Practice Day at Teilcey Park.

Once a month Teilcey Park in Palmerston holds a practice day, followed the next day by a combined training and showjumping day. The practice day is far far cheaper than competing. And it means you can avoid some of the more ridiculous course building. To be fair it was much better than normal with only one funky distance. A genuine two and a half strides to a tightish one stride double of oxers. Blerk! Anyway, at the start of the day my friend rode her really green OTTB and he was super cute coped with the atmosphere and is really quite classy over the fences. Then I nagged her until she let me ride on her new horse who was really only over for a trip and a look around. Still how any opportunities will I get to ride a horse by Corland. Not many, thats how many! She was really good too.



Then I rode her hunter, Fido because she was bored with him. He was really fun. He pushes your buttons a little, but as soon as he realises you aren't going to take any crap, he folds like a deck of cards and he is really really cool. He doesn't even really do anything, he is a big faker. Incidentally, he is by the same as our Rascal is. So had a canter round and a jump on him and that was fun.



Then I dragged Connie out and fanged around some small fences. I thought she would be hot from all the hunting but apparently, taking out the hard feed has taken care of that and she was a very placid old mule. In fact I wish she had been a bit hotter, so I could have had something to work on. Though dd have a monumental miss to the first fence when I thought she would chip and she didn't. Oops! I am RUUUSSSTTYY!



Kate was as per usual, a little hot and a little spooky. She leaps and bounds at the fences because she gets a bit worried about jumping. It means I need to be very careful about giving her a very smooth contact and resisting the urge to grab when she shoots off.



Still by the time I was finished we had jumped around a small course (It looked huge at the time) quietly for Kate and quite smoothly and I felt really confident and happy. Love my new saddle over fences, I'm so much more stable and don't feel jumped around at all. I didn't bother putting Kate down the line, because it just wasn't worth it. It was ok on Connie and Fido because it was tiny and I could just crawl in and make sure I got the three strides, whereas at this point in time it would have been a bit much for the Kate I think.



Of course it was a Mecca day for top riding. There was a monumental crash over the green oxer when it was about 1.20m after this lady had fried her horses brains and put him at the oxer, which he then collected bringing them both down in a hell of a crash. She was fine though, as people like that always seem to be. Kate might have started a bit nuts but she finished quietly and thats more than I can say about that horse. Poor pony.