After getting back from University only this morning, I took Rocky in the dressage competition having not ridden him in over 9weeks and suffering with a back injury (since October!). He warmed up nicely, but when we went in our yard's brand new indoor school he just switched off (like he always does in competition!) and lost all his impulsion (didn't help that I couldn't find my spurs in the short time I was at home for before the show!). Just like every time we do a dressage competition, he did a nice accurate test, but wasn't moving forwards quite enough. We got a slightly disappointing score and ended up coming 5th (there were only 5 competitors).. I really need to get him competing in dressage competitions more regularly and see if we can figure out a way of stopping him switching off when we enter the arena! I think it has something to do with us leaving the warm up arena and him assuming that we've finished work.....maybe I'll have to start schooling him in the outdoor for 15mins and then taking him in the indoor for another 15mins or so, to break the habit.
After managing to quickly replace all of my tack after it was stolen the other week, Rocky and I were still able to compete in the final round of our yard's showjumping league today. Sadly, my camera's battery was dead so we didn't manage to get any photos or videos of today's performance which was a shame considering it went well!
The show was running almost an hour late when Rocky and I were the first to enter the 70cm class and rather annoyingly he decided to knock down the first fence a rustic upright - the first time he's ever knocked a fence down in competition in the 7years I've owned him! Not entirely sure why it happened, he just didn't snap up his forelegs much, but at the same time I might have over-ridden it a little. We then jumped a green spread, before turning back across the other diagonal over a black followed by a yellow upright. Then it was over the planks before a related distance to a red upright, then over the wall before a double of upright to ascending spread to finish - so we finished with 4faults. Now I knew that I was the only other competitor to have completed a clear round in a previous competition so if I had stayed on my 4faults I would have had to jump off with any other competitors who today went clear (the league involves jumping the most clear rounds you can to win). So I decided to pay to enter again and this time Rocky jumped a fabulous clear-round which meant we were the only rider to have finished on 2 clear-rounds in the series and we were the automatic winners! The remaining entries (who were on one clear round each) had to jump off for 2nd place and below.
All in all, a pleasing day, although I didn't feel like Rocky was on his usual good form. Not sure if it was just the heat and the hard ground (we had to warm up in a field and he wasn't jumping very well off it) that got to him, but he just didn't feel quite so careful as he usually does. It could also be that him and I both haven't quite got use to our new tack yet as we've only had it just over a week! Anyways, it was an enjoyable day and it's such a shame that I don't have any more competitions planned before I go back to Oxford. Admittedly we haven't had a show schedule yet for Sept, but I'm not holding out much hope as I know I'm quite busy and I bet the shows will fall on those weekends rather than my free ones!
Decided to take Rocky round the clear round class as my yard are only doing clear-round jumping shows all summer and since I have only jumped him a couple of times this week and before that hadn't ridden him for 10weeks! We just entered the 70cm class since the next class was 90cm and we haven't jumped anywhere near that height for ages. Rocky managed to jump a nice clear although my position over a number of fences was awful!
