09 September 2008

February 2007 Hunua ODE (PreTraining) - Tara's Turn!!

We decided that maybe someone with stronger legs & a bit more confident at XC (I get petrified!!!) would be best to get Flynn to go clear round a whole XC course. So Tara volunteered herself for the job. We took him out to Hunua for their ODE & entered him into the Pre Training. The dressage was good, he was very well behaved & did quite a nice test. Helps when the rider has nice long legs!!




Then, nothing like a bit of stress, with Tara being last to go in the dressage, meant they were holding the SJing ring open for us & threatening to close it. So we dashed straight over to the jumping, with no time for boots or anything. I was a little worried as there were quite a few jumps in there that he hadn't seen before. He had one stop at the blue & white picket & then jumped it like it was going to bite him the next time LOL It would appear bravery is not his strong point!!





Then onto the XC. Unfortunately as I was working for Heirlooms Photography that day, I was only able to get 1 jump photographed, which was the ditch, and he'd never seen a ditch before. I'm glad I did as his expression is just comical. He did his best superman impression to get his legs out the way in case he fell in it...

End result was 2 stops, 1 as he spooked at the gravel in front of a small upright & one out the back end of the course as a tree had created a shady spot. He trotted around the course quite happily though & came in with a lovely cricket score of time faults hehehe. Was a brilliant day though, great for mileage, and the weather was perfect!. It was also really quite enjoyable having someone else ride him for me!!

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