Well, we made it down the centre line and I’m
proud to say WE CAME FOURTH!!! The sun was shining on the day that we were
travelling to the Dressage Nationals at Cavan International Equestrian Centre
and Romy loaded like a pro. I had the music blaring, a smile on my face and
other than a slight hairy moment involving a ditch we made it safe and sound up
to the venue in plenty of time to do an arena walk. The arena walk
was...colourful, shall we say. A usually chilled out Romy found the atmosphere a
bit much and decided to show off some illegal (and some downright never seen
before) moves. It did mean we had a lot of space around us as other competitors
side stepped out of our way with a look of sheer panic on their faces. I put
the nerves down to the fact that Romy hadn’t been anywhere quite like it before
so tried not to let it effect my confidence too much. Plus, bonus, we got away
without the destruction of the arena markers, flower pots or innocent
bystanders. After his little...ahem...incident, I gave Romy his evening feed, wrapped him up in his pj’s and
settled him in for the night. A glass of red wine settled me in for the night.
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| Weeeeeee! |
The alarm went off at 05.30 the following morning and I was at the yard, like an excited Duracell bunny, ready for the arena walk at 06.30. He went around the arena like it was something he does every morning. Aattta boy Romy...not a bother to you. I warmed up in the collecting ring, in hind sight I should have gone up to the big warm up arena instead as the space was tight and I didn’t get to ride Romy forward much, which meant he decided to think passage when I half halted (note for the future, half halt with your seat...wally). But I was feeling pretty confident when the time came for us to go in. I was announced as an international rider which made me fluff up my chest feathers and Romy (Furst Romanoff) was announced as Dutch..he’s German. We were both happy to run with our new found aliases (yes, I did just Google search that to make sure it was actually a word). I was focussing so much on Romy (particularly trying to ensure he stayed rhythmical and DIDN'T show the judges his illegal passage moves, by rising in my trot rather than sitting) that I only went and did a 20 meter circle where there should have been a 10 meter circle...again...wally. But Romy did a nice test, I rode it pretty safely to say the least, and we ended up on a very respectable 5th place out of 40 riders in my class and only 2% behind first place. Had we not gone wrong we definitely would have moved up a place but we live and learn. We had another elementary test the following day, both scores would be added up to give our final score so I knew I had to take a few more risks the next day.
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| Side Steppin' |
Saturday came and I was feeling really excited
about this test. I knew Romy could cope with the really quite spooky atmosphere
now and any initial nerves had subsided. I decided to get out his fancy
schmancy show rug and give him a really long warm up in the top arena. It was a
windy day...I’m sure another one of the many storms that seem to have come our
way lately. Romy got a bit of Storm Whatsisface up his bum and decided that he
was going to have another go of those illegal moves, ala day 1 arena walk. And
when he had a bit of a side step away from a very scary bush, the
aforementioned show rug flapped against his side and poor Romy got an awful
fright. We nearly went up a wall, with the focus being on the word 'NEARLY'. We
didn’t. I stayed on. And I must say, it gave Romy a LOT of extra power and
bounce. If that’s what we have to do from now on to get that lovely feeling
then I will be hiring minions to stand in bushes in the warm up and jump out with
a BOO from time to time. He felt lovely. And when we went down that centre line
I couldn’t get the smile off my face. Some negative tension did creep into a
few movements unfortunately, his walk got a little joggy, he broke in one of
the simple changes and his halt, for which he ALWAYS gets 8’s, was akin to an
impression of a passafino pony...his little legs couldn’t stay still. I managed
a salute with a smile on my face and was just so over the moon with him, it
didn’t really matter to me what we got. Given the marking is tough at
nationals, we ended up on a super score of 67.031 and finished overall in 4th
place in the class, ending up on 4th place overall in the elementary
category 2 championship. Anyone wanting to watch our second test (elementary 59), see below;
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| Collecting our prize from Mark Ruddock |
Sunday was the day of the freestyles. I was
riding in the medium freestyle and the class was incredibly hot as they don’t
separate the freestyle classes into categories so I was against a lot of
professionals. I was excited about my music though so it was the test I was
most looking forward to. And Sunday afternoon was the elementary
freestyle...the class that I had originally thought we would have the best
chance at doing well. I don’t know how to say this but, well, I did a Vikki. I mean,
what type of blog would it be if there wasn’t SOME drama in it, right?
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| Game Face |
I went to bed on Saturday night, high as a kite
from our placing (which would have been third if I hadn’t gone the wrong
way...grrr...wally). I set my alarm to be ready for the arena walk and would then go
straight into the warm up, with the test on at 08.10. Easy enough task;
1. Get
charged phone: Check
2. Set
phone for the correct time: Check
3. Set time
for the correct day: Che….oh, wait….the correct DAY…oh no….FAIL
So. After all my preparing and sleepless nights
and new white errtang and printed emergency numbers and first aid boxes, I only
went and set my alarm for the wrong day. Expecting to wake up at 05.30 on
Saturday, I jolted out of bed at 07.15 on Sunday. I’m actually still in shock
about it, I never sleep in. I won’t go into too much detail about HOW I got to
the yard (it may or may not have involved some driving-by-knees action) I
pulled poor Romy out of his bed and gave him a very quick 15 minute warm up. He
needs at least 15-20 minutes of walk alone so Romy went into the arena without
warmth in his muscles and I went into the arena without mascara on my face.
Neither of us were pretty. But Romy looked after me and did what I asked of
him, just not in the most elegant fashion. I couldn’t ask him to do what he
wasn’t ready for so didn’t collect him too much, meaning he was wide behind and on
the forehand and I expected to come out with a 62/63%. I got 64%, didn’t come
last and beat some professionals. But I felt awful that I had put Romy through
it so swore to myself I would be uber prepared for our test later that day.
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| My Heart |
I’d like to say the ele freestyle went
smoothly, and the warm up did, and the pony went well but the rider forgot her
floorplan, omitted two required movements and when the music finished we were
mid leg yield out to M. It could have been SO good. And it wasn’t, all
because...well...I’m a wally. Even without two movements (marked on each rein) we
ended up on 62% so it could have been a LOT better. He deserved a better score.
And everyone that was in that class we had beaten in the Elementary Category 2 championships,
bar two combinations who we hadn't competed against.
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| AAAAAnnnd Breathe |
I gave myself a hard time, I deserved it
because I let my amazing horse down, and I’ve learnt for the next nationals.
Even if I’m not nervous it doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t concentrate on the
task in hand! For our first nationals, I never dreamed to come away with fourth
place in such a huge class and most importantly my horse was happy and acted like a pro (I’ve chosen to throw the memory involving the
initial arena walk into the bad memories vault, along with the memories of my boyfriend from
university and the purple lipstick I used to wear, aged 13).
So, what now? Unlike most horses, who would get
a bit of a break after big competition, Romy has to keep on working to ensure
his lumbar region remains strong. So I’m starting to teach him flying changes,
so far so good...perhaps not the cleanest behind but it’s very early days and I
know he can do clean changes because he likes to throw them in throughout tests
sometimes...clever boy. So it’s just matching up what I’m asking him to do with
what he can do. I’m hoping to get some training with Pammy Hutton in November
and word on the street Matt Frost is going to be clinic'ing nearby in October so
all of that, plus my regular training with Sandra Blake-Farrell will have us flying
(changes) in no time! A little clip of the second day of working on changes is below from my Instagram feed;
The dressage Ireland AGM is coming up at the
end of this month so I’m going in with the main objective of requesting that
they reconsider the rule around HC tests. Currently you can only ride HC at a
level LOWER than the level the horse is competing at, which doesn’t make any
sense to me. I would love to see what judges think of Romy’s changes before
actually getting points on his record. And the moment we ride (non HC) advanced
medium we are automatically pushed in to category 3 (similar to Gold in the UK)
which would mean I would be competing against a lot of professionals...no fair.
Till next time,
Victoria and Romy x
