23 September 2008

December 2007 - Waerenga Horse Trial

Picked Flynn up from Kirstin's on the Friday night & took him home. Kirstin very nicely leant me her saddle for the weekend as she wasn't riding & I hadn't been able to find a new saddle yet. Packed the truck (Sarah very nicely offered to take in the truck) & got ready for Waerenga Horse Trial the next day. My parents were going to come & watch on their way back home to Wellington, so I was a little bit nervous as I hadn't really ridden much in the month before hand with Flynn being away, & my mum has a small tendancy to get very worried when I'm jumping (the joys of having an advanced paramedic as a mother! doesn't help when they've seen all the accidents)
Got on & warmed up for our dressage test. Did really well, even managed to get 12th! Yay for Kirstin's schooling! At 10am it was already stinking hot, so was going to be a very, very long day in the sun. Spent most of our time trying to find shade to hide under.



Then it was time for the Show Jumping.
Wandered over & walked the course. Uh oh, 2 walls! This could be interesting! But very happily, Flynn went clear round the course. I actually rode it too, which helps!





Then it was lunch & time to hide from the sun. We ended up all crammed down one side of the truck, with Flynn mugging everyone for their lunches. Turns out my pony likes Dunken Doughnuts! Started getting ready waaaay too late for the XC, as I had worked the classes out wrong (DUH!) & raced over the warm up area, only to see the rider before leaving the box. Shyite! Raced over the warm up jump once & cantered straight on through to the start line. Went out on to the course, cleared the first jump & got about 50m away from it, when Flynn suddenly stopped & spun around. Couldn't figure out what his problem was, until I realised it was the creek crossing. He'd never had to do any of them before! Couldn't get him over it & was aware we were holding up the course, so went back round the corner in sight of the start box & waved for them to let the next rider out. Got a lead from them over the creek & then fell back to let them carry on. Cleared the next few jumps until he caught sight of the big open field with the rider at the other end & decided he'd quite like to catch up. I was ready for him this time though & managed to regain some resemblance of control, but not enough for the bounce, so went past it & did the zig zag option in the trees instead. Came up to the bank complex, where Flynn had a refusal at jumping up the bank & then refused to jump off the bank. Luckily I managed to get him off between the flags, or would have had to jump back up & try to come back off again correctly. Then off to creek crossing number 2. Only problem with this one, is that it was right next to the spectators & the announcer. So I'm sitting there on my rearing, leaping athletic horse, with the announcer going "And here we have Kristal Mattingley & I'z Kool... Hmmm, he really doesn't like the creek crossing does he? I'm thinking she's going to want to rename him!" How embarrassing! Luckily then the next rider came through & Flynn tucked in behind them. Got up the water jump & he went to hesitate. I was thinking oh no you don't sunshine, not after 2 creek crossings you don't! So yelled & growled & wacked him when I felt him slow down. He quickly changed his mind & powered into the water, so that was a good start. Came through the gates & lined up the palisade. Good god this thing was massive, it was full height, with a full width ditch in front of it. In fact it looked very, very similar to the PreNovice one next to it! Except the obvious 10cm difference in height. Belted him into it & basically went in with the thought process that the faster we go, the less likely he can physically stop himself. Sure enough, we get up to the thing & I'm yelling & pretending that I'm not scared (hahaha whatever!!) & he went to stop & quickly decided that would possibly prove suicidal for both of us & did a massive leap over it. Thank goodness his brain has returned!! Then onto the third creek crossing. He flew through that & headed towards the last jumps where my parents were stationed (luckily I had thought to put them at the nice simple uprights!)






Finished the course on just 2 refusals at the bank, as the river crossings thankfully weren't flagged, but did have a cricket score of time faults. Still, was very happy with Flynn as once he got over the river crossing dramas, he actually went very well. Onwards & upwards from here, surely?!

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