October Whirlwind

October is a huge month for Allie.

- Monday 10th October, Andrea is taking her for a clinic lesson with Stefano van Zuijlen.

- Saturday 15th Andrea is taking Allie to SIEC for a dressage protocol day.

- Saturday the 22nd and Sunday 23rd I'm taking Allie to Mudgee for a xc and showjumping clinic with Sam Lyle (FINALLY riding with Sam! It's been in the works for years). I'm so so freaking excited. We are doing the 80cm clinic. Linda says I'm never allowed to take Allie around a 60cm course again lol.

- 29th I've got Silver Hills ode at 80cm.

This weekend just gone was our quietest weekend until next month. Andrea did two dressage/pole days Saturday and Sunday, then yesterday (Monday public holiday) I tricked my husband into coming with me to film my jump school.

I kept the heights rather small, about 75cm, with one smaller cross rail, one oxer, and a three stride double. I wanted to work on the related distance, also counting three strides into a jump to help me see a distance.

She jumped very honestly. I mucked up a heap of times but that's why I kept the height smaller so that she didn't have to do anything fancy to get over the jump if I stuffed up.

Here's some video - first up the related distance. This was about our fourth go through and we got it.

Here's the whole course we did. The second time we go over the combo, you can see how I stuff up my stride and she really is so honest jumping the second jump with my reins all over the place and no help from me.

We are getting there. Can't wait for my clinic!!

Shots

Some better pictures from the hunter trial. I need to get in the PC to do a proper write up but basically I had the best day of my life and my horse is amazing and I loved every minute of it today. :)

On a High

We had the hunter trial today! Better photos and video to come but here is a sneak peak of shitty video stills.

Spoiler alert: my mare is a superstar.

Allie Stresses Me Out

I'm going to put pictures of Allie at comps in this post to make myself feel better worse.

Look at me. So happy. So Naive

 
Ugh. So Allie has had a snotty nose for about 4 weeks now. Started off in both nostrils (I thiught it was a cold she had picked up), then after a week it moved to just the left nostril, never been particularly bad or particularly smelly. Slight odour, sometimes stronger, sometimes not. She has been eating normally this whole time.

Because it wasn't going away, I emailed the vet and she has put her on 10 days of antibiotics. Two days in, and the discharge is getting worse.

So pretty all clipped with a false tail in.

I'm trying to save judgement until after the course finishes. But I can't help thinking that it might be those teeth causing issues.

I hope they aren't dying. Poo bum sticks.

While We Wait

While we wait for my husband to figure out how to get the video of my winning test off the borrowed video camera (apparently there is a cord missing?) to post here, have some more pro pics from the Sunday comp.

I've bought the lot of them so my guilt at posting them is almost nil!

Dressage

I have another couple of tests on Sunday - Prelim 1A (again) and Prelim 1C.

I saw a cool video where they put the judges marks/comments as annotations and I thought I would do it on my video of Allie's first test to remind myself what should have improved (and also because I was home sick from work today).

So, here it is:

Test Paper

Last post on our test, promise!

I got our test paper today in the mail. The overall comments were a 7 for paces, 7 for impulsion, 5.5 for submission (lol) and 6.5 for rider.

We got a 7.5 for our left working trot circle, canter-trot transition to the left and our free walk. :)

Words that pop up are crooked, rushed, tension. But also purpose, forward, active.

The nicest part was the overall comments: "Regular paces, rhythmical and willing but at times getting a little tense and resistant into transitions. A promising combination - work to the training scale and this pair will do well in the future"

So that was nice!!

Test - Pics and Video!

Wild beast-pony.

Like I said, Allie went really well today. I didn't want much of a warm up and I htink I sat on her for a total of about 7 minutes today!

To be honest I have schooled her properly only once in the last 3 weeks. She is a superstar! Quiet on the float, quiet while we were there, loaded and unloaded well. Great undersaddle! No complants from me.

During the test there were a few head tossing moments, a few moments were she was slightly behind my leg, but overall she did what I told her to do at the best of her ability. Seriously, can you ask for anything more than that?

The ground was really wet and the arena had a few bad muddy spots which stuffed up our canter-trot transition to the right between the centreline and B (at 3.33 in the video) where she almost walked to keep her balance. Also, walk-trot transition (at 2.33 in the video) is not great.

BUT check out the beautiful trot-canter transition at 3.13!! Could not have asked for more!

Very very happy. Have some warm up pics:

Quick Question

What do you think of this saddle pad?

Preeeeettttyyyyyyy....

I must admit I am like a bowerbird - I am easily distracted by shiny, sparkly things. So this is the pad I am using this weekend for our first test. Too much? Too sparkly?

Oh well, I have bought it now. I'm going ot pick off the stirrup strap things as they look terrible I think going over a black saddle, but I will leave the girth one on.