After a mix of cancellations and withdrawals we finally made it to our first British Eventing of the 2016 season this weekend! We spent a lovely sunny day at Kirriemuir which is about 2 hours north of Edinburgh.
Safe to say I wasn't as prepared as I was a month ago, Cork's has been off with a horrible infection in his fetlock caused by a self inflicted cut of all things. It meant 2 vet visits and lots of time off. He got the go ahead to compete on Tue so I managed a few hacks to start with and then a schooling session which all seemed to go well. I took Friday off work to head to a local arena to have a jump too. I'm still trying to find a bit I'm happy show jumping in - not sure the running gag is the right option but not sure what to try next? We worked through a grid to start and finished up with a little course. He seemed to have a great time and felt nice and fit.
Safe to say I wasn't as prepared as I was a month ago, Cork's has been off with a horrible infection in his fetlock caused by a self inflicted cut of all things. It meant 2 vet visits and lots of time off. He got the go ahead to compete on Tue so I managed a few hacks to start with and then a schooling session which all seemed to go well. I took Friday off work to head to a local arena to have a jump too. I'm still trying to find a bit I'm happy show jumping in - not sure the running gag is the right option but not sure what to try next? We worked through a grid to start and finished up with a little course. He seemed to have a great time and felt nice and fit.
We had lovely times on the Sat so not too early a start. Walking the SJ and XC everything looked great. The XC was very hilly and there was a section about half way round with two corners and then onto trekenner on a curved line I was a little worried about but we had the dressage to worry about first!
I was feeling excited and confident about the dressage after the good scores we had been getting lately. I think that was our downfall! The warm up was varied, a few mins of good work, then back to our old contact issues. I worked him for 40 mins as this is usually when he does his best work at home. Our test was disappointing but fairly scored for 37.5. I decided to put it down to excitement of our first event and move on.
Off we went to the SJ where we took 2 poles :-( Chipping into the third which was a one stride double so Corky tried to put in 2 strides. We then took the next fence too as were too fast out of the disastrous double! At least we know where the mistake came from and can work on it.
I was feeling excited and confident about the dressage after the good scores we had been getting lately. I think that was our downfall! The warm up was varied, a few mins of good work, then back to our old contact issues. I worked him for 40 mins as this is usually when he does his best work at home. Our test was disappointing but fairly scored for 37.5. I decided to put it down to excitement of our first event and move on.
Off we went to the SJ where we took 2 poles :-( Chipping into the third which was a one stride double so Corky tried to put in 2 strides. We then took the next fence too as were too fast out of the disastrous double! At least we know where the mistake came from and can work on it.
By the time we got to the XC I was so nervous and Corky was so wild we just popped a couple of warm up jumps, which he flew over, and headed over to start. The first couple of jumps were quite small and up a hill so I thought they would get us into the swing of things and use up a little of Corky's excess energy. It worked thankfully and by fence 3 we were in a lovely flowing rhythm and that set the pace for the rest of the course. I can safely say it was the first XC rounds I had really enjoyed since my fall which was great. He flew round taking everything in his stride. The corner combination jumped great and apart from a sticky jump out of the water his round was flawless.
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