Foxton Debrief

Ah horse shows. Sometimes they go well but just not as well as you hoped. I can't be unhappy with how they went but I would be lying if I said I hadn't hoped for more. The first day started with showhunter warm-ups at 7.30. Rascal cantered around nicely and came back and jumped a nice round for third in the welcome hunter. I then had to go back to walk the 1.20m class. I walked it and decided to change Kate into the 1.10m class as the 1.20m was full size and technical enough. Heathers courses are always built to size and always have some questions but they are always fair if you ride accurately.

Anyway I ended up riding Connie in that class before I went back to the showhunters. Connie was a bit of a tool to be honest. She reared up at the gate when I was trying to tell someone the course and went in pretty hot. The responsibility of any mistakes have to be put on the rider and i didn't get the uppity bitch to focus lol! She was like blah I'm a doofus- AAhh watch up a jump appeared out of nowhere! After I reapproached she actually jumped amazing and didn't have any further faults over a pretty big track. She did struggle through the double which was a sign of things to come.

Rascal was a bit stiff going back down to the showhunter but seemed to work out of it. Had a bit of a dodgy jump over one of the fences when I truly stuffed up the distance and maybe this pinged her confidence or her back fetlock because she adamently refused the next fence. Blah! I just scratched her out from the rest of the day because I had nothing to gain from continuing to jump her. I did of course pop back over the practice fence.

I had my favourite round for the season on the Kate. Didn't have to ride so much/manage the spook/ hold her together and managed a smooth confident round from Kate. She was clear in the first round but had a rail in the jump-off. Still I was rapt and when a man on the sideline complimented me on a beautiful round I was a happy wee clam. It was so cold in the evenings sleeping in the truck. I was in two sleeping bags inside each other with blankets on top and the hood pulled tight around my head. Got a hell of a fright when a drunk guy stumbled into truckie looking for a Kirsty at 1am but he sure looked sheepish when he realised he was in the wrong truck haha. So that was day one and it looked very promising for day 2 bar I had no idea what was up with Rascal.