Sunday 20 May 2012

Tweseldown ODE Show Report

Emily and I relaxing after a hard day's work!!!



After all the cancellations it was fantastic to be out eventing again. My friend Emily Bennett came along as "show groom". Cutting it a little fine Dad dropped Mum and I at the entrance to Tweseldown, they went to park and Dad and Emily studded up and tacked up whilst Mum and I met Michael from MDR photo to walk the course. It was an old fashioned track with big, bold fences, which required positive riding and some thought out lines. It was a bit ditchy and they are not Mulligans' favorite obstacles with water coming a close second.

Dressage
After training a couple of weeks ago with Gill Watson, I was hoping that my dressage might be ok. Poor Mull after 2 years of hunting this dressage lark has been a bit of a shock. Its incredible how far he has come in 5 weeks since we have had him. My aim for the dressage was to get him more uphill and truly engaged.
Result: 24 dressage. He got a 9 for his halt and the comments on the sheet from the judge "I loved the activity of this test, well done".

Showjumping
Why was I worried about this phase? Oh yes because Mull has been very naughty with his jumping and his track record to be fair is not great. However he was on fire. I did lose my reins over the double, there is a very funny picture of me trying to grab them and we did catch a pole, not sure how. The pictures even show us clearing it by a mile. Mum said the pole rocked in the cups and just teetered over the edge, down it dropped. Hey ho. I was very pleased with the Mull Man.

Cross Country
Great for Mulligan we arrived at the warm up with only one other person there, so we had a quick warm up and off we went. He just pinged out of the start box. He went in a lovely rhythm all the way round, if anything i would say he didn't really show the jumps any respect. Could feel the slight hesitation coming at the ditch but I didn't give him a chance. We finished well within the optimum time.

Final position: We finished on a score of 28 in a very hotly contested section. 4th place. Yay!

Thank you to Emily for all her help and to Michael again for such wonderful photos.

Pictures taken by MDR photo can be found on my website. This link will take you straight into a slide show of the photos.

http://www.harrietupton.com/tweseldown---19th-may-2012.html

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