Oatridge XC Training with David Gatherer

Team Hopalong have been pretty quiet since Scotsburn, we had a quiet week after Scotsburn just doing lots of hacking to keep the fitness up and the school at the yard is still out of use which is a good excuse to avoid dressage practice! ;) Although new surface has been promised soon, which is just as well as we do need the practice...!

This weekend I was helping dressage write in the morning for Oatridge BE event (so I now know what not to do!) and then enjoyed watching some XC in the afternoon.

Today I was back to Oatridge with Hopalong in tow for the training day over the BE courses with David Gatherer. We did this last year and had a really good day, so was really looking forward to this. We were not very lucky with the weather- it rained the whole time, but luckily my lovely cameraman stuck it out to take some piccies for me! :)

We mostly stuck to the Novice fences today (Oatridge is a small Novice course, but some of them were still plenty big enough!) with the exception of a very wide table fence and the jump into the water. Heidi was absolutely on fire and having a ball, she was so keen to get on with it and we had lots of prancing, jogging and sideways dancing when she was upset that the other horses were getting a turn! Acting her shoe size not her age?! ;) Nice to know she's enjoying it though.

We started off over the first two fences, nice and straightforward and no problems. She was so keen to get out of the start box that we got a horse version of a "wheel spin", even with studs in! Got a lovely jump over the first fence and she was more than happy to zoom off to the second!
We then jumped no.3 on an angle fine, got a little close but there is never any worry about her picking her toes up!
4ab was a drop with a ditch on the far side then two strides to a rolltop with brush. She did her usual "eeek, things might lurk in the ditch" massive leap over the ditch which led to me having to slip the reins and not look very pretty over part B, but it's not style jumping, so all good! ;) Still no sign of her brushing through brush though!
We then had a wee play jumping the ditch/step in the other direction which was good practice. Down the hill and over a nice straightforward rolltop;
No.6 was off a 90deg right hand turn and a pretty decent sized box fence. Was a little nervous about it and our first attempt looked rather funny;
Although we jumped it another couple of times and on the third attempt managed a slightly more normal jump over it, although she still gave it plenty of air.
Then onto a combination of gate to rolltop on four curving strides (some Christmas trees getting in the way of a nice, straight line through the middle, how rude of the course designer!) which she flew through no bother.
We then jumped the skinny log in the woods and out over a double of hedges, lots of concentration here. ;) Honest I was having fun...!
I then spent ages dithering about whether to jump the big Novice table or not. My worry was that it was very wide (I know the height is not an issue with her!) and that since she prefers to get in close and then jump "up", she may not make the width if we didn't get a perfect stride to it. I would never forgive myself if I messed it up and ruined her/my confidence and we are not looking to go Novice BE and so will not need to jump anything that big/wide, so figured although it would be a real achievement to jump it, I'd rather keep both of us happy and confident. So we did the PN flower box instead;
We then splashed through the PN water (ramp in, house fence jump out) and up the hill jumping some more gate type fences en route to the corner, which she jumped first time really nicely
Up the step and then linked up the intro, PN and Novice fences to make an angled line of rolltop to skinny to skinny. First two we got nice strides to but got a funny stride to the last one, hence (another!) funny face in the second picture from me!
We then finished up jumping the wall and zooming up the hill to the chair fence at the last, no problems at these fences and so lots of pats, polos and pear for Heidi. :)
Next up is our riding club's SJ evening on Wednesday... if I can escape the office on time of course!

Scotsburn PN 29-05-10

Both Heidi and I are having a quiet day recovering from completing our first PN (BE100) yesterday at Scotsburn, north of Inverness. My friend kindly offered us a lift up in her nice big lorry so Team Hopalong travelled in much more style than normal!

We went up on Friday afternoon and got settled into the on site stabling and went to walk the course. It all looked quite nice, plenty of them up to height and the only ones really making me feel a little worried were two big steps up a hill and a very wide ditch at the half coffin.

Plaited up in the evening and enjoyed a BBQ then off to bed with an early alarm set- dressage test was at 8.24am!

Lots of rain overnight but luckily dry in the morning when I got up. Had a bit of a stress warming up as had left Bob to go get my number from the secretary's tent for me and he still hadn't appeared when they were shouting for the rider two to go in front of me! This meant we didn't have an ideal warm up and were both far too tense. :( Felt a really horrible test, with the exception of the free walk on a long rein and the judge agreed- score of 44 with 6s/5s and a solitary 8 for the free walk. Not the worst, but not as good a score as we could have hoped for.
So on to the SJ. Didn't warm up very well (I never do, tend to get a little nervous!) but went in and had a decent clear round. :) Saw a few long ones and chipped in a little close to some, but she was as careful as ever and made sure to keep them all up. :)

Then on to the real fun bit- XC! She was very keen and bounced over to the start box. :) Headed out over rails at no.1 and wall at no.2 fine;
And then onto a roll top with brush at no.3, the plan being to aim for the right hand "half moon" of brush. However, Heidi jinked left on the last stride and ended up taking on the middle (highest!) part!!! Bob very happy to capture my expression over this fence! Just goes to show height is not a problem for Hopalong! ;)
Kicked on to no.4 after laughing with Bob "what did you say about not jumping the highest part?!", over the palisade to drop and then super over the skinny brush at no.5. Then on up the hill to the scary steps at no.6, although she did these really nicely. Fab jump over straightforward roll top at no.7 and over the wall at no.8. A corner (that wasn't really a corner, more like an angled box fence!) at no.9 then down the hill to the ski jump at no.10, she was a little spooky but went;

Then down a very steep hill trying to get my reins back to no.11, another drop fence!

No 12 was a half coffin with a hanging log (could see daylight under it!) as part a and a ditch at part b. I was worried that the ditch was very wide, but turns out I should have worried about the spooky log- she backed off it and I wasn't quick enough/firm enough to do anything about it, so we picked up our first XC pens. :( Quite annoyed with myself as I should have reacted quicker. We weren't alone though, that fence was causing a lot of problems! Over it 2nd time around and popped the ditch no bother.

Up the hill to 13ab (small step up to a house fence) then along to 14ab (big, square log pile to a roll top on an angle) all fab, then around over another house fence at 15 and down the hill to a step down at 16, another step down at 17a and a step into the water at 17b- lots of steps! She was very bold at the first step, backed off at the water, but went in ok and then had a nice canter along the water (with a spook at the novice fence on the way through!) to jump out over the "lock" at no.18;
Out of the water, around the last corner and over the last fence;

And then home over the finish line to complete our first PN! :D

So although I'm annoyed that our dressage could have been better and I should have been more "grrrr" at the 1st attempt of 12a, there were a lot of good points- the other XC fences she jumped fab and a clear SJ to be happy about.

Heidi cooled off and travelled home fine and was happy to be out mooching with her field pals again yesterday evening. :) Next up is a XC training day with David Gatherer at Oatridge on 13th June and then Hopetoun BE on 3rd July. I think I'll be brave and enter the PN for Hopetoun! :)

XC Schooling at Hendersyde Park with Les Smith

A little bit slow to update, but it's been a busy week!

On Sunday, we trundled down to Hendersyde Park, Kelso, for a XC lesson with Les Smith. Sadly I had a cold appear all of a sudden over the weekend, so wasn't feeling 100% and poor Heidi had to put up with me not quite being on the ball (even more than normal?!) but she was a super star. :)

Started off doing a little 20mins over SJs, jumped the spooky filler fine;
And spread fence;
And we finished with a loop over a very skinny rustic fence and some XC rails;
Rode these two fences like a numpty first time around, much better second time though once I'd woken up!

So then out onto the XC course properly and started over a tiny log (very scary apparently!) then a bigger log and straight around to jump it's bigger neighbour;

Then the same thing over some box fences- started with a small one and worked out way up to a pretty decent sized one. (photographer too far away for pics of these!)

And then over to the bank, where Les had us string a wee course together which was good. :) Love the first shot of this sequence!
And lastly on to the water complex. Decided to not give her the option of getting to paddle in via the ramp and go straight for a step/drop in, as that's what we'll need to do at Scotsburn at the end of the month! She was a little bit "precious" about it, but went in, which is what matters! ;)
Spent a bit of time going in off the drops and out up the steps;
And then Les decided we should try the jump into the water! Eeeek! This was what Heidi thought of it first time around (cheeky monkey doesn't appear to be even considering it- she's not even bothering to look!);
So a couple of attempts later (rider also got a little wussy at the thought of a dunking in the cold, murky water!) once I'd given both of us a growl to get on with it and we managed this (spot the change from "concentration" to "relief" in my expression! ;)
So very happy to have achieved that as would never have imagined we'd do anything like a jump into water! :D

Been doing lots of hacking this week to get fitness levels sorted for Scotsburn on 29th May (apparently a hilly one!) and popped down to SNEC on on Wednesday evening for their low-key unaff SJ evening. Did the 85cm and 95cm classes and although both Heidi and I were a little snoozy (neither of us are great doing late nights and it being quite warm and clammy didn't help!), we managed two double clears to come 2nd in both classes. :) Still panicking when I can't see a stride, so need to work on that! Can't get a happy medium- outdoors she's too forwards and indoors she needs more revving up!