Sometimes success isn’t always measured in rosettes! You know when you have one of those outings where despite the results on paper you are thrilled with the way it went? Yeah we just had one of those!
In my quest to turn Dustry into an eventer I am having to piece him together phase by phase, and along the way try to train out any behaviour resulting from his years in racing.
His flat work is really well established now and he can pull out a lovely dressage test, but throw something new into the mix and his way of going can rapidly deteriorate as he becomes tense, resistant, inattentive, gobby etc etc you get the idea. He must look to onlookers like a bit of a Jeckle and Hyde horse, soft relaxed and working sweetly one moment, head in the air shooting across the arena sideways the next!
He has done a fair bit of dressage now and so on that front we don’t get many ‘racey moments’ anymore when competing on the flat. So the next stage is to get him showjumping. Over the past few months I’ve worked hard on grids and poles, but haven’t really got him out to many sjing competitions with big bright, filler filled courses. So operation ‘teach Dustry to showjump in competition’ is on!
We went off to West Wilts for their combined training to see how he would fair when presented with an up to height, bright, well built course.
He was VERY well behaved and relaxed to handle and get ready and the instant I got on his back was soft and relaxed. He didn’t tense up on entry to the warm-up and he only had one half hearted attempt at a buck in canter with one back leg, so I can forgive him that. I’m still going to keep his red ribbon on though for other competitors’ sake as much as ours.
We went into the indoor to do our test and he did become a little more tense on entering the school but thankfully we had enough time to ride round the outside a few times and do some trot walk trot transitions which helped him soften off a little more (although as always his work inside was not quite as soft as in the warm up).
I think almost everyone is affected by ‘test stress’ to some degree which makes it not always easy to replicate the quality of work in the warm up in your test, but I feel with D that this percentage of tension increase from warm-up to arena is getting less and less, with today being one of his better and more attentive performances.
The judge thankfully agreed with us and marked our first effort at BE95 test as 68.5%. I was super chuffed about this because in ‘eventer speak’ that score translates as 31.5! Considering my best ever eventing test to date was 31 I was suitably thrilled with that score, which also placed us 4th/15 after dressage.
Then it was time for the phase we are a little less practised at!
I thought the course was fair and nicely built but I did think that Dustry might struggle at 3 points on the course.
Fence 1 was a parallel, with a solid wall type filler, and not exactly the inviting first fence I was hoping for. Fence 2 on the other hand was a small upright and in my opinion a much better candidate for the first effort (It was at this point that I wondered how quickly I could swap the fences before getting caught!)
The turn from 3 to 4 was a dog leg that was just ideal for falling out through the left shoulder.
Fence 5 was a double, in line with fence 6 which looked on initial presentation like a triple, and I thought this might be a bit much for him to look at.
In the warm-up he jumped beautifully off the left rein, then when I went to jump him from the right rein he went very green on me. For some reason he decided that falling out through the corner was a good plan and when I tried to correct him boinging about like a plonker was the only option.
This is what I mean about Jeckle and Hyde, throw in a new question something so seemingly mundane as a different direction and sometimes you get a response like this….
I swapped my whip into my left hand, gave him a tap down the shoulder and after a few slightly wobbly approaches got him jumping forwards and straight off the other rein.
We went into the ring and again the ‘test stress’ struck, much more noticeably than the dressage as this is all still fairly new to him. He was super excited, neck stiff and up in the air, gawping at everything (this was to be expected of course and is all part of the fun of re-schooling an ex-racer 😉 )
Until fence 6 he was going round like a child with its fingers in its ears saying ‘nah nah nah I’m not listening. Running on after fences, running out, not listening, not taking in all that was around him, not listening to me and then the penny dropped.
He literally landed after fence 6 and said ‘ok I’ll listen, what on earth is it we are supposed to be doing?’ he came back soft, in rhythm, did a lovely balanced turn to fence 7, landed on the correct leg, cantered confidently and forwards to 8, meeting it perfectly, onwards again and 2 beautiful jumps to finish over 9 and 10 in fine style.
It wasn’t the clear round we had hoped for but it was tangible progress and the final 5 fences he jumped like a total pro, and gave me a great feeling of real scope and good jumping shape.
Now I am on a mission to get him some serious sjing experience ‘under his girth’, because once the green attitude which brings out all his bad habits has been overcome I have a feeling he’s going to be a handy little showjumper!
If anyone knows of any well built, bright, filler-tastic courses in the Wilts/Hants area please let me know, as mission showjumper is on!