The Final Countdown!

Last minute preparations for nationals have well and truly begun. We head up to Cavan International Equestrian centre next Thursday and I’m proud to say we will be riding two elementary tests in category 2 (the scores are added together to give your final score), the elementary freestyle class and the medium freestyle class. By ‘last minute preparations’, I mean that I actually timed my music for one of my freestyle tests (yes, yes, I realise I should have done this months ago, not the week before nationals) and figured out that there was only 1 minute assigned to the trot work, 3 to the canter work and the whole thing was over 5 minutes, when it needs to be under 5 minutes. So in true Victoria unorganised fashion I had a panicky couple of days trying to be DJ, cutting and mixing my music and redoing my floorplan. I ordered some additional white goods to ensure we aren’t the grubbiest person at the party by the time I’ve done my fourth test and have upped Romy’s training levels and amended his feed to allow for this.

I went test training last week with Alison Mastin-Moore and found it really helpful. She made me really think about my accuracy, which I used to be pretty good at but I think I’ve concentrated so much on how Romy is going I’m almost throwing away half marks by not really thinking about each movement and what is needed in it. She worked a little on how Romy was going by encouraging lots of transitions and then I rode the test, Alison scored it and then we went through it at the end. Romy got 8’s for both of his halts and another 8 for his rein-back. Embarrassingly I went wrong (learn your test ahead of Nationals Victoria) and I rode a very sloppy medium walk (which looked like an extended walk rather than a medium walk). Alison encouraged me to really think about my corners, to prepare the transitions, and to really think forward with Romy because if I hold him back he gets tight in the back which can result in issues with regularity. We ended up on just under 67% which I was happy with, because without the niggly bits we could have broken the 70% barrier.

I have one more lesson with Sandra on Saturday so I will go through both my freestyle tests with her. I need to be careful not to try throw in tricky movements to get higher technical marks and focus more on Romy being correct, supple and forward. I’m pretty sure I will go from number one Phil Collins fan to never wanting to hear his music again but riding to music always makes me smile so for our first nationals I really want to focus on having a fun weekend and keeping Romy happy and sane.

I’m lucky that there are many friends at my yard who have also qualified so hopefully we can all give each other a helping hand and fingers crossed I get some video footage of our tests. The countdown is well and truly on....wish us luck!

V & R x

 

Rough Times