OK, so we are two competitions into the 2012 eventing season and so far the year has been great with all the horses feeling very fit and well.
I finished off my hectic clinic schedule on the weekend of the 18/19th February and then backed it up with DUAL engagement parties, one after the other in Melbourne then Adelaide then the following weekend the season started with Lockington Horse Trials.
This event had its maiden run last year with just a Intro and Prelim track and then this year they added a Pre Novice track to it......but they still held it over just one day like a One day event should be......but I'm glad there are not any others that do this as, with 4 horses, I was running all day!!!! I was hoping I wouldn't make them run late, but with the huge entries then had in all three classes I was able to make it on time.
I rode Irish Empress (aka Chooch) in the Pre Novice and she won from start to finish finishing on her dressage score of 47. I also rode Michelle Tapp's Grommet in the Pre Novice and he was super and finished 7th. I then had two stallions in the Intro class; KPI Apollo (aka Wallace) and KPI Stout (aka Stout) as they didn't get any competitions in at the end of last season so I thought I'd just start them off slowly - they both were 100% focused and finished 2nd (Wallace) and 3rd (Stout). My working student James Blackwood rode KPI Tom around with a very good confident round in the Pre Novice with a few time faults cross country to finish just out of the ribbons.
Chooch at Tonimbuk Horse Trials
You might have noticed that I only rode two stallions and last year I had three?? Well, I gelded KPI Friday as I have a stunning 18 month old clot by him that I have kept entire and Friday had to give up his mantle!! So he has been out on a break and is coming back into work now.
Barastoc ran a competition at Equitana last year where the winner and two friends were flown to Adelaide to come to Kirby Park, meet me and take a trail ride with me. The winner and her friends flew over and watched me on the Saturday at Lockington and then we had dinner Saturday night after the competition... I was shattered after leaving home at 4.30am to get to the event and walk the course before my first ride at 7.20am (the test was at 8am) then we also had Festy (Kirby Park Irish Jester) and Floyd (Kirby Park Allofasudden) at the event so we could gallop them on the good going that was there after the competition was over. We managed to squeeze the gallop in before the presentations!!! Then we got home at 8pm and I was in Hahndorf showered and clean for chit chat and diner at 8.45!! By 10pm I had to call it a night as I was falling asleep in my glass of vino.
By the next Thursday we had washed everything and re packed the truck for a trip to Tonimbuk CIC in Victoria, one of my favourite events on the calendar and I was taking Festy!!! Yes he is back in work and has had five gallops before Tonimbuk and he is feeling better than ever.
Festy feeling better than ever at Tonimbuk
We had a full truck with my 5 horses; Festy, Floyd (CIC***) and Chooch (CIC*) and Wallace, Stout (Prelim) plus James had Tom (PN) and then we took Maree Heading (a student of mine) and the last spot went to a horse that I had sold and we were delivering it to Victoria for the new owners. My fiancé James flew over on the Wednesday night so he could help me do the drive over and we left at 9.30pm Thursday night so we would miss the morning Melbourne traffic. We just missed it and got to Tonimbuk in good time by 8am Friday morning. We had a couple of stops to get the horses off and make sure their heads got down (especially Festy as this was his first long trip since picking him up from Sydney and from Quarantine in 2010)
Al the horses travelled really well and felt good on their ride on Friday. The event was great; they all did really well. The stallions behaved themselves perfectly and jumped really well stepping up to this level and Wallace had two "run outs" on cross country but from over jumping and jumping past the second part of combinations. But he is really finding his brave button so I was very happy and Stout felt very grown up......just lots of time faults probably due to the fact that I didn’t tighten my girth once I had warmed up. As I was cantering through the trees to fence five, I felt the saddle move a bit too much, I leaned down to see the girth looking somewhat like a flank strap so I had to stop and fit the saddle ..OOPS!! And I couldn’t blame anyone but myself for this one!!!
Chooch was a start in the CIC* she did a CNC* last April but not a lot since then she was great at Lockington and good again here. a good test had her 4th and a few time faults on cross country had her in 5th so I was pleased. James placed 6th and Maree 7th in the PN class both had good solid performances and James is doing CNC* at his next start.
Then it was time for Festy and Floyd who both did stunning tests and Floyd was actually beating Festy?? Festy did a very good test but the judges seemed to think the opposite....one judge (won’t name names) managed to give Festy a 60%!!! He averages around the 72/73% and has for the last 6 years and he is going better now than ever before..... this is fairly bad judging as the test was very good my score ended up a 52 penalties!!!! I don't think Festy has scored that since about 2005!!! This was one of the best tests he has done so I really scratch my head and wonder what we are going to do about judging in this country.....
Floyd did a great test at Tonimbuk ....... but so did Festy!
I probably shouldn't be saying this kind of stuff but it really gets up my nose that we as riders get judged and rarely rewarded for good tests...it seems it takes a proper international judge to be at the event to give our Aussie judges a kick up the ........!! They then give out slightly better marks. But at the end of the day we are judged the same stingy way and I ended up first and second after the dressage.
I held these placing for the whole event, both horses were amazing on cross country and felt super fit and strong coming home. I didn't need to ask... both boys just wanted to gallop the whole way. They both trotted up really well in the vet check before the show jumping; I made an error on Festy and had a fence down but Floyd jumped the only clear round. The boys were well ahead of the rest of the field so it was a good clean win in the Victorian State Championships CIC*** class.
So we have Reynella Horse Trials this weekend where Floyd will run again but Festy will have quiet week. The weekend after is my only free weekend between now and Melbourne 3DEat Werribee; I have either a competition or a clinic on somewhere in the country. So next weekend is "Wedding Planning Weekend" and we will get as much sorted out as we can.....that’s the plan anyway...
Until next time.........
Megan x
