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!
Well after a very long winter we have been eventing at last!
We had planned to start our season at the Tweseldown BE90, however once this was lost to the bad weather it left our local venue Horseheath as our next opportunity - straight in at the deep end in the BE100! It was such a lovely event and the course was beautiful, with perfect going. What a great start to the season! Boodles was feeling well, producing a good dressage, just rolling two poles in the showjumping and a foot perfect clear cross country. Wow! Have we finally cracked the showjumping demons? The short answer to this is no... no we have not!
Boodles in the BE100 at Horseheath last season
After such a promising start to the season I was quite excited, the showjumping round had been confident and the cross country positively fabulous! He had clearly matured well after the winter practicing. Just to prove it we headed off to our first BS Discovery two weeks later and again produced a confident round of jumping just rolling a pole. However, this is Boodles and progress is never constant - he does like to take a step backwards after every bit of forward progress - and he did this in style at Little Downham! Our showjumping demons returned - this time impressively scoring more in the showjumping than the dressage test! Two stops with a rolled pole and a million time penalties left us with a cricket score. Come on Boodles - it’s not as if we haven’t practiced! Heading off to cross country I felt more than a little frustrated, but Boodles pricked his ears in the start box and pulled me to the first fence. He went on to storm around clear over a testing and technical course - and inside the time! The rollercoaster of eventing!
So what next? More showjumping training (obviously!) and then another attempt at BE100 at Stratford Hills looms this month. I feel a sense of trepidation for the showjumping, but overall his way of going and technique over a fence is so much better - he just needs to realise he can’t stop to inspect the fences first! One day things will all come together consistently - it is the belief that we will get there that spurs us on. In the meantime I realise that there is likely to be a few more publicly humiliating showjumping rounds to endure. I will look back and laugh at this one day!
On a positive note our cross country rounds this season have been bold and positive - he has met and answered every question well and feels very comfortable at this level. Our dressage is also coming on well, managing a 25 score at Little Downham. Two out of three is pretty good - we are 66% there with this eventing lark! We go onwards to Stratford Hills - will the showjumping demons prove too much? We shall see! Find out next time!
It has been a quieter couple of months for Jess after her showjumping championship debut at Hartpury in April. She has been having fun with some trips to the forest and some schooling to keep up the fitness. Just to keep her happy we had a quick spin around the BS Discovery at Keysoe this month for a bit of fun, and she obviously flew around double clear! Managing 5th place over her first jumps since Hartpury - she’s such a pro! It was also lovely to see Jess feature in the ‘First Timers’ Tales’ column in the June edition of Your Horse Magazine - well deserved publicity for this amazing Wonderpony!
Jess relaxing with her massage pad between classes at Hartpury