Ok.

So September also got away from me, yet more stuff going on – all good just very busy!

Meanwhile Eva and I did our first ever pick a fence! A pick a fence is a xc competition were you can pick what height you want to jump and each height has a certain number of points. Let’s say for number one there are three height options the smallest is 5 points, the middle is 10 points and the biggest is 15.

If you want to do all the big jumps but let’s say you refuse at the first *cough* like we did. You are not allowed to represent at the big jump, you then have to jump either the middle or smallest jump. But when you approach the three jumps for number two you can then jump the big one again.

Eva was again great in the warm up and great at the starting box as well. However the first jump just didn’t quite get us going and we refused.

After that we did all the big jumps including probably the biggest trakehner we have done! Its a shame there wasn’t a photographer at that one as I was very pleased with us getting over it.

In the end I did cave and bought another one of the photographers photos – I really can’t justify doing this every time buuutt this time it was since we were jumping bigger.

It was a few strides after this jump that Eva and I came to a complete stand still.

Was the next jump too scary ?

Was there a real tiger waiting for us ?

Nope

There was two flags showing where we should cross the road.

Terrifying.

Apparently flags are only safe when there is something to jump in between them…

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My partner also was there to capture some footage of us. The first two jumps then the jumps around the water close to the end.

Did you catch the sassy kick she did when refusing the first?

Thats my Eva!

She also applied the emergency breaks as we jumped towards the water and only agreed to canter again once we were safely away from it.

Overall I am very pleased with how the day went. We weren’t as on form as we were at the previous event there and I think it might be because we spent quite a bit of time in the warm up, while I didn’t jump much I think Eva benefits from a reasonably short warm up. If shes hanging around for a while we seem to then not want to leave the warm up.

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Eva has been having quite a lot of time off since our outing, just with things being so busy sometimes getting the energy to ride can be difficult. My mind set has changed somewhat this year, in the past I would ride all the time thinking that working harder would mean I would get more. This year however with everything going on outside of my horsey life I have focused on when I do ride making the absolute most of it, so I will tend to ride a little less but I feel like I am getting more out of it each time I ride.

Right now we don’t have any other competition plans, and as the eventing season has ended I will probably have a look and see if there is some showjumping at the yard for us to enter.