by Isobel Hudson
7. March 2010 21:06
Yeah, finally after a cold and wet winter we have finally had a dry week and the eventing has started. Due to weather, holidays and injury only Archie was ready to go and needed to outing to calm him down a bit! A very short cross country school on Friday was a scary experience as I could hardly hold him just cantering around the field and the only way to get him to lift his head and stop broncing was to face him to a fence, although this only work for about 10 fences hence it being a very short school! However new he would settle a bit more on a course when all the dressing an atmosphere makes him focus more.
Back to Moreton. Up at 4am to muckout 8 before leaving and arrived with time to spare only to find out there was a one hour delay due to frozen ground. Archie was behaving remarkably well and I opted for a rather dull but atleast obedient test as if I had put on any pressure to engage like he can at home I would have been told where to go! Just spoiled at the end when he stumbled turning on to the centre line and shot off on his head in reponse meaning we rather over shot it. Score of 38 which I thought was quite harsh, but understandable as he wasn't really through and engaged.
Show jumping next and a 3 fence warm up was perfect as he seemed not yet to have clicked as to what was next. The course seemed tiny and he calmly popped the first 3 and then jumped so relaxed over 4 that I had to put my leg on gently to get the 4 strides to the next. Utterly disgusted with such an action some broncing followed and the last few fences were taken in a higher gear, but clear.
On to cross country and as expected in the warm up he was pulling with his head on his knees and paying no attention to these boring fences. So I was towed over a couple and straight down to the startbox and luckily he did then focus and listen to me over the first few up the hill jumping beautifully. Slight disagreement on what speed we should go down the hill to the drop, i had visions of him rolling all the way down if I didn't interfere a bit, but then jumped great until going back down the hill towards the finish. Serious brakes were applied before the two logs on a curve, but on jumping the first he went into overdrive determined to get as few as strides as possible in between them. So i just sat back and braced as I did over the last two brush fences where he gave a finish any grand national horse would have been proud of; standing off them both and giving them feet to spare....
Unsurprisingly no time faults (Archie would never let that happen!) and he finished 9th on his dressage. So all in all good day and he has had his first adrenaline fix which will hopefully settle him a little for BE100 at Aldon in two weeks. Photos below and for professional photos click here.
Dressage warm up
First jump in the arena when he was still half asleep; trying to tell me he can do this size with his eyes closed!
At the XC start with ears pricked and raring to go
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