In prep for Highclere BE100 we have been jumping jumping jumping, and on Sunday I found a local show to take Soap to for a couple of rounds on grass. I must have looked like a clueless eventer with my yellow tagged hat, tweed jacket, and list of daft questions which included...'Do we get a course walk?' 'yes of course!' said the baffled looking steward 'How do we know what order to go in for the JO?...' 'Do we have to wear our jackets?' etc etc you get the idea (I'm a bit rusty at straight SJing) and I'm pretty sure Soap was thinking thank goodness there was none of that circles, flower pot, and white snake nonsense today too! The ground was rock hard, and slippy but the warm up had some cover so I studded up and popped a few practise fences before our class. Soap is still just in his drop snaffle and seems to be slowly getting the hang of being polite and listening to it. We went in for our round and he was fab to 1, ran on strong down the hill to 2 and by some small miracle it bounced back into its cups! phew! then turned nicely and checked himself for 3 and 4, brill down hill through a very short strided double at 5 (course was built for ponies I think!) worked his own stride out for 6, 7,and 8 (he is really beginning to pay attention and think) down hill and deep to 9 but he jumped himself clear then lovely over the wall to end, and I almost fell off with shock when the tannoy said '...and that's a clear round for No 644...'

It was boiling hot so I went back to the trailer washed him down a bit and offered him a drink. He was so much better control wise in the JO waiting and listening more than the 1st round and we had just 2 down, the skinny which lots of people had, he tipped off with his back feet, and a yellow upright, but a much better jump over the downhill fence where he waited and got a good spot, and lovely basculing jump over the wall. I was still so chuffed with him as JO's are irrelevant to us eventers, and it was his first clear round that made my day. The arena was on a slope, hard, and slippy but despite that he managed some real moments of independant thought and control which is such a huge change in attitude from the 'tunnel visioned pole pulverizor' I was riding at the beginning of the year. I was going to enter the next class 3'3'' but Soap looked tired and the ground wasn't good and with Highclere only a week away we called it a day, but not before quickly popping over to see my sponsors Trotters who were there with their trade stand enjoying some rare summer sun.
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...well maybe not a whole range just yet, but my personalised XC top now has a hoody to keep it company! I plan to wear this as much as possible at events so if you see me please come and say 'Hi' as it would be great to meet some fellow local eventers. Big thanks for the hoody go to my friends Emily and Paul who made it and are now probubly thinking they have opened the floodgates! personalised t-shirts, tracky bums, rugs, saddle cloths, wash bag, pants, socks the possibilities are endless....
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Today I booked the day off work to take Soap to West Wilts EC for some Eventers Combined Training. We got held up by slow moving traffic and what looked like a drugs bust going on with lots of police in the road so we arrived a little later than I had planned! With only 12 minutes to warm up for dressage Soap was going well but really needed another 15mins to be listening properly, and knock the edge off him. So after warming up to 'tepid' rather than 'piping hot' we had to start our test. All was going well nice and forward achieving mainly 7's until Soap decided to throw in some freestyle movements! I'm not sure what test he had read but mine didn't include buck to canter and 2 fidgety halts! His improvised segments gained him 4x5's but the rest of the test where he manged to keep his creative urges under control meant we ended on 63.5% or 36.5 in eventer speak

SJing was in the dreaded tight and dark indoor school, and I think SJs look alot bigger when they are indoors! After some long prep to get him listening and not trying to XC the fences we went in for our round. I tried to let him feel free, forwards, and ride on through the corners, not look for a stride, and let him figure it out. 1 to 2 was a horrid 5 stride dog leg which I thought was a rather tricky way to start the round and we got in deep to 2 but he got himself over that clean, after that he settled into a nice flowing round, with one blip being the skinny at fence 6 which I fiddled into and so we had that down, but that was the only fence and he finished with ONLY 4 FAULTS!!!!!!!! This is his best result this year SJing in competition and I really think we have turned a corner. I am so pleased with him, and needless to say lots of pats, polos, and kisses ensued. The competition was very stiff dressage wise so we ended up 13th/20 but that's irrelevant to me because I am over the moon with his improvement, long may it continue.

We went for our 2nd SJ schooling session at Hoplands last Saturday, and managed to build on the success of the last outing. We had a few ‘yes’ ‘no’ ‘maybe’ moments to begin with as I had failed to establish an active enough canter. I find it really hard to feel on Soap when he is in the correct SJing canter as he is just so comfortable in all his ‘special versions of canter’, but when he dropped into the right soft, but active canter he began snorting in time with the stride. This ‘SJ Snorting’ is a huge help as I now have an audible indicator that he is working well, and hopefully that will help me tune in to the right feel in time. There was a fresh new course designed and it all looked about BE100 height so we left it at that and got started, after our initial warm up I worked on really riding positively through the corners and maintaining activity, and an even stride. We did the course first of all adding small circles between fences to regain the canter if Soap had become flat or fast, and this worked really well. I then gave him a little breather as this new more activated gait tires him out much quicker, and then when he was ready to resume we finished by doing the whole course minus the ‘control circles’ He was fab! the idea of ‘getting over and leaving it up’ is really sinking in, finally! He only had 2 down in the final round one was the back pole of the 2nd part of the double because I got a long stride to the first part, and the fence after that which was the shortest related distance on the course of 4 strides and we just got in too close.

After treats and a wash off I went back on foot and look at the fences (it’s good to face your fears!) I noticed that the blue Union Jack jump and the last part of the treble were at 1.05m so was extra chuffed, height just isn’t the issue for him. As we were loading up Frances popped down from the house to say ‘Hi’ and have a chat, she will be drawing the winner of the free schooling session at the end of August, so if you want to be in with a chance to win that don’t delay! click here to enter
Before Highclere BE100 we have some combined training and unaffiliated SJing planned so that we can put all this practise into action!
Hopefully practise makes perfect...

A few miles down the road from my house is a new tack shop called 'Trotters' (and yes they are independant traders!) Allison at Trotters has kindly agreed to sponsor me! Hopefully with them being so local I can help them out in return by good old word of mouth, flyers, and through my local horsey connections. I think Allison was taking a big risk with her profit margins when she emailed me and said 'just pop into the shop and see if there's anything you need' The words 'supermarket sweep' sprung to mind! She very kindly supplied me with some feed which Soap is happily munching his way through! So if you are ever in Wiltshire and driving through Tidworth don't forget to pop into Trotters for a browse and a chat!

Apologies blog readers for the recent quite spell from GHE, in the run up to West Wilts BE100 I unfortunately went down with Swine Flu! I was not relishing the concept of competing while still fighting off the bug so was half relieved and half disappointed when West Wilts was cancelled because of the ridiculous amounts of rain we've been having here in Wiltshire. To cheer myself up I have entered Soap in the BE100 at Highclere. It's an event I have wanted to do for ages so I'm really excited about it.

Well yet another wet SJ schooling session, where has the summer gone?... Despite the gopping weather we had another very constructive lesson with Robert. We started by leg yielding to make sure Soap was off the leg and moving his quarters, this then progressed to a small 3 loop serpentine where the middle loop is done in counter bend. This exercise was very useful to shorten Soap up and engage, once we had achieved that we moved on to canter from walk transitions to make him quick off the leg. The transitions had to be from a slow steady walk with the quarters in then a quick strike off into a bouncey energised canter. Soap was a little slow to get this as I had taught him this slightly differently at home but he soon cottoned on. Once the flatwork part was over we moved onto jumping a grid of 3 built up slowly from one x-pole to 3 x-poles then x-pole, upright, spread. Soap has really started to use himself and make a much better shape over his fence these past few sessions. The main things we have to remember are a positive powerful corner before the fence and keeping soft and straight throughout. Video of canter/walk transition and grid of 3.

The final part of the grid was then built bigger with a barrel infront to get him to really bascule and use himself over the fence. I'm really pleased with him in this video because he is starting to think for himself. We come in on a long stride he is close for the second but steadies up to clear it and really makes a lovely shape over the last (you can hear Soap's 'effort grunt' and Robert say 'Oh hello!' because of the nice athletic jump!) Clever horse! :)

To finish we jumped 2 skinny barrels on a curving 3 stride distance. The trick to it was to remain upright almost leaning slightly back with wide hands and a positive not stuttery canter. After jumping them separately we put it together, Soap locked on and was fab! He is really making some great advances in his SJing recently I just hope we can replicate all this at West Wilts Pre Novice on Saturday!

So after 2 false starts due to missing shoes and pulled bottom muscles (the horse not me!) we finally made it to Hoplands for some sj schooling and not a minute too soon as the previous day I had stupidly over-bitted Soap in an attempt to gain some control and as a result ruined his confidence to go forward into the contact. I feel awful for denting his confidence as he is so honest and willing, but I guess on the up side we overcame the issue whilst schooling today and this lesson now learnt will NEVER be repeated. So after a little bit of a dodgy start where we both felt insecure and at odds with each other we managed to get our act together to do some great schooling. The weather was 'summer drizzle' but my intrepid mother managed to get some great footage despite the conditions - thank you!

If you want to know more about Hoplands you can join their Facebook group, everyone who joins before the end of August goes into a draw to win a free schooling session! - click here for the Hoplands facebook group

We have our 2nd lesson with Robert Stevens this Tuesday so hopefully this will help to consolidate the good work we did today in time for our BE PreNovice debut next weekend! click images to enlarge

I am a bit of a stickler for matching XC colours and I have been on the look out for a new top to go under my back protector for a while when I came across a Canterbury base layer (like Ruth Edge wears!) in the exact same colour, even better you can get them personalised so guess what I had printed on my left sleeve?.....gifthorseeventing.co.uk!!!! snazzy huh?...
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