It's Only Taken me Six Years to Learn to Show Jump Woody Properly
Let me start today's eventing blog by saying I LOVE MY PONY!!!
Now, I know what you're thinking; I must have come home with a 25 double clear and a red rosette? Well, you are wrong. I came home with a 37.5 and a nice baby blue tenth place rosette (which I am buzzing about btw) but the reason I am so happy is that today was the first time post-injury that I really felt we had once again tapped into the power to start working back up to BENovice. Hurrah!
We arrived and I power walked the course in the already blistering heat (8.45am) then tacked up for dressage. I worked him long and low in walk, trot and canter then picked him up and asked for collection into forward-ness which is what we have been working on in our lessons. He felt mega and FOR ONCE that feeling came with us into the boards. Hallelujah! My score was 31.5 which was fairly good for our section - there was a handful in the 20 and one 15 (WTF???) so I was really pleased as overall it was a much better test than any we have produced this season.
Onto the showjumping and I was second to go in our class which is new to me. It meant I had to awkwardly warm-up, then get off and hang around for the course walk, then jump back on and quickly get him focused before they called us down to the arena two minutes after my bum hit the saddle. However, I had time to jump an oxer before I went down and my golly gosh did he jump it - I almost bloody fell off he jumped with so much power!! Again we've been working hard in our lessons to harness that hidden power I know he has - who would have thought that investing time and money into paying an actual professional to teach me would improve my performance - so simple, it's a shame I hadn't thought of it sooner really!
Into the arena, we went and he jumped his socks off. I would have happily tackled a Novice track with that canter and that PING so I have included the video of our whole round because I've already watched it 400 times and am obsessed with his little knees. This is no word of a lie I actually had the thought " OMG I've finally learned how to show jump" on the approach to fence seven... and then fence eight fell. BUT I was over the moon with the round.
On to cross country and apparently I had left my brain in the SJ arena because I was just about to get on to head down to the collecting ring when I realised he had A. no boots on and B. no studs in. Cummon Johnstone, pull yourself together. Studs in, boots on and a quick jump later and we were ready to go.
We had a fab round but I felt it lacked a slight bit of his usual sparkle. We got deep into a couple of fences which is so unlike us - Woods is an if in doubt, take one out kind of fellow - but I honestly think it's because he doesn't have to try very hard at 100 anymore. Plus nothing on the course scared me at all, in fact, nothing on the Novice course scared me that much either which I think is bad for me as maybe I become a little complacent too. There are worse problems to have I guess!
However, that's me getting nit-picky because we had a clear round with too fast time faults - which there's no excuse for, I was wearing a watch! I don't know about you but I hate pulling him out of his rhythm if I'm up on the clock and there weren't many places to take a wide loop on the latter part of the course so I just surrendered to the time penalties three fences from home.
Cooled off, ice boots on, munch at the grass and a very happy team heading home. My Dad dropped us off at the stables and once I'd turned Woods out for the night I drove home with the window down, music blaring with a massive grin on my face. What a day!
It's only taken me 6 and a half years to learn to show jump Woody properly but today has made me really excited for the rest of the season (even though I only have a max of three events left, but let's forget that for now).
Sarah & SuperCob x
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