My princess is out competing again...!!

I hope you all had a great weekend. We had a rather busy weekend with lots of riding, both out training and in competition.
 
Saturday morning I had fantastic schooling sessions on Roxie, Diaz and Tintin (a clients horse I'm riding whilst they are on holiday). Then in the afternoon I was out SJ training with Milli at a local venue where you can hire the SJ course which is very useful. There are a few pictures of Milli and I below. She jumped very well and is feeling a bit more like her normal cheeky self which is great!! To view more pictures of us training please Click Here!

Sunday morning I had a reasonably early start as had three to ride before going to a local dressage competition. It's that fun time of year again now and we are very lucky to be surrounded by lots of stubble fields so I took Diaz, Milli and Tintin out on the stubble fields for some canter / gallop fitness work. Milli and Tintin thoroughly enjoyed a bit of an open up across the corn fields and Diaz too found it great fun, well, once she'd realised how to actually gallop and not just do an over enthusiastic canter.....she can really shift herself!

---

 That just left one horse un-ridden and, yep, it was Roxie who was getting to go to a party. It has been almost 18 months since our crushing XC fall last year at Tweseldown and it's safe to say she was just a happy to be back out competing as I was, especially considering the initial outcome we were given and the long recovery journey we have been on! Roxie started to get excited before we even left the yard! I think she just thought she was being treated when I started bathing her but then when I started plaiting her she knew that meant she was going to a party!!

---

 She loaded herself on to my little lorry as soon as she was put at the bottom of the ramp. On arrival she unloaded and if horses could smile she definitely would have had a HUGE grin on her face! Her little eyes lit up and she looked like all her Christmas' had come at once! I tacked her up and we headed over to the warm up area. She was incredibly excited and just wanted to show off her party trick to everyone - her medium trot - she does love flicking her toes!

 It was our turn to go in to do our test and as I'm sure you can imagine after not being out for so long there were some tense moments in our test but she did manage to contain her excitement and performed a nice test. We didn't score a brilliant mark due to some tension and her slight over enthusiasm in some moves but I was happy with our score of 62.8% considering the circumstances etc. This score meant we finished in the top half of competitors in the class in 7th place. I was thrilled with the result and can't wait to get her back out again after a bit more schooling and fitness work. I think the thing I was most pleased about was that she didn't jog in her walk! Simple thing I know but Roxie is prone to getting tense and over excited and has never been able to just walk on a contact so maybe this is the new slightly calmer quieter Roxie?!? To view more pictures and to see a video from our outing, please Click Here!

This weekend is our last weekend before we have lots of exciting competition outings planned including 4 events in the space of 5 weeks! #bringiton!! I may get a quick XC schooling outing in this weekend with a client and there is a SJ and indoor XC competition on at an Equestrian Centre near us so I may take Milli and /or Diaz there for a little play around too!

Until next time,

SG Eventing
X

***Keep Calm & Canter On***