
For the less than ideal warm up, he performed as well if not better than he usually does, so have considered pulling a shoe off and replacing it prior to each test, but that does seem rather extravagant. SJ was that afternoon, and we had the joys of having the MASSIVE TV screen beside the ring. I didn’t properly appreciate just how hectic it was in that arena, there were jumps everywhere, and my round didn’t go quite how I wanted, and we had two rails. He was very honest though so I’ve almost forgiven him for those rails.
Cross country seemed fair enough, a decent track, with a reasonable question in the first half of the course, with the old 1* ditch and bank being used in the EvA105 class. This jump could be seen from the warm up, so it was mentally challenging seeing your fellow riders having a few issues with it, knowing it wasn’t long before I had to tackle it. I’ve added a set of rings to the breastplate and he definitely was more rideable that weekend, and we cruised around clear, but about 30 seconds over time. I was so pleased, I even splashed out and bought the video footage.
Of course there was also my sunnies cam footage to look at ... you have to enjoy the good moments!
Two weeks after Camden, we ran the clinic I had organised with John Twomey. This is not going to come as anything new for those who know me well, but for those innocent of my faults, I’m not a domestic goddess. Far from it! The house is almost always untidy and verging on catastrophic. I’d rather be outside in the garden or on a horse. But somehow we manage to get by living like this even though it’s less than ideal, so when we worked out John needed to stay here I kind of went into a flip, then realised – that it didn’t really matter THAT much, and as long as his bed was comfy, and he was kept well fed, he’d survive (I’ve since seen him at other events, and doesn’t look like he’s suffered too much).
What a fantastic weekend of coaching everyone had. John really does know his theory, and the biomechanics of the horse. If only I was able to actually make my brain force my body to forget the years of holding onto that damned right rein. He reassured us it takes at least 21 days to learn a new habit, but I’m leaning more towards it being more like 21 years.
The weekend following on from the clinic was the event at Wallaby Hill Farm (above). Oh my – are there any words left to describe how simply amazing and incredibly beautiful that place is? We are so lucky to be able to use the facilities there – so thank you Alex and Derek for being so generous. Performance wise I really am on a MASSIVE roller coaster. Down at Wagga, up for Camden, so you guessed it – DOWN for Wallaby Hill!
The photo looks okay - the result wasn't
Dressage was woeful, only 1 rail SJ (so we did get something right!) and then the long walk of shame home off the XC course. We got as far as 10B (a skinny log 2 strides after a bank) and Astro decided to not be particularly cooperative about it all and ran out 3 times. According to the results that were published after the event, I fell off, and several people have contacting making sure I was ok. Very touching that they were concerned, but I can reassure you, I don’t often part company from Astro – it’s too high up and I suspect it will hurt!
So back down to EvA95 I went for Goulburn. I decided I wanted a relaxing fun ride around after the disappointment of the previous weekend. So yes – the roller coaster went back up and I went clear show jumping and cross country. I went a little fast cross country due to a technical boo boo by the jockey pressing the mode button on the stop watch, so when I glanced down to see how I was travelling towards the first minute marker and saw 2:40 on my watch I realised what I had done, pressed start then tried to do my maths while riding around the lovely farm at Lynton. I came in about 28 seconds under time, and got 2 time penalties to add to my dressage score, leaving me in 11th place at the end of the event.
On top of the hill at Lynton
In the middle of all this, Mack went away for a well-earned break away fishing for a week in Tuross, which also coincided with the school holidays – not such great planning there! And on the topic of planning – it’s all systems go getting ready for the event here in Canberra in a few days. I do wonder sometimes what normal people do with their time while I’m out on course painting cross country jumps, emailing people at very strange hours and generally depriving myself of several hours sleep each day! But I can tell you it’s going to be a great event, our water jump is being revamped and hopefully will be ready in time. We’ve had a reasonable bit of rain this week, so hopefully the ground will soften up a little too. Hope to see some of you there!
On the family side of things, tennis lessons have started, swimming lessons are under way, and Laura continues to be a massive source of entertainment as she is a busy little bee who doesn’t sit still for long. There’s a school concert tonight, and for once I remembered it was school banking day today so I’m feeling almost on top of things!
Despite all the ups and downs I’ve really enjoying being out there, being part of this amazing sport and seeing great friends again.
Until next time, keep on smiling!
Kate
