Neglecting the blog - busy busy busy

Oh dear I have NOT done a good job of keeping this blog updated. My sincere apologies, things have been very hectic of late. Lots to catch up on though, we've been having lessons, combined training, two lots of cross country schooling...

I guess the start to update was the first cross county schooling! I was meant to be having a lesson but Warren rang me and asked if I wanted to go to Larkhill instead. This was music to my ears - was insanely trying to find time to go..So we went.

 Mum managed to go to the wrong field and got stuck so we hijacked a passing tractor and I promply lost my phone..Lorry was towed out and phone was found so that was resolved but I did wonder if the third thing to go wrong would be me face planting the water...

 Luckily nothing happened and Squirrel was superb. I recieved some excellent cristism (including "If you warmed up round me like that at a competition I'd have your guts for garters" -blush-) but within three jumps Warren said Squirrel would easily go intermiediate so I was ecstatic and my mum almost fainted. He was a little wobbley at some of the skinnies and I learnt that if he drifts left, instead of pulling the right rein I just need to block the left shoulder to keep him straight which results in a straighter line. He didn't run out or look at anything really.

See below the excellent example of the drifting..




The next day..combined training. Unfortunately the photographer was working so no pictures. May be a good thing as I rode like an idiot! Squirrel was superb. We went to Sparsholt and entered the BE106 and 100cm class. I asked for a late time as had a couple of horses to ride in the morning and ended up having a dressage time of 15min before the end of the SJ, so we decided to jump first.

I couldn't pull myself together, I think I was very much still in cross country mode. Squirrel saved my life and jumped a lovely clear (single handedly!) round a fairly tight course.

Again the dressage didn't go great. The first half of the test was nice and the marks reflected this, but towards the end of the first canter it went a bit downhill as I didn't balance him well round the square turn and he changed legs then almost fell on his nose in a bit of a muddle, and my final halt couldn't of been more off the centre line if I tried. We scored 66% or 34 in an eventing mindset which I thought was fair. The nice work at the beginning earnt their fair share of 7s and 8s and then a few 55s for the mistakes. We ended up 5th with joint 1st on 70% and joint 3rd on 66.5% so not miles off.

We had a nice quiet weekend last week, then decided to pop to Boomerang for another go cross country on Thursday. I decided I wanted to jump "course style" and he was SUPERB. He finished off jumping plenty of tricky fences including my nemesis - wide skinny triple brushes without batting an eyelid, and also jumping a fair sized barrel jump into the water without spooking. He was getting quite keen and a bit fast coming off drops/through sunken road.

The only fence he was a bit confused about was a hedge brush with the  corner trimmed (so effectively a corner style brush). The first impression was lets drift so I tightened my arm to block the shoulder and he ended up jumping the big bit, and clearly does not approve of touching a lot of brush!

I also jumped the big trakhner so felt pretty pleased with myself!

Finally I had a flatwork lesson today. Again Warren was very complimentry of the pony and said the stuff we were working on was really just nitpicking, that we could pretty much go and be competitive at novice and really not do much wrong. We were working on maintaining a consistent contact through the transitions and moving off right into the transitions. This involved going from walk to medium trot and trot to medium canter, progressing to halt to medium trot and walk to medium canter.

We were also working on doing 10m circles in counter flexion to help encourage him to straighten and to use his hind end more. It was very refreshing. I always come back feeling I've worked very hard and have somethging to work towards for next time.

So the start of our season will be at Aston le walls next week, followed by Tweseldown. I have quite high hopes as he is going super and I was a bit of a chicke and entered BE90s! I was having a confidence crisis and hadn't been xc yet when I did my entries. A bit frustrated now as I think he'd eat up a BE100 for breakfast and be ready for our return debute to Novice by April but looks like May now...Oh well. I am certainly hoping I will have an excuse to buy a top hat and tails towards the end of the season!

Show jumping and canter work

Its been a mad few days here at Team One Eye.

On Saturday I travelled with a client to Watership down for a hack - I can't believe my job sometimes! And taught a couple of lessons. My pupils did their first spot of jumping and very nicely too!

Afterwards a friend and I took Lacey and Squirrel out for a long ride to have a look at a field that may be suitable for canter work. I've hopefully found a very local canter track, 5 minutes hack away to use but owners are away at the moment so waiting to hear back from that. We finished the day doing some loading pracise with Lacey.

She finds travelling very stressful so starts barging and trying to run back to her stable the moment she is faced with the ramps so I want to teach her travelling is not a big scary deal before we attempt to take her out. She has already improved - travel boots and a tail bandadge used to trigger trembling and bolshiness but with practise she is happy again.

Well Lacey has learnt a new trick. She went right in the first time, and stood there snorting her head off with a lot of carrots being pumped into her stomach. Second time she attempted to bolt back to her stable a couple of times, and with me feebly holding onto the lunge rope, skidding behind her, trying to get some gripe with my feet so I could stop her; Jason did an excellent superman impression and grabbed her as she cantered past to make her stop!


So she quickly learnt that didn't work. So she just decided not to go in at all. We got her in twice more and by the end of it she didn't seem stressed, just stubborn. So it's going to take a bit longer than I thought. I want EVERYTHING to be easy and calm before we take her out. It's a long long project but I have no doubt she'll get there.

Sunday dawned bright and early for me, with schooling Lacey at the crack of dawn. She was fantastic, she is getting very relaxed and calm. Her attitude is amazing me - she's gone from saying "Oh this is hard. I can't do it. I WON'T do it. Nope, can't. Won't." que rearing and spinning; to now she says "Oh this is hard. I'm not sure I can do it...but I'll try" which is WONDERFUL.

She did the most lovely canterwork, just relaxed, chilled and even around a third of the school (so a 20x40 outside track basically) without charging which is quite big for her. She was excellent again on Tuesday (hacked on Monday). She is still stiff to the right rein and finds it hard to do flexions in that direction as well as leg yielding, but we did plenty of that and some canter spirals. She's getting there!

After riding Lacey on Sunday we went to look at a potentional project. It was a little 3 year old unraced/untrained Thoroughbred. She was sweet but much smaller than I expected - all withers! Anyway, I just didn't feel 'it' really so passed. To be honest, that idea is going to take a back seat and looking at how manic the next two weeks are going to be I'm quite relieved!

Dashed back to the yard to drag Squirrel in to go show jumping! Its only
unaffiliated as didn't see the point in regestering him BS for in essence just a month. Though in hindsight after he popped 1.50m on Friday perhaps we should of!

 We arrived at Crofton Manor at 2.30 just as the 85cm was finishing so beautifully in time. I walkd the 90cm and it looked like a fairly tricky course. They made full use of the arena, and the course looked like it was just dying for you to really ride lines and into corners. Watching others, it was very apparant which riders used to the space available and which didn't.

I decided if we went clear I would just have some fun in the jump off, we rarely jump against the clock so I decided to take some risks and see what we could do.

We went double clear and into the lead by 3 seconds! And we kept it!
 

The 1m was nice and up to height and again wanted you to really ride it. It was run with the second half timed but as it was a relatively small class they wanted everyone to ride against the clock as well. Unfortunately I held for the second jump and we had it down but still went fast against the clock. We were the fastest 4 faulter and came 7th.

Squirrel grinning his head off

He was loving it, and I am LOVING my Ablion close contact saddle.


He had Monday off and then yesterday I went on a LONG fast hack to our new 'canter' field. We only did 2 circuits of the field as the 2 hour hack involved a lot of cantering anyway. Unfortunately he pulled a shoe off on the way home and was quite sore on the stoney bits, but my farrier came out and put a shoe on.

Busy week ahead with XC schooling on Friday with Warren Lampard and a combined training on Saturday. Next Wednesday he is having his back done which may result in a couple of well earned days off!