We arrived in good time (getting to the yard at 5am zzzz) and I walked the course. I was pleasantly surprised by the going and was looking forward to it, I wasn't worried about anything and infact was looking forward to the bank complex.
I tacked up and had a very very minimal warmup. I orginally intended to potter about in the woods but after spotting some army vehicles I thought perhaps not. I found a corner in the dressage warm up that wasn't too bad (as in you could see some green!). People had obviously been avoiding it as it was a bit undulating and there was a drain cover. I prefered this to the ploughed field so had a cautious trot and canter round.
Fortunately and unfortunately my dressage ring was one of the far ones. Nicely far away so I went the long way round so I could fit in a couple of transitions and get a more forward trot, BUT it was also the arena I had hoped I wouldn't be in as it seemed to have the worst ground.
Squirrel was surprisingly soft and supple given the lack of warm up, and performed a nice quiet test. A couple of my transitions were a bit stiff, and in 1 trot circle he tried to break into canter a few times when I asked for more trot. Overall I felt it was accurate but lacking - I simply wasn't happy to be pushing for "more" in his paces on that going. He tried though and that was enough for me.
The SJ warm up was okay when I got there (I was on early mind!) although the approach to the oxer was hard. I was able to warm him up a bit better and get him travelling and off my leg. I only popped a couple then headed over. I watched two go who both accumilated a lot of faults so I was hoping not to disgrace ourselves.
I set off at a fairly forwards rhythm given both before me had time faults and had a good shot to number one. Good to number 2 and managed to hold for 6 strides instead of the 5 I walked so a bit close but clear. The rest went smoothly until we turned up the last line, for some reason we turned the corner, he saw the jumps and just hooned off! Like..flat out gallop so it was lucky the jumps stayed up, but they did and we were clear.
I got changed by the SJ as decided it was far too far to go back to the lorry and we set off cross country shortly. Also meant I could get away without jumping in the warm up as it was horrendous.
Soon enough we set off. Hit a long one for fence one and I kicked as didn't want to chip in. It was tiny but Squirrel managed to wack it pretty hard and we were lucky to land on our feet. He was great though, jumped the next few out his stride, bounded up and down and up the bank complex with delight, had a silly spooky chip in at 2 tiny logs with trees underneath, happily cantered through the water, bounded over the next few fences. He jumped great over the slightly bigger fences on the course, got a bit close to the corner which was quite small but he was never going to stop and we were home.
I went slower than at Aston, partly the going and partly that going 30 seconds too fast is a little frowned upon. Squirrel was barely out of breath and didn't even break sweat (it was freezing though!) but I felt quite confident we had made the time.
We sorted him out when we got to the lorry, gladly his legs all felt great. He still needed a pretty full bath with all the tweseldown sand despite not sweating but hey ho! We wandered down to the tradestands to check the scores and get some food and coffee....Only to discover I had a 29 dressage and was comfortably inside the time by 7 seconds! Never had a dressage in the 20s before affiliated so was thrilled, especially as our test could of been better. There were plenty of scores in the 40s so it wasn't a particularly kind judge, although the stewards did say they took ground into account.
So it was a long, long LONG wait for the results (I kind of feel if you're looking to be in the top 3 its rude not to stay after all the effort they put in), and luckily it was worth it as we won! Again! Two wins in a row :D :D
We've got next weekend off then at Munstead for the BE100. And buy a copy of this weeks horse and hound, we're in it!
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