There were many things I was planning for our first showing competition of the year to be.
- A nice gentle warm up to our season ahead.
- A good practice with out pressure or to much excitement.
- Just a wee round to get our eye back in.
What I was not planning on for was an over excitable erratic Eva – who was very happy to be jumping again but at the same time spooking at her own shadow to be taking my slightly hung over self round the jumps.
No. I definitely was not planning on being hung over. In fact I was telling my work colleagues all day that, “I’m jumping tomorrow I’m not staying out“
Famous. Last. Words
Anyway….
I wasn’t jumping until almost 12 therefore I was relying on Eva having a few hours in the field in the morning, unfortunately the horses didn’t get out to the fields that day, so Eva was a little had a little more energy than I was banking on.
On the flat she warmed up quite well, but I could already feel she was on the hyper side as she was quite distracted. Each time I asked for the canter I got a very big powerful canter that I was finding very difficult to control in an arena. When we turned into a jump that Eva locked on and picked up the speed already I was worrying about her getting away from me in the round.
I decided to put in a lot of transition in our warm up to bring her focus back and to stop her getting too fast and flat.
I had entered the 80 cm & 90 cm as it had been a while and I was planning on a relaxed round just to get our feel back in.
The first jump for the 90cm involved a reasonably tight turn to the first. When we entered the arena we went from walk to canter which then sped up due to a spook. Therefore the turn was made a little more difficult this caused us to get stuck on the turn, Eva threw a bit of a bad tempered buck and we came to a complete stand still. We were about 4 strides out so I decided to kick on and we cleared it. The rest of the round went pretty much the same. Each time we managed to get a nice bouncy canter we then spooked and bolted forward.
Unfortunately we had a pole down in each class both times as she got away from me and got too flat, just as I worried that we would.
Over all I’m glad Eva still seems to be enjoying her jumping however while her canter has far more energy in it, I need to focus on harnessing that power.
Next week we are entered in a hunter trial, I am really looking forward to getting out to some cross country again!
