Horses are great fun
On Wednesday I went to Manchester to compete with Sutton Bonington (one of our campus’ near Kegworth) in the Development League. The Development League is run by the same people as BUCS but it is for the people who didn’t get into BUCS.
This was so exciting for me (although I didn't show it in the morning as I had to wake up at 5am!) and I thought it would be quite fun, especially since I hadn't ridden for about a month and hadn't jumped at all for almost 2 months!
The Team!
We had to do a dressage test and 2”3 (70cm) Show jumping course. Both horses are ones you’ve never seen or ridden before, but you get to watch the Manchester riders doing a demonstration for the dressage and SJ horses. You then have 7mins for a dressage warm up and do your test, and are judged against the other people who ride your horse. My horse was called Cruiser, he was an 8y/o and about 15.1hh he was very nice but had a very hard mouth and seemed very stiff to the right.
My test wasn’t great because I was going around thinking I don't know what I'm doing next! At one point towards the end I was mouthing to my teammate like what do I do next?!? Because I had completely forgotten! Luckily what I guessed was correct!
I got a total score of 151.5 (out of 250) a lot of my comments on the movements were that he was behind the leg, which I’d probably agree with because he was hard work and we weren’t allowed a long whip (we were allowed a short one but I didn’t want to use it).
This score put me in third when compared to the others who rode the same horse as me. I think I did well in the short time given, and I'm happy I wasn't like the other riders as two of them were just pulling and 'sawing' his mouth to force him round.
I was happy when lunch came out, they provided for us lots of pizza and crisps... well needed energy food! After lunch we had a show jumping demonstration and I drew first out of my team. I was riding a pony called Teddy he was about 14y/o and 14.2hh. He was a really nice jumper, I was a little nervous when I first got on him (especially as he refused one jump in the demonstration, awkward!) but I was happier after my warm up.
We were allowed 5mins and 3 practise jumps. The show jumping was judged by style over the jump, rather than on time, but you still got faults if you got a pole down or refused. I had a clear round and I was really happy with it all. I got a really good score (best SJ score of my team) with an overall score of 57.5 for style over jumps and 87/120 for rider marks. My overall style score was 144.5, with a comment saying I rode positively and good planning.
The team was very happy (considering the early morning we had!) with all our rounds. We got team 4th, with one of our riders getting individual 5th.
Happy to go home with some rosettes
For a full list of the videos click here
Coming up I have:
Dressage Test 7th
Cross-Country Clinic 9th
Show Jumping 12th
The Dressage and Show Jumping is with Sutton Bonington, so they will be unseen, unridden horses by me as I don't normally ride with them. But for XC clinic it should be a horse I've ridden as it's at the yard the uni does lessons and horseball.
I will be doing a Novice dressage test and 2"6 show jumping course. All of these events I'm really looking forward to.
I'm also excited for my birthday as I'm going on a riding holiday on the 22-25th March in Wales, all the other riding girls say it's so much fun, which I'm sure it will be!
