9 March
This isn't an actual photo of the BD Quest competition on 9 March. It's one of Brian's from another competition I've done at Badgworth.
The team did well on the 9th. It was a busy day with 6 teams out and over 50 entries on the day - 8 in the Novice! - which for a midweek dressage was busy!
I'd looked up the people beforehand and with some of them knocking out 70-75% at Novice regularly and most of them in the upper 68+, I figured we weren't going to be in the rossies today - and I was right. But it was all very close.
I did my new routine of hack first and then warm up. But Fred was just not feeling it, not settling for the hack even. Perhaps it was me feeling pressure of wanting to deliver for the team this time?
I was initially disappointed with a 64.1% but when you put it into context and the winner being on 67.86 (who normally scores 75%) then it actually wasn't such a bad day. I was 2.5% off Kaye. I'm normally around 2% off her score, so I was a little down in this test, probably aided by scoring a 5 for breaking in his trot circle - sigh.
Team first was our other BKRC Team Diamonds are forever, with BKRC Diamonds in the Rough coming second.
TRAILBLAZERS QUALIFICATION!
We followed up our BD Quest with a trip to Tumpy Green on the 12 March to do Novice 27 and Elementary 49 with the aim of qualifying for Trailblazers.
The good news is we qualified for the second round for both.
Freddie behaved beautifully and whilst the scores were a bit of a shock, I'm very pleased with the boy.
He travelled beautifully, warmed up lovely, did a very smart little test for me in the Novice and then did his Ele straight after - we literally didn't leave the arena, just walked around inside until the bell ran again. To be honest the whole event was a bit farcical!
There were just 14 entries, so we were due on at 11.00 (N27) and 11.12 (E49). Due to traffic, we arrived at 10.35. I tacked up and quickly got down to the warm up arena. The weather wasn't great and the organiser said to me that she didn't think I was coming and so had given my 11am time away but I could do my N27 test at 11.12 and follow it with the Ele test.
Fred warmed up lovely, even though the arena is a very odd shape and leans downhill :D and although there were only a few competitors, we seemed to be in there forever. I don't think we went in until 11.30 by which time Fred was losing some of the lovely shoulder lift (I didn't need 45 mins warming up after a 1.5hr journey!)
Eventually we went in and I thought he did a lovely little test, he listened, he flexed, he was accurate. The arena was odd, exactly 20x40m it felt very enclosed and with 60x20 markers I'm not sure the 6m markers were in the right place.
Having completed his test, I asked if they would like me to go out and come back in when they were ready for the Ele but they said no, we walked around for 5 mins tops and then the bell rang and we started again. Freddie was getting tired now and I didn't feel he was as sharp. My halt to reinback was ruined when (having halted pretty much touching the judge in her box it was so tight) a horse and human face appeared over the gate (from behind the box) and startled Fred. His back right quarter took a step out and there was no way I could reinback straight from there. But he did his first test with leg yields and really tried.
I was really narked to get 63.03% for our Novice. It was NOT that bad a test and we were 2nd out of 2. He then got 63.67% for his Elementary test, which is great but just didn't make the Novice score make any sense.
Later that day I looked up all the scores. The judge had given out 58-60.5% to all tests bar 3. My Novice test (63.03%) the person ahead of me in the Novice (63.2%) and my Ele test (63.67%) being the highest score of the day. I was gutted to be just 0.33% off the Hartpury qualification. But was super proud of Fred.