Lodestar Eventing

I was so nervous about this competition. After seeing the possibility of actually qualifying for the regionals in the restricted Novice, I have never ever been so desperate to win. Usually I’m just chuffed with a score above 60%.

Jad had felt a bit flat the previous week so I increased his feed, but then I panicked when the evening before the competition he completely freaked out on the lunge line and wouldn’t stop galloping around me. Obviously feeling better then! Nerves really started to get to me as I was plaiting up and I had to redo a couple because I couldn’t concentrate properly.

The day of the competition was absolutely gorgeous and Jad being the sun worshipper that he is was really happy. It looks terrible because the moment I start to work him his veins raise and he gets covered in sweat, but he is actually very relaxed and keen to work in those conditions. He’s just weird.

I used quite a bit of counter canter, leg yield and shoulder-in during the warm-up and Andrea gave me the thumbs up, saying he looked nice and round. This was a massive confidence boost so I felt quite buoyed as we rode to the arena. As we worked in round the outside I started to really relax and smile. Jad felt soft and relaxed and happy with a nice spring to his step.

We went down the centre line at A, he stayed nice and straight, did a good turn at C and I just thought “I am so enjoying this!” His medium work felt good and strong, and he collected up really well afterwards. We had a bit of a problem on counter canter and didn’t quite hit the marker but it wasn’t too bad. I felt he rode a good 65% worth of test. Andrea laughed her head off when we left the arena; apparently it was blindingly obvious that I was enjoying it because I was just beaming the whole way through.

I walked Jad off, gave him a drink (which he didn’t want but he did enjoy spitting water at us) and put him on the wagon to munch at his haynet and enjoy the warmth of the sun. We wandered off to see if scores were up yet. Unfortunately mine wasn’t yet but my heart fell when I saw the marks of a previous competitor. They had scored about 72% which was a good 5% higher than I’d managed in a Novice test before. Andrea had watched that particular test and had said it was very nice.

Still, it didn’t detract from how pleased I was with Jad’s test or how much I had enjoyed it, so we headed for the burger van to blow our diets and then watched a couple more competitors. After a while we decided to take another look at the scoreboard. As I walked up to it I saw that I had scored about 66% and was pleased. However as I got closer, I realised that it wasn’t about 66%… it was about 76%. 76.54% to be precise! I just couldn’t take my eyes off the board and had to read it and re-read it before I could believe that was actually our score! I was completely speechless!

Now came a very nerve wracking wait, we were currently leading but there were some superb combinations still to come and Arkenfield has a high standard of competition. We watched some very impressive tests and tried to work out if they were in the restricted (therefore competing directly against us) or the open (would affect the prize money only). As we watched I got more and more nervous but I just had to wait it out.

Finally, the competition ended and we hovered around the scoreboard for the results to go up. We had done it! Our 2nd win and qualification for the regionals. And for the first time in my life we got more prize money than I had paid on entry fees. Pity that I spent the difference at the burger van!

Regional Finals here we come!

This entry was posted on Friday, May 12th, 2006 at 7:43 pm and is filed under Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.