South of England ODE

What a wonderful day we had. I enjoyed it so much.We took Gail Stephen's Tinkas Whiz Kid (Beanie) and Laraghlee (Yara).

It was as usual an early start but not as bad as it could have been. Dad and I had walked the course the day before so it made it a bit easier on the day. I thought it was quite a stiff 100 course and wondered how Yara would cope with it.

We put Yara on the lorry at 7am and went and picked up Beanie. The girls were really well behaved on the lorry, which was good considering when they first met at Felbridge the other day they took a dislike to each other!

Dressage with Yara
I was so pleased with her, we had our new saddle on which Mum got off ebay for next to nothing and then Saddler Andrew Reilly completely remade and restuffed in 3 hours on our kitchen table last week. It fits her and me like a glove and I can honestly say I have never sat in anything like it.Yara was so relaxed and did some beautiful work. We ended up on a 30.5. 4th best dressage of the section and I think Yara was probably one of the youngest horses in the section.
Judge comments: "Lovely combination, showing fair training. Just needs more oomph in the hind leg sometimes."

Dressage with Beanie
Beanie is not a horse I ride often or even get much practice on. I had ridden her a handful of times this year and taken her xc schooling once.Beanie has a tendency to get tense and lose focus in dressage but she has beautiful paces and has got oodles of ability. I had the opportunity to school her a couple of times in the week and so knew what I had to work on in the test. She warmed up beautifully and actually she was very good in her test, she got slightly tense through one part and lost a bit of focus in another. But we came away with a respectable 34.5. I was really happy and know we can improve on that again.
Judges comments: "Good basic paces, a forward thinking horse. Sometimes shows tendency to resist to hand."

Show Jumping with Yara
I was very pleased with this round - not the 8 jumping penalties. The first jump was my fault the second Yara's. But the shape she is now making over the jumps, she has started tucking up and making a good bascule, which is what we are training her to do and the rhythm flowed. Lots to be pleased with.

Show Jumping with Beanie
Lovely flowing round with Beanie, sometimes she doesn't quite stretch her neck over the jumps but she is an awesome scopey jumper. We just nudged a pole, which just came out of the cup on one side and landed on the pole underneath. It was a bit unlucky.

Cross Country with Yara
As you already know I thought it was a bit stiff for Yara and wondered if we had done the right thing in putting her in for it. She is after all only 6 this year and relatively inexperienced. But she was awesome. She has really started to take me in to the jumps. We had one minor hiccup which was purely a youngness issue. She just did not lock on to the skinny hippo (slightly contradictory in terms) coming out of the water. Mum said the commentator was complimentary about my riding there, we had the right line, its just not something she has done before. But I brought her round again and she sailed over it.

Cross Country with Beanie
Nice clear round. I say "nice" we did have a sticky moment where all the core stability work I have been doing recently paid off. I stayed on, she stayed up and we would like just to put that moment behind us! The rest of the round was lovely. 0.8 time penalties, having not ridden Beanie much I'd rather be slower and school round it sensibly than push her out of a rhythm and put her and me at risk. End result 14th. Not bad for our first event of the season together. (Would have been placed if that show jump hadn't nudged off the cup).

All in all we had a lovely day. I had a huge entourage. Last count 14 people who I shall name. Because their support means so much to me and they helped make the day special.

Team Upton at the South of England were:
Martin Upton (Dad), Justine Upton(Mum), David Foy, Will Marshall, Lisa Sparrowhawk, Michelle Brooks, Michael and Lisa Rogers (MDR Photo), Grandad and Sue, Gail and Georgia Stephens, Sarah and Lila Millard and Meeeeee!


Special thanks to David and Will who we now can't do without!

Photos by MDR Photo are awesome. Michael and Lisa followed me round taking photos and videos all day, the result was probably one of the best mementos of a day you could wish for. See for yourself. Just click on the link below  http://t.co/EPZYiy0x