Juliette - Petplan Equine Ambassador
It is reassuring to know that with Petplan Equine my horses are fully covered for illness, injuries and lameness until they are 25 years old, as my eldest is still eventing successfully at 21 years of age!
The build-up to our 2017 event season has been a bit of a rocky road and all is not quite as I had planned! Boodles has had several outings in January and February starting with British Eventing (BE) Arena Eventing at Houghton Hall EC. It was a good first outing for the year with just one pole down and an unfortunate refusal in the show jumping. We followed with several more arena eventing and BE JAS outings which went well. Click here (www.facebook.com/julietteedmondseventing) to watch the video of Boodles and I at the JAS90 at Bury Farm where we finished on four faults and very close to the optimum time.
Making good progress we decided to head for a JAS100 at Arena UK but sadly this ended in retirement during the round as Boodles jumping became green and a little erratic, yet another confidence crisis! Such a shame!
We tried a smaller round at a local ‘clear round’ the next day; further drama ensued as Boodles stopped in the warm up, span and reared. As we waivered in the air I felt him wobbling and bailed off before we crash landed! A bit of a shock for us both, but we continued the round and he jumped well thereafter. We had just four weeks until our first event...
Boodles in the field
Sadly our show jumping demons were still haunting us at Poplar Park BE90, we had a sticky round and then stopped at a spooky white spread, and our day came to a premature end. So frustrated, it was hard to hide my disappointment as I packed up the lorry to head home. I was tempted to leave the event without him! Clearly it was not his fault, but by this time I was seriously questioning whether his heart would ever be in the jumping phases enough for us to progress.
Serious remedial work was necessary, and once home I was on a confidence building mission! We’ve had several successful lessons show jumping and some good cross country schooling rounds since. I have realised that I need to adjust my way of riding to the show jumps to give him more confidence; slowing things down further and getting him more forward from the leg aids. He also needs more grid and pole work to help him work things out for himself! So far so good! We will be sticking to schooling and unaffiliated competitions for the next six weeks, before our next BE trip to Horseheath. Will we get to complete next time? Watch this space! If he was easy I would never have found him. Talented but tricky, the rewards will be well earned!
Jess at a competition modelling her petplan equine rug
Meanwhile Jess has begun her new career as a showjumper. She has been excellent! Well she is #wonderpony, how could we expect any less?! She began 2017 with a British Showjumping Discovery at Brook Farm Training Centre, Essex in January. This was an easy and fast double clear and we managed 2nd place! Following this, Jess has been out to Keysoe Equestrian Centre for two more Discovery classes recording another double clear for 3rd place, and then to top it off we returned to Keysoe in March for yet another amazing double clear and 1st place!!
Juliette and Jess at Keysoe
With now five from five double clears, Jess has qualified for the Discovery 2nd rounds which we hope to attend at Codham Park, Essex in May. As a warm up we have a couple more Discovery and 1.05 classes planned in April. Not to be completely left out of the eventing scene I also hope to take Jess to a couple of BE100/100+ classes this summer. She may be 21 this year but she is still so full of enthusiasm and loves her cross country and I love taking her round! We are not quite ready to retire so I hope to have at least a couple of BE outings this year to keep her hoof in! First in line is likely to be Little Downham horse trials in June, where Jess has successfully competed many times, this is one of our favourite and most local events.... Find out next time how she gets on!
Juliette with Jess and Boodles