Had a couple of good runs lately. At Tonimbuk on the Saturday in hot humid conditions we were third after dressage with a dressage test where I scored a 5 for my free rein walk (looked better than that to me on the video).
Got back to Tonimbuk early on Sunday as I wanted to walk the course again and make sure I had my times all straight in my head. Just as well as I almost got lost between jump 3 and 4 and had to end up taking a more direct route to the 4th jump (I bush bashed). He had a short look at jump 6, a suspended log to a drop, because the closer he got to it, the more Occy could see underneath it. The next jump I had to ride was number 10 a big Log apex that that wouldn’t have been out of place on a Pre-Novice course which was hidden just around a corner. But Occy listened to me and jumped it. I actually praised him for that. After that it was just a matter of keeping up speed really and keeping him motivated for a couple of roll tops with tricky approaches. I could feel that there was not much left in his tank and made it to the finish with 3 seconds to spare.
For the Showjumping an hour later he didn’t seem as lively as he did in the morning. The show jump warm up was getting quite deep also by this stage. As I lined up waiting to go in the ring the heavens opened. We went from hot and sweaty to cold and wet. He knocked one jump hard enough to get a gasp from the audience, but the rails stayed up.
All up a double clear and we stayed in 3rd place. The winner was 1.2 points ahead, so close but no rug, just another ribbon to tie the tomatoes up with.
At Wandin Occy didn’t feel happy for the dressage, even though we got a couple of nice soft test comments from spectators after, the unhappy bit couldn’t be hidden from the judge who placed us 13th. Before the showjumping I figured out that Occy had a bit of a sore back, so he got massaged. The jumps seemed close to maximum with 3 Oxers in a 9 jump course, but Occy was jumping nicely and only had one rail down to put us up to a 9th place. For the Cross Country on Sunday Occy was working nicely, but slowed down to a walk in front of a jump L but as we were a couple of meters out I encouraged him and he jumped it anyway J. But we lost time and ended up coming up 3 seconds over time. But there was general carnage out on course so came up to 5th. Or at least we should have been 5th but the jump judge where Occy came to a walk gave us a refusal which put us to 7th place. Not worth protesting that one as it just meant a different colour rosette.
A couple of short videos here of Will Enzinger. He rode his own and Jean and Penny Hare's thoroughbred Wenlock Aquifer to win the Ignite Your Brand Pre Novice. He also won the Stubben CIC* on Ruban Son by Regardez Moi and took home a new Stubben saddle.
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