Berrima International One Day Event 2nd/3rd July 2011

On the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd of July, I attended the Berrima International One Day event.

This was a large event with around 300 entries.The weather for the weekend itself was great, but unfortunately the week leading up to the event had seen large down pours of rain, causing parts of the XC course to become waterlogged and unrideable in parts. This meant that the course had to be altered for all grades early on Saturday morning.

Fortunately, the dressage arenas and SJ arena had remained dry enough that we didnt slide around too much.

Im proud to say, that we achieved, our BEST open competition dressage result! Woo hoo!
We have been having a stack of lessons with a new coach and things are starting to become MUCH easier for both of us. This means that we had a very consistant dressage test! Scoring mainly 6's and 7's with an 8 for my long rein walk! We had no arguments during the test which is unusual for Paris- but very pleasing. We ended up placing 15th out of 30 with a score of 62%!!! Yay for Paris!

We then continued on to do a very smooth, clear SJ round!!
After showjumping we jumped up into 9th place sitting on our dressage score!

Sunday saw us 6th on course for XC. Paris was a little legend and cruised around with nothing a bother. We managed to get a semi normal entrance into the water, with minimal argument about getting her toes wet.

Unfortunately, I put the wrong XC time into my watch, which saw me come in 18 seconds faster than the minimum time (Which I thought was the optimum..) Therefore incurring 7.2 time penalties and dropping into 12th place. Very dissapointing on my behalf, as we are generally pretty good at going clear on our XC time, which would have seen me sitting around 5th place!!
But we live and learn dont we?

We have two more Introductory starts for this year, then we will up to Preliminary for the Canberra event in September. Im very optimistic!

Murrumbateman SJ Festival 11th/12th of June 2011

Wow- Its been a while since I updated..

On the weekend of the 11th and 12th of June, Paris and I headed down to my Pony club for the biggest showjumping event in our zone. The is a state qualifying event, so there was people from all over NSW as well as Canberra there.
This was my first B grade competition on Paris and we kicked butt!
The competition went over 2 days with 7 seperate SJ events over the weekend.
We placed as follows;

4th Equitation
3rd AM2
2nd 6 bar
2nd Topscore
4th Grand Prix
2nd Derby (Mixture of XC and showjumps- very hunter horse type thing)

The 7th event was a rescue relay, which is where you team up with a friend and you have to try and complete 2 showjumping rounds between the 2 of you in under 2 minutes. If I knock a rail my partner has to be ready to jump the next jump in my place. If I have a stop, my partner has to take over from the jump I stopped at. This is all for fun, but is all about strategy! Tell you what, it was very hard to wipe the smile off my face for the rest of the day after this round!

Anywho, we ended up placing second over all for B grade Saturday and Sunday! Which was a great feat for both of us at our first B grade comp!!

Im going to add this picture just because I love it!! This is from a clinic at my pony club with Trevor Morris. This particular lesson was a huge turning point in our jump training!

Canberra ODE 14th-15th May 2011

WOW! What a weekend!

It was great to finally have some Team ESB support for a change! Due to me being the only ESB competitor along the NSW east coast, I am normally the only one to be out and representing the ESB name!
However, this competition saw me surrounded by other ESB's :)
I had the pleasure of meeting Jill Lockhart and the beautiful Gamble and also Hinnerk Hueppe with Spell and Day. Spell is a full sister to Paris, and they look very similar! It was interesting having so many people asking who the man is riding Paris!! Was also interesting to watch how similar, and different she is to Paris in the way that she moves and jumps! She seems to be more like Strum (also a full sister, owned by a very good friend)

Anywho, Paris went soo well in all phases! Her dressage was amazing in parts, we just need to work on consistancy! Time to start looking for a new coach I think!
Our showjumping was super! We are now jumping in the snaffle full time, and its making the world of diffrence! I find her dropping less in the front end, and less in the shoulder on turns. Weird I know, but its working well, so I'll just leave it alone! We Went clear both jumping and time in the Showjumping which was great!

Our cross country was also just amazing! I just love my horse to bits!
Unfortunately, we were stuck behind a very novice horse, who continued to have numerous stops in front of me, without judge interferance.. Finally, after a yelled "horse coming through", she decided to move out of my line! The only good part about this, was that I got to let Paris have a really nice gallop to make up time! Which normally you dont get to do in the intro, especially with a big striding horse. We ended up going a little to fast, incurring 1.2 time penalties!

We ended up placing 7th, which was just super! Hopefully, next comp will be top 5!

Anywho, I couldn't be prouder of her anyway! Hopefully we will be ready to go onto our first Preliminary course by September's Canberra International Event.

We have a big Showjumping competition on the weekend of the 11th-12th June with Pony Club, so it will be interesting to see how she goes with a whole weekend of jumping B grade (Grade 2, Prelim height)

Albury One Day Event 2011

Paris and I headed off to the Albury event on Friday 25th March 2011.

All the Introductory events were due to be held on the Saturday due to the high number of entries in the competition.

We had a great competition considering a lack of preparation due to Paris getting a deep foot abbcess two weeks earlier!

Paris pulled out a ripper of a test with some very calm and consistent elements to the ride. However, the judge believed that we were lacking forward, which placed us mid feild.

Our showjumping was HUGE! I have been jumping some big stuff at home, but not a whole course of jumps so wide! The oxers stayed the same width for Preliminary and Introductory. The were very WIDE!

Anywho, she cruized around with not a problem at all and managed to go clear with no time penalties!

The cross country was next and WOW! I love my horse! Whilst everyone elses horses were jumping around silly, Paris fell asleep in the start box whilst the countdown man cuddled her! Very cute!

We had a great XC round, except for a very silly stop! It was a jump up, hook right and jump down. In order to avoid jumping straight off the other side of the hill into a dam, I decided to bring her back to a trot just before we jumped up the hill. This was a very silly mistake, as we lost our foward movement and she stopped. There was no dirt from Paris, just a silly rider error! It was very surreal, as I havent had a stop on XC before, and I almost didnt realise we had a stop. I just kept on pushing for her to get over but then my brain switched back on and realised we were wasting time!!

Luckily, there was a long, open flat space to follow these two efforts, so we opened up for a real gallop and made up time!

We ended up finishing in 19th place, which is a bit dissapointing, but Im still VERY proud of her!

We have a busy few weeks planned! Unfortunately, I missed the entries for the Berrima event in April, but I will bea heading to the Yass Show instead to do some open hunter classes! We have a show this weekend, next weekend and dressage the weekend after!

Very busy indeed!

A good season starts early..

Paris and I have a had a bit of success in the last few weeks :)

Last Monday (7.3.11), we attended a Twilight competition at a local riding centre.
This particular competition involved Dressage only- with showjumping to follow the next week.

We entered two tests- the 1A and the 2A.

We won our Prelim test with a great score of 70%. The most pleasing about this test was the consistency shown throughout which is something we have previously struggled with. We finished our Novice test with a score of 66% to land us in second place! Very proud of her!

Yesterday (14.3.11), we attended the twilight jumping competition. We only entered the 90cms as I felt that it would be unfair to enter in the 60cm class.
We went clear which was great! The competiton was fastest time, but due to the size of the arena we couldnt exactly "stretch" our legs. However, we got through the course in great time! We were nice and forward and barely hit ANY long spots! Yay!

We are heading to the Moss Vale show this weekend to get out and about in the Hunter classes!
Then off to Albury ODE the following weekend!

BUSY BUSY :)

Pony Club

So yesterday I had my first day back at PC for 2011.

I have just joined a new club and it was great! One of the biggest clubs in ACT I think. We had about 50 ridden attendees yesterday, with many more people attending on foot!

Initially, I was meant to be unmounted instructing XC. However I decided during the week that I would like to take Paris along and instruct mounted.
luckily I took her, as due to weather and the large amount of young/new members that attended yesterday, we didnt venture out on course.

Luckily for me, the morning now invloved SJ. I was very excited to put everything from the clinic together and see how Paris went, And what more can I say, she was amazing!!

We completed our first B grade course since before she broke her knee!! And with no rails down :) Which is unusual for her! Normally she forgets early in the course that she actually has to pick her feet up and will generally run straight through one jump.. But we managed to clear them all in style!

I really got to feel the thrust come through her wither as she jumped higher over some of the 'spooky' jumps!

Very impressed indeed!!

Barry Roycroft clinic 2011

Paris and I attended the Barry Roycorft Clinic last weekend and WOW! I am so proud of this mare.
She remained cool, calm and level headed about the job at hand at all times! A big ask for a horse that has had little to no work in the last 18 months.

We didnt learn a lot in the dressage as I was grouped with some very green youngsters due to her level of fitness. This didnt bother me as she was able to 'show off'. We managed to get some good extended trot happening and some fluent leg yeilding and shoulder in!

Our showjumping was going to be a real test as this is generally her weakest point. I was placed in a higher level group as our experience suited this better. We were eventually faced with a 6 bar grid, which consisted of 4 verticals and two 90cm oxers with no ground poles! This was a little daunting for both of us as we are both 'out of practice'.
Anywho, she took to the grid better than ever before and Barry was very impressed. We managed to concour our superman style and maintain a quiet seat and a steady pace over and over again!

Sunday saw us out on XC. You can tell that this is her favourite bit! As soon as we headed out on the paddock, she was very keen to halt-gallop! We were both rearing to go! (Pardon the pun!!)
We were faced with the usual fences at varying heights. I managed to jump two 'rider' fences which I was very proud of! One being a PC B grade (Grade 2) log oxer with no ground poles- just two random rocks placed strategically underneath.
We also provided some confidence support for some of the younger, less-experienced horses which made us both feel good!
We also jumped the B grade drop, which was very exhilarating and we had to fight the urge not to push it and try the A grade drop! All very exciting!

Our first Event for the year will be Intro at Albury ODE, so I will update my blog again once we get home from there!

2011 :)

So 2011 is looking like its going to be a very busy year!

We are starting the year off with a Barry Roycroft clinic. Its a bit rushed for Paris, but I wasnt going to miss a fantastic oppurtunity!
W ehave been doing some fantastic work at home now which is exciting! It has been a bit of a culture shock not having a dead flat sand arena to ride in each day! But were coping :)

I nearly died when I saw how full the Eventing calendar is this year! Something on nearly EVERY weekend.. And this doesnt include any SJ, Dressage or Pony Club days.. Busy Busy :)