We did it!
Our first one day event!
And her feet? Absolutely fine the ground was perfect for her not too hard or too soft. Granted the dressage felt a bit slippy and the jumping I protected her round because I didn’t want us fly round and slipping but nothing that was sore for her which was great.

An Early Start (Loading)

Our plan was to leave at 7am so baring Eva’s last issues loading in mind I decided to start loading at about 5:50am so that we would have plenty of time to get her in then load the rest behind her.

Guess what…

She was straight in!

Therefore she had to stand for a little while before the others joined her but I stood with her and while a little nervous she was absolutely fine. Yippee!

Although I am in no way assuming our issues are fixed for the next few events at least I will be giving myself plenty of time and she can stand eating a net.

First up the Dressage

When we got there I had time to quickly run round the xc course and by the time I got down it was time to get ready for our dressage when I got on about I had about 15min before my dressage test.

I got to the warm up ready for tack inspection to realise I had forgotten my hair net so sent my boyfriend running back to the lorry to grab it while I warmed up. He came back hair net in hand and by the time I jumped off put it on, jumped back on and had my tack inspected I only had a minute or two left to warm up. I didn’t do much canter as each time I tried Eva transformed into a juggernaut and I was slightly scared of crushing a kid!

In to the dressage arena and it went ok I definitely could of ridden better. There were moments that felt quite nice and we managed to get a few 7s. However our canter was rubbish as I didn’t trust her not to bolt off and/or slip therefore I didnt really ask for it and as a result I got a lot of running which knocked us down a bit.

Otherwise I stayed on and got through it and got a 42.9 which I don’t think is bad at all for the first attempt!

On to the Showjumping

Eva again turned to a bit of a juggernaut which kind of threw my plans for having a nice sedate round in canter out the window. Therefore I brought her down to trot just to have control and for her not to barrel round corners like a jump off.

Even with our energy and control issues we were clear so it was now time to head off to the xc!

The final phase : X-Country

The moment we have been waiting for!

The cross country!

I always say that Eva is such an honest horse that if she doesn’t like a jump she’s telling you from a mile away. Well from the start box she was already telling me her opinion on fence number one! And that was “You are expect me to jump that!?! You must be kidding!”
I found it absolutely hilarious and I’m very glad my boyfriend got our discussion on film as it really is classic Eva telling me all her opinions.

While I did have a stick I didn’t want to use it because at this moment I wanted to keep her on side and not piss her off.

Eventually we made it over and while she took a good look at the first few jumps she popped over with out much bother.

After that she was off!

We came to the ditch and I don’t think she even realised it was there as she was more interested in the little white and blue house that was two strides after the ditch.

For the water we had to walk the first step in to then happily trotted the rest.

As for everything else she was looking but still absolutely fantastic!

In total we got two refusals (both at the first) and came home within the time so a total of 60 penalties for xc.

Final thoughts

Overall I am super happy with her and during the day as there were five horses there was a fair bit of loading on and off the lorry which Eva did with out too much resistance! Only on the last time when she was a bit fed up with it all didn’t she but a little bit of fuss in but nothing like the tantrum we had on our first outing.

I’m already looking forward to our next event and while I think Eva could go barefoot with out it being sore for her the slip factor came into play especially during the dressage and showjumping in fact a lot of the time my riding got a bit backwards because I was scared of her slipping.
On our next farrier appointment I will at least be getting fronts so that I don’t have to be so concerned about it next time.

Oh and I am definitely buying a few of the professional photos!