After a week off work, allowing me time to feel nerves/stress etc running up to the event, we headed to Kelsall Hill, a lovely venue only 20mins from home (very handy). I arrived to find I needed a number holder which I had no clue I'd need (oops) but luckily one of the tack stalls had one! (phew!). I got on and felt strangely calm (not like me!)Lucy settled nicely for the dressage, only my second ever test on her. The ground was very dewy and I was worrying about her slipping, which she did on a few corners, so I didn't ride her as forward as i would have liked. I came out happy with Lucy's performance and that I had remembered the test, but I knew we could do better had it not been so slippy. I will definitely ask Nigel our farrier for stud holes all round next time he comes! We took Lucy back to the trailer for half an hour for a breather, and I went over to the results tent to see the score.
We got a mark of 36.5, which was better than expected! At the end of the Dressage that score left us in 22nd place out of the 50 in my section.
Mum and Deb (my Auntie) kindly got Lucy ready for me for the Show Jumping, and we went over to warm up. I did a small warm up then popped a couple of fences which she jumped great. I really felt conifident as show jumping in theory should be our best phase as this is where we have had most practice! It was a lovely flowing track and she jumped a cracking clear, albeit a bit keen and a little spooky! I was thrilled with her, I gave her lots of pats, and she had lots of polos from Mum.
Then we got ready for the XC, which was only my second one on her. My Mum and Auntie Deb were excellent grooms tacking her up ready to go! I headed down to the XC and hadn't a clue how much/little to warm up so just gave her a nice canter, and got her going off my leg and jumped the practice fence from each rein, before I was called.
We went to the start box then I realised 'this is it' as the starter counted me down. Off we went out the start box, full of determination, we got into a lovely rhythm to jump the first 7 fairly straightforward fences then onto the water. We turned the corner to the flower fence at 9 before the water and I had to ride strongly as the water and crowd caught her eye. She backed off it, but with a bit of vocal encouragement and strong legs from me she popped over and bounded through the water, ears pricked! We jumped the cart up the hill on a flyer and onto the wheelbarrow combination, two fences on a curving 4 strides which she jumped lovely through and really listening to me.
Next was the log to the corner, I made sure I had her anchored to jump the log to get her straight to the corner on a slight curving line. Once again she really listened to me and locked onto the corner, she flew over that, kicking on over the last few including the double of hay wanes on an angle for a fab CLEAR!!
I was smiling like the Cheshire Cat and patting her like mad! Mum was in tears at the finishing line with tears of relief! I got off her and walked her off but she was hardly blowing. We took her back, untacked her and swilled off.
We then took her home as we are local and came back to look at score board, and saw I was inside the time!
As I was inside the time, I knew we would finish on a score of 36.5, so we hung around as for a while it looked like we were in with a chance of a Rosette, but in the end we finished one out of the placings in 11th.
I was over the moon for our first attempt, Lucy was a superstar throughout the whole thing I could not of asked anymore of her! She will now have a couple of days chilling in the field before our next outing, a Combined Training Qualifier at South View.
I have now decided Eventing is amazing and will do more of it as I found it less stressful that SJ, everyone was so friendly, from the organisers to the other competitors. I thorougly enjoyed the whole experience and can't wait for another one!
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