Camp!

Another slow update, but last weekend Hopalong and I went to my Riding Club's first ever senior camp. :D It was held at Kinnaird XC, which is a farm just outside Cupar that has a wee XC course, some SJs and they were able to set up a dressage arena on grass for us too. Horses were able to be stable or out grazing, whichever you preferred (Heidi was out munching grass and enjoying the company of some sheet and a pretty boy horse over the fenceline for the weekend!) and there was a large undercover area for sitting and blethering in.

We were very lucky with the weather and only had a wee bit of rain on Saturday afternoon. Went for a "quiet hack" on Friday evening (which ended up being a couple of laps of the field in canter/gallop as the horses were all rather excited!) and then got some pizzas for dinner and had a good evening with everyone.

We had a SJ lesson on Saturday morning. Warm up consisted of walk-gallop as it was in amongst the XC jumps in a massive field and Heidi was very excited! ;) Did some grid work and a wee course to finish on and once she calmed down, got some lovely jumping.

Watched the other lessons while Heidi had some chill out time in the field, then it was back on board for a XC lesson. This time Heidi was thrilled to be allowed to increase the speed and play over the fun stuff. :) Jumped a good selection of different fences and strung some tricky combos together including three arrowheads on a S-shaped curve on a tricky incline/camber and a steep downhill approach to skinny log and ditch- good coffin practice!

Hopalong was on good form and jumped everything no bother. Finished up the session jumping two offset palisades and then a big log which Bob and the instructor reckoned was about 1.10m!

BBQ and more blethering on Saturday evening, then a dressage lesson on Sunday morning. She went really well (maybe new dressage saddle will help us?!) and there was some glimmers of decent work and consistent outline. :D Tried to put it into practice in the afternoon with our first attempt at a Novice BD test (N28) and didn't do too badly, got 62.5%, although not quite as good as in lesson with Linda shouting at us! ;)

Finished up the weekend with a wee round of SJs to complete the combined training mini comp and then it was time to go home. :( Everyone had a really good time and hopefully we'll get to do it another time. :)

Very keen warming up through the grid!

Being very spooky over the water tray, daft pony!

Some other SJ pics;
XC pics;