We boxed off to Rabson Manor today for a little XC schooling, the weather was glorious and both Dustry and his cobby companion were fab.
The going was just perfect and as I hadn’t been to Rabson for quite a while I was pleasantly surprised by all the new jumps they had added. The XC now spans 3 large fields has 2x water complexes and lots of fences from beginners up to Pre Novice.
We warmed up and popped a few simple fences then went for a play in the water. Dustry wasn’t keen at first to go in the water, but once in he was fab trotting in and out and then in and out up over a step. We then progressed to the top field and I jumped around on the steps complex, and then jumped a step down to a skinny. We played about in the 2nd water complex stringing it together with a fence to a little drop into and then out of the water.
We jumped a meaty roll top and D felt fab, on the way to the back field I spotted a chair and decided to canter off and jump that. It wasn’t until we were nearer that I thought ‘cripes this is quite big actually, oh well, more leg’. Dustry just flew it perfectly and gave me the best feeling, when I walked back to collect our over reach boot that had floated off in the water jump I walked up to the chair and realised that actually it was pretty big!! (I think it is a BE100 fence, that’s me sitting on it in the pic. After seeing how big it was on foot I needed a little sit down ;)) In the back paddock we did some related distance doubles on a curving line and he was fab.
Dustry was so bold he didn’t hesitate or stop at any fence, the only wobble of the day was at the water so we’ll work on that next time out schooling.