Sam I’ve had a quiet month

OLLIE jumping 1.35m at home

Hey guys! Thank you for reading my blog again! I’m so glad you guys are enjoying them and I absolutely love writing them and letting you know what I’ve been getting up to! I’ve had a quiet month with mostly training done, but still working our socks off for all the shows next month!

Ollie training at home

Training with Ollie has been going really well, we’re managing to get round courses and jumping heights I’d never of thought I would be jumping when I started! I’m so pleased that all the hard work that’s been put into him by myself and Jonathan is starting to pay off!

In one of our Wednesday training sessions, we had a grid of two cross poles to a spread (one stride between each) it was a really nice grid to ride down and really got Ollie thinking forwards down the grid. Jonathan started to put the spread up at the end, and I was so pleased to say we finished over a spread with a back bar of 1.35m! When the spread was put up I worried about my capability of jumping it, but Ollie took me straight down it and over giving me such a nice feeling over the fence, we certainly stayed in the air a lot longer than I’m used to! Ha ha!

Ollie at beacons

I also took him to Beacons Equestrian, to take him round the showjumping course for some schooling practice! He was fab there as well, this was a bit of practice for Broomes Amateurs at the end of the month, he flew round the course not batting an eyelid at any of the fillers and we ended on a nice round at about 1.05m. Really pleased with how confident and flowing the course felt. We’ve been jumping 1.10m courses at home to finish, this has been something I’ve been really proud of, and getting him round these courses with the odd miss on a stride, makes me happy as before he would of stopped!

I’ve been teaching one or two of the girls at the yard, giving me some practice as I feel I’m not yet ready for my PTT as I need a bit more practice in projecting my voice across the arena. I’m very happy with the results I get from teaching and the feedback I have is very positive. Hopefully I can look to do my PTT the end of this year.

Ruby at amateurs

I also took Ollie & Ruby to the Amateurs at the end of the month in Broomes, We had a fab but mixed weekend with both of them having highs and lows. Over the period of the weekend we jumped 5 classes each, the first day  Ruby was on grass, where she had a lovely double clear and just a few time faults.

Ollie was in the arena, he also had an awesome double clear finishing 10^th!! Very please with how the first day went! The second day the two horses were on grass first and then the arena, Ruby had a good round on grass until we hit a one stride distance on a backwards stride, where she couldn’t cover enough ground through the middle to put in the one stride and slid through the second half. We managed to compose ourselves and jump the next 4 fences clear until she just spooked herself and slid into a spread, but finished the course, she then jumped in the arena in the afternoon and flew round with only one pole down, so regained her confidence a little.

Ruby in the stable at amateurs

On the Sunday, she jumped on grass first proving just how bold she is, a very careful ‘I’m not touching a pole’ DC with time faults as I just didn’t rush her around the course at all, finishing 15^th. Then in the afternoon they put a very testing course up for a 95cm, including a triple combination, a skinny spread and a double three strides from a water tray! Not expecting to get a very tidy round from this, she jumped fab up until we came to the triple which just proved to be too testing for Ruby and she got eliminated.

Ollie jumped in the arena first, he was upset outside the ring, by a few things, so he jumped very tense and rushed in the warmup, he jumped so off, that I was deciding whether to pull him out of the morning and take him in the grass when he’d had a chance to chill out. But decided against it and jumped in the ring, he jumped number one nicely, then went onto jump number two but kept changing legs and coming really high in the front towards it, jumped it and went onto a double that had been causing people a lot of trouble, so I rode in expecting him to look at it, just got a forwards shot in leaving not much room on the other side to fit one stride in, and before I knew it, I had fallen off straight through the second part, Ollie just couldn’t help me out and slammed the breaks on. It just goes to show, no matter how good your horse is, the horse is only as good as the rider! Ha ha!

Ollie at amateurs

Anyway, I decided to be a trooper and move onto the next course with positive thoughts and putting the fall behind me, he jumped  such a lovely double clear I was honestly speechless! With me being slightly defensive, and having a bad knee after the fall, he took me round all the scary fillers and we got 5^th place! I was so excited but really shocked at the same time!

On the Sunday morning, again, Ollie jumped on grass superb and just had the joker fence down at the end! But took a massive dislike to a jump in the same testing course as Ruby, so we got eliminated. Overall it was a good weekend with massive highs and lows, but I couldn’t of been prouder of myself keeping my positive head on for the weekend even after my fall! Proud of my ponies for putting up with me sometimes ha ha!

Thanks for reading guys! 🙂