13 July 2019 - Area 12 Show Jumping Qualifier at KSEC
It's been some time since I represented my riding club and even longer still since I did it on my own horse.
2 years ago I attended the National Championships riding Novice on a friends horse (Cara), it was a bit of a 'back door' pass in that they needed someone to make up the finals team. I think the time before that that I represented my club, I was living in Surrey and it was the Winter Team Show Jumping at BCA in February 2014!!
After his scare in the warm up in January (when someone ran into him) this was his first 'big' show, in fact it was our first big show anyway. The lorry park was packed in like sardines, there were three show jumping arenas on the go, and he behaved beautifully. From standing on the trailer whilst I presented my passport and got my number to tacking up, warming up, everything.
As we warmed up I thought, wow, here we are Fred, we finally made it! Whatever happens now, we got here!
Show jumping round one
The first round was on grass and only 70cm. We jumped a nice round but had a silly stop because Fred saw someone behind a jump (rolls eyes) so that was 4 faults and apparently 16 time faults (I thought they said 6 over the tanoy, but then it was going in and out).
Show jumping round two
The second round was in the arena and it was a bit bigger. 75cm (2'6 in old money) and our first time competing at this height. Fred jumped this round incredibly. He got into a rhythm straight away and was just awesome. Pilot sat nav error unfortunately caused us 4 faults in a knock down. There I was in this lovely rhythm thinking "ok, now left handed to jump 3...." when I saw jump 3 to my right!!!! A last minute yank in and it didn't really give poor Fred a chance - you can see on the video the change in direction. So another silly 4 faults but wow, how this boy has grown up. He even stood on the trailer quietly eating hay whilst we finished up with a cuppa and bacon butty.
It was nice to have soooo many good pics to choose from. Normally you have to go with the one that makes it look like you may possibly have done a good round, but this time I had to cut down my choice from 17!
And we ended up somewhere middle of the table - around 10th from 20. So actually not too shabby given the 20 faults in the first round!!!! To say I'm proud of my boy would be an understatement. I know this is just the start of an incredible journey.