Taupo Christmas Classic- Rain!

I knew the forecast would be bad and very intelligently packed 4 raincoats and my heavy wet weather gear which pretty much saved my life this show. Uhh where I live the climate is really wet so I'm already over the rain when I'm away doing fun things like shows. The ground was ok on the first day though, and ging was on a surface so we were good to go ahead. I helped my friend with herself first and there was no gate steward so that ring was really dragging, finally got her organised, got on Ging was double clear in the first 1m. Jumped ok not amazing and ended up only a couple of seconds out of the placings which was good. I do like ging.

Then it was a mad rush to Get Connie up, because the Blake the best gate steward ever was on the gate for ring 1 and he had them flying through. So that was my first 1.20m in 6 weeks and it was ok but still a ring 1 track, plenty of filler and questions. Had a cheap rail at the first and I rode a little nervous but she jumped really well and that was the only rail to fall. I'm starting to get a bit backward again in my jumping and losing the forward flow. Something to work on. I don't show again until late Jan so it will be a nice chance to do some more training. I will be working on the flow thats for sure.

The next day Connie was first up in the amateur and I had even less flow. The issue was I didn't do enough to compensate for the now very sodden ground and she got even stickier. Actually that isn't fair I was good for the first half of the course but got into trouble at the double. Got a big jump in and it should have been fine but I think the ground grabbed her and killed her impulsion so we couldn't make the stride out. She added in and we had the rail. She finished with just the four faults and I can't be a hater, but it was just one of those rounds where even though the result is ok, you are disappointed with how you rode.

Had an awesome round on ging in the 1m class, started to feel like a real team with him now. It was very smooth. just had one brain explosion when I rode up and realised I had made a mistake and circled him off the fence. Not my horse to break eh! Still Ging adds strides in every line so I was happy to get the strides exactly as I walked in the last line and he finished super. So many four fault rounds!

At Taupo they have a practice ring set up that you can use for five dollars so I took Connie there and cantered down the combinations to make sure she stayed confident. She was better out there because the ground hadn't had the same thrashing.

Then more rain that evening. I scratched Connie from the 1.20m the next day (Saturday) after watching two horses out of the first five in the class before slip really badly. Connie is my only good horse now and I'm not going to risk her on bad ground. Then my friend who I had travelled with wanted to go home being sick of the weather and ground conditions so we packed up early and left. Not really the show I had planned for but I wasn't sorry to get out of the wet.

Now the pictures I don't have because the friend who was going to take them was coming on Sunday and I didn't ride Sunday obviously. Still there should be some pro photos I can get instead. Fingers crossed