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Welcome to Amateur Equestrian Antics

I set up this blog up back in 2014 to share stories of my equestrian trials and tribulations. I had just started to event for the first time ever after a 10 year break from horses and wanted to document my journey for friends and family. 

​In that time I have achieved so much but still have so much further to go. 

I have been supported and sponsored by some fantastic friends, trainers and businesses in this time and I have a new dedicated section of the site to tell you more about them all. 

Find out more

Two out of three isn't that bad - is it??

21/5/2015

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So after the disaster which was Kirriemuir I decided to try to have some fun and stop over thinking things this week.

I headed over to SNEC on Wed night for their schooling night. Although I have been having lots of lessons, I haven’t actually been out jumping full courses. It was lovely and quiet, we had a nice warm up and went in for the 85 – Corks didn’t put a foot wrong, I got a little lost and tried to miss out number four. We therefore came in at a bit of an angled so rolled it but that was definitely rider error! The 95 went better; we flew round and Corks made it feel easy. Unfortunately the last pole went but I let him get a little flat. Overall it was our best jumping in ages and we both enjoyed it.

Thursday night we headed over to Rockrose with the South East Scotland Dressage Group to their schooling night. We spent 45 mins working in their lovely indoor school. Wasn’t perfect but I was pleased with him and it felt like he was trying hard. Also met some lovely new people. The SESDG have lots of training and events planned which we’ll be attending to help beat the stressage!

Friday night we had a short lesson at home which went well, just some final prep before the 4.30am start for Floors the next day.

We arrived at Floors with plenty of time to spare. I walked the SJ which looked like the perfect course for Corks – lots of fillers to back him off and probably about 95 – big enough that he would respect the jumps hopefully. Next was the XC walk, I had left enough time to walk twice after almost getting lost over the back hill at Kirrie – lesson learnt! The course was lovely, flat and flowing. There were a few questions (a trakehner earlier on at number 4, a tricky skinny before the water and a log to ditch to log combination near the end). It was a much easier route to follow than Kirrie through, just out to the water and back basically.

Feeling good about both jumping phases we tacked up and hacked over through the woods to the DR. I thought the hack over to the dressage would help chill Corks out but unfortunately it did the opposite. He was not a happy boy – he would not accept the contact at all so we rode a horrific dressage. I was so disappointed as we’ve been working so hard but it just wasn’t to be. I think I might pop him out on the lunge before getting on in future to see if that helps. I’m also going to ride in my jump saddle as a few people have suggested I’ll be able to get my leg on better and have a softer seat than in my Wintec DR saddle. May be time for a saddle upgrade!

No point in worrying about it though, it was done. Onwards to the jumping which didn’t disappoint! The show jumping was very quiet so I had a short warm up, popped a few fences and went straight in. C was a star, jumped his wee socks off and only took the last pole. I turned a little sharply in hindsight and it came on us a bit quicker than I expected but after last week I was over the moon. XC was next and I was determined not to pick up any time faults this week. We set off well but were almost caught out by the trakehner at 4 – he chipped in as just wasn’t quite in his flow yet. After that he was flying, everything came quite easily apart for a nice grand national style brush which he chipped too.  This left me a little worried as there were three quite substantial box style jumps on the home straight which I needed him to stand off a bit. I decided to ride quite positively from there – he happy listened. Over the tricky skinny and into the water. We trotted in but picked up canter while in the water this week to save on time. I didn’t need to worry about the larger jumps on the way back – he was super confident and flying by then. I really had to work hard to get him back for the log to ditch to log – thankfully there was a kindly added ground line for the ditch which helped him back off a bit. We came in 20 secs under the time and clear. I do think the time was much easier to get on this flat course than the hilly one at Kirrie.  We are off to Belsey next which I’m told is a tricky XC course so it’ll be interesting to see how we fair for time there.

All in all I was so please with the jumping, but so disappointed by the dressage.  To give me a little perception on our performance, I proceeded to fly over Lucas’ head when I rode him in the afternoon so I then quickly forgave Corky for the bad dressage as at least he looks after me!

Off for a week of R&R in Tenerife now and will start a fresh in June……..when we will nail the dressage!!! 

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Third BE of the season and things are going downhill!

12/5/2015

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After some good lessons over the last few weeks we headed off to Kirriemuir, a new event for us. I was really looking forward to it as the XC looks like lots of fun and I thought we had made some good progress on our DR and SJ……..famous last words!

We hit the road at 6.30am in horrific rain and I also managed to roll back into a wall while reversing the lorry - not a great start but fortunately there was no damage to the lorry and the further north we got, the better the weather got. Maybe the wall incident was a one off and not the way the day was going to go…….

On arrival at Kirrie things were looking good – dry and sunny, the ground was fab and the XC didn’t disappoint! I would say it wasn’t built as big as Dalkeith, but was more technical and certainly hillier! My main worries were a couple of combinations which both included a skinny part b element, a roll top straight out of the water and managing to control our speed up and down the steep hills!

I had a quick look at the SJ on the way back and it looked very straight forward, only 9 jumps and not build big either.

Feeling quietly confident we headed down to the DR – Corks warmed up well and seemed to be listening to me so all good so far. Our arena was nice with good flat ground - off we went in smiling at the judge but for some reason it just didn’t come together. We lost all impulsion (I had to click at him to move forward when out of the judge’s earshot), I couldn’t get him to work into the bridle and he had a very uneven head carriage. He didn’t actually do anything wrong, all movements/transitions where actuate we just needed more power. I thought it probably fell between our score at Eden Valley and Dalkeith so maybe a 38…….turns out the judge disagreed and gave us a 41. I was disappointed but when l I watched the video back I agreed it was a fair mark and we had lots of work to do once we got home.

No point in worrying about it now – onwards to the SJing. Aim was to improve on our last score of 8 faults. There were only 9 jumps so how many could we really knock down……..3 it turns out. It was a real shame as he didn’t touch a pole in the warm up.

Sitting on 55 (inc 1 flipping SJ time fault!) going into the XC I decided just to enjoy it, make sure I didn’t rush any of the combinations and finish on a good note. The course rode very well – I was pleased with Corks as he really came back going down the hills when I asked him allowing me to set up the line for the combinations and he really rocketed up the hills when I let him. We did have a green moment jumping the roll top out if the water – I think I trotted into the water too slowly and didn’t really set him up for it. Once he realised it was a jump he leaped over it to the right, I continued straight forward and for a moment, I thought I was going to get a dunking! Fortunately I hung on but learnt a good lesson! We then flew home over the last 3 jumps but did pick up time faults. I think there were due to me trotting into a few of the combinations but I would rather do that at our stage them go too fast and pick up the 20 pens.

Overall I was disappointed with my riding in the dressage, both of us in the SJ but pleased with the XC. The event was well run and one I would definitely go back to. We are off to Floors this weekend so have a jump lesson and a flat work lesson to try to help us get our mojo back. We are also going to a dressage schooling night – plan is to not get in the way of the proper dressage horses and copy what they do ;-)

Onwards and upwards!

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    Louise Doherty

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