to give her a confidence run. We picked up a respectable score of 35 considering I had a slight satnav problem at the beginning of the test. Then she decided to be a bucking bronco during the medium canter! Just think what score we could have got had we not thrown valuable points away. (Ifs, bucks and maybes? Editor)
To show jump, I put her back in the hackamore she went in last season and she was much happier in herself, jumping more open. But she was just a little too open in a related distance, having 2 down. She then flew cross country to pick up just 1.6 time faults and finish a creditable 10th.
Next was Pontispool - a 4am start as both were in the Intermediate.
Molly’s dressage improved once again with her best score at this level of 34.6. She had just 2 down in the show jumping which was totally unjustified as she really didn’t touch them. She then flew round across country, flying even more than usual as I had her in the wrong bit -- just a snaffle which meant I couldn’t hold one side of her! In quite a hot section we ended up 15th, so that was very pleasing.
Our result here gave us our 5th qualifying mark to step up to Advanced level later in the season. This is so exciting. We
Photo by Tim Wilkinson
bought Molly as a 4-year-old to do some Pony Club events and sell on. Yet here we are competing at a level I couldn’t have dreamt of doing before I had her.
It was a pleasure to ride Ruby’s test. It was certainly the best test we’ve ever done and this was justified in her mark of 32.7, just 1 mark off the leader. If she hadn’t broken in the middle of our first medium trot, which scored an 8 to begin with, but was dropped to a 5 at the end with the judges commenting ‘started SO well’, we would have broken the 30 mark and led the section.
Unfortunately the ground was very hard, so I decided to save her for another day on better going as she has her regional final coming up. The cross country course at Pontispool raised some good questions, with quite a few skinny combinations, which showed up whether a horse and rider had a good partnership. But those who lacked that had run-outs.
On to Eridge next, which is a long trip from home, so we stayed overnight with some friends nearby. Just as well with my first test at 8.15am!
I was disappointed with the test I rode on Ruby in the novice
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Arabella Clegg at Pontispool Photo by Jayphotos
regional final. Firstly, I lost two marks for not saluting correctly at the start of the test. But I have learnt from that and won’t be making the same mistake again! I then rode the rest of the test quite passively, so, although she picked up good marks for a lot of movements, we dropped marks unnecessarily elsewhere. I was quite chuffed to score an 8 for my riding though! One of only four 8s in the test!
We had a lovely show-jumping round back in the hackamore, with an unfortunate pole down, and a superb clear cross country with some very acute angled lines through offset skinny combinations. Eridge is very hilly and undulating and the ground was quite hard over the majority of the course. So, as I wasn’t in a position for qualifying, I didn’t push for the time.
Molly did a very relaxed and accurate test, scoring 40 which was pretty average for the highly marked section we were in. An awesome show-jumping round with just one pole down proved to all of us that she does possess the jump we’ve been working to find. As I walked the cross country for the Intermediate, I thought to myself how much of a fit horse (and rider) you need to finish strongly here.
Molly ate up the course, with some big wide fences on tight angles. The biggest fence on the course, which was a ditch hedge, standing taller than me, came near the end. The irritating factor in the day was the optimum time on the intermediate course, 4.28, which was exactly the same as the novice. However, there were much longer loops and many more combinations in the intermediate making that time impossible for anybody to get. So picking up 20 time faults, which put us in 16th, was a creditable placing for a challenging event.
Hopefully the weather will sort itself out and be warm and sunny during the day. If it rains overnight, that’s just perfect. Can I see this happening? No!
In June, we entered Nunney - a new event in Somerset replacing Longleat and then on to Barbury at the end of the month.
Hope everyone’s enjoying their season, with good results and happy horses!
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