Area Festivals, an amazing lesson, and one last outing...

I hadn't thought about qualifying for anything this year, it was more about getting Risby more relaxed and maintaining consistency in the arena like we had at home. Surprisingly we ended up only 3 points off a regional qualification, but as I was away and pretty busy, I thought we would do an Area Festival instead. I had to squeeze in one before I headed off to Germany, and ironically it turned out to be good old Oldencraig, yet again, which seems to have been our second home this season!

The day before it was really hot, and we went to trainer June Long's yard for a thorough session of riding through our familiar friend M75 which was our warm up class, and then M69 for the Area Festival. She helped me to get the walk pirouettes much more accurate, and we also worked a lot on keeping him flowing forwards and using every corner and short side to help prepare for the next movement. We did some spiralling in and out on a circle using travers and shoulder fore to get him more active behind and to help me control and maintain the bend through his body.

So it was a fair day as we left the yard for the show, I was feeling more nervous than usual as it felt like a long while since our last show and it is difficult to maintain accuracy and practise test riding at home in an arena which is totally the wrong size. It was lovely to have one of my clients, Alex, come to help and support us which I was grateful for. Also nice to see so many familiar faces.

Risby warmed up fine for the first warm up class which was indoors. Overall he went round M75 fine, but with the usual slight anticipation of the walk pirouettes and walk to canter transitions. He was still a little tense through his body, which resulted in some slight swinging in of his quarters at times and not so accurate positioning in the canter half passes. I think this is partly due to me not "riding" him as much in the arena and that is something I need to work on and keep going out and doing more test riding.

The actual test was in the International Arena. As we entered Risby decided to have a good look at the plastic flowers they had put out, a new addition to his otherwise tried and tested arena! A few big kicks and we were power trotting round before the bell went. Again, another mistake free test with just a few wobbles in the canter half passes again.

Came out feeling pleased with him regardless of what score we got, as everything felt like an improvement on last time. Put Risby back on the box, where he seems to love standing quietly and munching his hay, then enjoyed some cheesey chips with Alex and we watched some of the other competitors. Was really happy to get 63.78% in both classes! This meant 2nd in the warm up and 4th in the actual class. The top 3 horses were all very nice, forwards movers so I was pleased with this result, definitely in line with where we are at the moment.

So here at the lovely photos that Alex took on her new camera, very grateful for them :-)

So on a high after this, I thought I'd squeeze in one last show at Cobham Manor before I head to Germany. I had recently got back in contact with my old trainer Eileen O'Connor, who I used to train with in Surrey before we moved back to Kent. She helped me produce Risby as a youngster but it had been a good few years since she'd seen him. So the week before Cobham she came to give me a lesson on firstly Risby, then Dotty. All I can say is WOW, Risby has been much much better since. He needs to take more weight behind now and just by slightly altering how I was sitting, Eileen helped us achieve much more than I thought we'd been capable of. I hadn't used the old favourite trick of holding the reins upside down recently, which basically stops you fixing the hand in any way and you are forced to ride more "up" through your chest and upper body. I have previously spent many hours on the lunge with Eileen doing this on every horse from a Cleveland Bay stallion to huge WBs, but like everything, good habits start to slack. Risby is THE bounciest horse ever with very loose, elastic paces, and since my lesson I've been very good and been riding a lot more without stirrups to make me less dependant on my hands and to have him very in tune with my weight aids and posture.

I must add I forgot my gloves so borrowed my friend's pink ones! They may be the secret to our new uphill canter...

 
 




Lots and lots and LOTS of "up" transitions to keep those hind legs coming and to maintain an uphill frame.

 

 

Risby spooks at the goats but we then end up with plenty more impulsion!

Quite a different picture to our Area Festival photos. Hopefully these little glimpses will become more and more the norm.

So off we headed to Cobham Manor to have a go at putting this into practice round two more mediums. The warm up was really fab. A friend who we haven't seen in a long while commented on how much better Ris looked which was lovely. He felt really uphill throughout, the transitions were good, and he just seemed more relaxed overall being ridden in this slightly different way. I wasn't nervous at all entering the ring and overall was pleased with how both tests went as he remained more forwards and connected. The main issue we have is with this cantering across the diagonal and he anticipates what is coming next. That is the only time in the test I tend to stop riding a bit and this doesn't help. But otherwise I was really thrilled that the walk pirouettes stayed much more active, plus we got 7s for trot half passes, extended trots, and lots of other bits that I've been working hard on. The classes were small and we won both tests (restricted) with a qualifying score of 63% and one of 62.94% which was annoying 0.06% short! But that's ok as I'm not really aiming to qualify, I just want to really improve everything over the Winter so he starts working in a more advanced way now.

Eileen was kind enough to let me have a sit on her 4 year old Westphalian the following week, in preparation for Germany and just to compare to Dotty. I was a little nervous to ride Kiss as no one else had ever ridden him and I didn't want to ruin him!! She assured me I wouldn't and I had a lovely time, naturally he was beautifully schooled (Eileen is the most amazing rider as well as trainer). Despite his downhill conformation due to his age, he wasn't strong in front whatsoever, he was amazingly light and he slowed just from me broadening my chest and slightly closing the leg.

 

 

So that rounds up my Summer so far. Off to Munster in a week and no doubt will be back with more highs, lows and plenty of learning experiences. Absolutely love it all :-)