I have to say the bar was set pretty low at this show. My goal was mostly just to make it to the ring after the debacle last weekend. Incidentally, I am told after talking to someone that what happened at Masterton was a panic attack. Good to know. I'm generally ok once I get into the ring, but I noticed this weekend the panic is beginning to bother me in the ring. I stop breathing, which severely limits performance. So I tried to remember to do that. First class was the 1m class. My eye sucked and I was really rusty. Connie was hot hot and I made a mistake taking her out in the snaffle because I had no check at all. I got some yucky deep spots and she had a rail at the double. Mostly, I couldn't see good spots, and I wasn't seeing the move up spot at all. Still I have a very good little mare and she didn't seem to mind. She was letting go behind super too which is good because she didn't let go at all at Danniverke.
Kate was also in this class, and I was more nervous about riding her, this being our first start since December last year. She was pretty happy to be back though and jumped really well. I gave her a terrible ride down to the first picket, just jammed her up heaps, for a hot horse she is very light mouthed which is awesome but something I need to be aware of. I used some leather grip on the inside of my boots and it made a huge difference to how much she jumped me around in the tack, I was a lot more stable. Still she jumped a clear round.
It was a good jump-off course for us, lots of turning on landing and Kate loves that so we had a good jump-off, even if I did nearly run over a guy taking photos. She was fourht in that class and I came out a lot more confident in her.
I have picked up a few bad habits again though, I'm unfolding to early over the fences again, which is a back end killer especially on Kate whose back end sucks anyway. Stay down Bex stay down. To make it to the finish flags though was a pretty big deal in terms of my head.
Don't be down on yourself - sometimes taking a step back is a very good thing. You went, you rode, everything went OK - that's great - and the pictures are great! Congrats on getting it done.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the fourth! That's pretty cool. (And really, the camera guy should have moved.) ;-)
ReplyDeleteAnd like Kate said, don't be too hard on yourself. You're having some problems, but you're aware of them and working through them. You'll be fine.