Frank came 5th in BE arena eventing, 90cm, yesterday at Beacons equestrian. I think we have qualified for national championships (February 24, 2018 at Aston Le Walls, Northants). which is rather exciting. I really enjoyed this round and for the first time ever I wasn’t worried about losing my way and after our team chasing debut I knew that Frank was more than capable. He can get a bit strong and fast so all I needed to do was keep a check and kick on at the right moment.
We could have been placed higher as there were only nine of 22 riders to go completely clear as the last fence, the joker, at 1m, lived up to its name and caught most people out. Frank did an unexpected double take at the gap just before fence 15 and instead of going through it he turned away. The steering strings were too long – as usual – and I paid the price for loss of rhythm and direction – 2.8 time points to be precise. A friend commented later that at least three other people had done exactly the same. Clearly there’s some advantage to going later…you can spot which parts of the course might be causing problems – pity the rider who went in first, straight off the bat. We were lucky not to have the joker fence down as Frank went in a bit too fast but he was very oingy boingy yesterday and gave the jumps plenty of air. If the fence had been any higher we might not have been so lucky. Standing on the sidelines after, I commiserated with a fellow rider, who’d had an unexpected stop at fence four – a totally benign showjump. Reflecting on these silly points we felt we had just thrown away we resolved to do better next time and not take any fence or obstacle for granted. When you lose – don’t lose the lesson eh? On a high, I spent money I don’t really have in the lovely Beacons tack shop and then had a free cup of tea to help recover from shock. Watching some excellent horses and riders go round the 1m course making it look easy raised the question in my mind – should I enter the next arena event in Mendip Plains near Bristol and go for 1m? Hmmmm…. something to aim for in these winter months.
Only Joolz and Horses 