Two years ago this weekend, Fred and I stormed around Pontispool doing our first ever BE together. Mum was there, the weather was great and we finished on a DR score of 34.5 with 4 faults SJ and clear inside the time XC. It was the perfect day.
After not really dealing with losing mum, we took some time out. This year, Fred has been excelling in his SJ, Dressage and been jumping 90cm fences XC schooling with ease. So, on Saturday 16th September we headed back out for another bash at BE, and I was feeling pretty confident at another good day out......
Sadly, unlike two years ago, it was not the day dreams are made of....
As we arrived and got out of the box to tack up, a couple of things happened:
At the end of the row two lorries down from us, a horse broke free and legged it, unsettling the horse in the row in front of me. Whilst I thought "goodness someone has a sharp horse", it did not occur to me (and nor did I notice) that this had been in fact triggered by a free-range pig.
Oblivious to the pig-situation, I continued to get on with my day - however, the call of 'loose horse' and subsequent high energy had got Fred's radar up, made 'oh-so-much-worse' by his tail (plaited to make it crinkly) terrifying him when it touched his legs and so we were now in a comical dog-chases-tail/ roundabout / human-horse-whirly-gig as I desperately tried to take the plaiting bands out and free his tail whilst holding on to the headcollar rope.
However, things became calmer and although he went a bit into himself in the warm up I was able to send him on a bit - I've learnt quite a bit in the last two years about what I want to 'feel' from him in the warm up.
The dressage phase
I headed to my dressage arena arriving as the previous person left, this usually allows a couple of laps around the arena for me to rev the trot up. However, as I rode past the judge she leaned out and I heard "..ringing the bell so you can hear it" - which left me thinking, has she rung it for me to start - did she said "I'm ringing the bell.." or "I'll ring the bell..." which meant I rode very tentatively instead of very forward and came down the centre line slightly backwards as I wasn't sure if I was about to be eliminated for starting before the bell.... *Sigh* this as you can imagine is not the way I wanted to start the test. It lead to not travelling forwards confidently, which meant we had a wobbly first line and a flat first turn and a crap shaped first circle as I didn't really relax until the circle and Fred had recoiled into himself.
My commentary of the test would be:
Slightly backward thinking rider and therefore pony attempts to move without actually taking a stride, therefore losing balance on centre line coming in and wobbled after X left and right (at least that's how I knew how and where the ground went up and down) until falling in around human's leg in to the first turn....
On discovering he still couldn't quite move his legs forward enough to make a full 20m right handed circle, settled for making it an egg shaped 18m.
Changing the rein with a little more impetuous, we're marginally more able to actually take on left canter, relaxing slightly, we even managed to make our left circle a proper circle this time.
Changed the rein, began sequence again but more relaxed in 20m left so we made it a nice circle, however, didn't fancy an upward trans on a corner but decided if we're in canter the safest way is to pogo it. Terrified into trot and then finally allowed to walk at which point I took a big sigh and walked to a nice halt...... Human expertly using the rise and fall of the ground to wait until we were on the downhill bit after X and halted square in a frame with bottom tidily underneath us.
Ergo, his dressage was tense for a 34.8 score (including an 8 for his final halt!) but surprisingly left us lying in 9th and me just a little bit too hopeful.
The show jumping phase
We had a really stupid pole in the SJ (and I mean stupid - it was a small upright and he just didn't really bother to pick his feet up), he basically got a bit onward bound and downhill after fence one, because we haven't jumped on grass in well over a year and he just lost his balance as the field tipped away, that said, the fence was still small enough for him to have made it. The rest of the round resulted in me 'sitting him up' and setting him up rather than travelling properly, gaining 2 time faults to boot.... but with only a few clears here and there, it was down to the xc.....
The Cross Country Phase
It was a beautiful course and something Fred was easily able to do.....But we didn't get there....
As we rode back from the SJ to our lorry, I heard someone comment "Jees, look at the size of that pig, I could put a bridle on it and ride it around the XC"... Just the other side of my trailer (behind a chicken wire fence) was the most enormous pig we've ever seen. I laughed and didn't give it much thought.... *I* didn't give it a second thought...FRED however, literally shit his pants and couldn't do anything BUT think about the pig.
Snorting and prancing around me like a kite on a windy day, I could not get him to let it go. It made getting kitted up for XC really difficult and although I managed to get front boots on him (with a bash in my arm from his low flying hooves for the pleasure) and grappled with getting my XC kit on, like I was a strip dancer with a lasso to keep spinning!! Sadly, the ginger brain was gone and alas so our day was over.
So I have put the "At least you didn't cry" rosette pic up (can't even remember where I got that image from) with these nice pics I treated myself to from the SJ .... even though I really REALLY wanted to sob my heart out.
In hindsight, may be I should have caught the pig and put a bridle on it!! However, I levelled out the universe by having bacon sandwiches for breakfast and will sausages for dinner the next day.. and I shall be mostly buying Gloucester Spotted pig for all my next meals so there might be a couple less 'free range' when we go next year