Silver Hills eva80 - Show jumping

On Sunday, I had an 8.15am showjump draw and a 10.41am cross country. Plenty of time between, and we would be done by 11am. We were sitting in 12th after dressage, out of about 32. We left at 6am again for a 7am arrival. This time I had Natalie with me.

The showjumping warm up and arena was slippery. Like, really slippery, so much so that two horses fell straight over (one in the warm up, one in the ring). Of course, this made me want a calm, quiet, safe round. I think Allie was a little worried about the footing too. She was nice and balanced though, so I was confident we could get around safe.

I walked the course and it all seemed pretty straight forward except the line from fence 4 to fence 5, which was a tight corner in a slippery patch. I made a mental note to take that corner slow and wide. The rest seemed ok.

I was early to the warm up, the second one in, and the steward said I would go in after the first horse. Great! I did a careful warm up, had a couple of great jumps over the warm up oxer and then decided to wait at the gate.

It was a bit of a shambles to be honest. They decided last minute to put a few of the fences down, and they let about 4 riders walk the course late, which pushed the start time by 15 minutes. Then the bloody steward (who was a bit frazzled) forgot that I was second and then told me that I didn't present to him when I came in. I told him that I was the second rider in after that horse over there, but he still put my number last after about 5 other riders. Argh!!!

Just after this a horse and rider slipped and fell in the warm up. They were ok and ended up competing anyway, but that held us up more. THEN a pushy mother pushed in front of me to get her daughter to go do her showjumping so that she could go and get ready for her own cross country. The steward wasn't really allowing it but she just sent her daughter into the ring to the judges anyway! Unbelievable.

I had to go do a couple more warm up jumps and for some reason right before I went in the ring I tweaked my back. I've been needing to go see my body lady for ages and of course right then was when my back decided it couldn't cope anymore. Fantastic.

I did a few stretches in the saddle to help but I was still not great to jump. I just kinda crossed my fingers and hoped I would be ok.

Finally, FINALLY it was our turn to go. Here's the video:

So a few moments showing our inexperience (especially having to circle to get the line from 4-5 without falling over) and we had one rail down and a few time faults. You can also tell I didn't want to fall over from cornering too fast so that's what all the trotting was about. But she jumped much more confidently. Some showjumping lessons and some jump club days are needed of course but she was very level headed the whole time.

Photos? Of course!!

Still with the chicken arms! But...

A much nicer release a moment later! Yay me.

Also that bonnet is a bit big, but it's all matchy matchy with the saddle cloth.

She's very comfortable at this height and so am I to be honest. It's challenging enough that it shows our weaknesses but we aren't overfaced at all. I think that day was a good place to build from.

So we had an hour or so to rest before cross country. Allie was a little tired but I knew she would wake up a bit for cross country. She got a pick of green grass while we ate breakfast.

Next up, cross country! Did we go well? Did the ski jump and the giant trakhener scare the pants off us? Stay tuned to find out!