Smiles At Sunny Howick

Had a fab and sunny day at Howick, sun seemed to shine all day long, both my boys went clear XC, Sweet William double clear although a little green. He also gained many more admirers, took ages to get back to the lorry as people kept stopping me to ask about him. One lady wanted to buy him.

Riders I coach also went brilliantly, Louise on Charlie 7th, Sue on Rasper and Mr Gangster 9th and 10th, Sarah on Mini Monkey 12th, Kirsty on Practical Magic 11th. Lots of happy riders, it was a lovely course, all 3 tracks had a ditch, ground was perfect and it all rode really well. Thanks to all who helped make it happen, despite the sunshine the volunteers all looked a little chilly, especially the poor XC steward.

Wiki Peedi Off Guide To Eventing

AWCE or Adverse Weather Conditions Eventing is a sport invented in the UK during April 2012.

It is a unique sport where vast amounts of money and time is spent but there are no winners. Competitors spend months and months training horses to a high level with the aim to take part in a fictional Horse Trials. In the days before the Event they speculate on Face Book and Twitter as to weather (!!!!!) the Event will be rained or snowed off, adverse sunshine is surprisingly rare.

There is a theory the sport was invented by the designers of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter with the aim of obtaining more members. This is certainly working, recent new members after an entire weekend of the sport being abandoned include Olympic Gold Medallist Matt Ryan and 4* rider Louise Harwood.

Once the event has been called off competitors and volunteers (amazing people who do all the work) compete to take the best photo of the Abandoned Event. Flooded fields or jumps covered with snow are the norm.
Everyone then has a day off watching rubbish daytime tv while planning for the next AWCE.

Stafford Snowed Off

http://twitter.com/karla_parsons/status/315017187771424768/photo/1

Click this to see a photo from Stafford today, looks like Lapland!!

11 am and now BE have tweeted Gatcombe tomorrow is off too. Icon now doesn't run until Kelsall.
He is going to be very cross, he loves to be out jumping XC fences.

Good job this week I have joined and learnt to use twitter.Tweets from riders and BE were out at 5 am announcing Stafford abandoned today, BE texts and website announcements came up to an hour and a half later. Assume snow slowed it all down.

Twitter is fab! Stella Baylis @stellaeventing. There is going to be a little bird on my web site soon so you can click and go direct to my tweets, hope to tweet from events on useful stuff like fences, ground, news etc.

Now have 2 gleaming white coloured horses with no party to go to. :(

So far this year Amazingmika has been balloted twice and cancelled twice.

Just realised Somerford, Swalcliffe and Stafford all cancelled...... Mabe I won't enter events starting with an S next time............

XC Schooling at Swalcliffe

William and Mika went along to this, using the free schooling vouchers Swalcliffe kindly sent me after I withdrew from their Hunter Trials.

Mika schooled clear and easily round the 90, it seemed straight forward but quite a decent sized 90 for early season or maybe my eye is not in yet.

William schooled round the 80, he went round clear and even jumped some of the 90 fences. The 80 was a fairly technical track. It had a downhill half coffin, jumping a carved Caterpiller log before a good size ditch, a log before the water with a skinny on a turn after the water, a double of walls on a curving line, a double of tables, a house positioned on a downhill slope, an inviting trakener and a skinny carved duck. All the  combinations were kind to young horses, with lots of room to sort yourself out in between.

Swalcliffe Cancelled and Kings Arena Eventing

Saturday early morning
Just getting up to get ready to leave for Swalclifffe, it's 5.30 am when a text from BE arrived to say abandoned due to heavy overnight rain.

Well done to those who got up early to check for us, saved us many £ in diesel and I can stay in bed.

Swalcliffe have been amazing to me this week in fitting in Hartpury Take it 2 the Top on their waiting list, we eventually withdrew him as I am still not happy with the bruise to his leg, the secretary has been so helpful and understanding.

Very sad they have had to cancel. I walked the XC online last night and it looked lovely, it is still tipping down with rain here, we are about 50 miles from the event, as the crow flies, but as I am not a crow about 2 hours!

Saturday Evening
Kings Equestrian Bromyard kindly gave me a late entry for their Arena Eventing today, I arrived to find it was a very testing course, fabulous experience. Doubles of skinnies and corners and roll top skinnies. I went in on William with his eyes popping out on stalks, the judge asked if I would like to do do 2 practise fences I replied "2 fences??? I may need 2 hours!!!!" He eventually got his head around the spectator gallery , the mirrors, and all the other stuff to jump brilliantly and came 6th in the 80.

Taking William out to shows is a bit like taking Harry Styles along with me, far too many admirers!
(for him not me of course)

Somerford Abandoned

Rubbish news the text arrived just after 8 am when we were within an hour of the event, I was driving and Ant was asleep (very early alarm call) meaning it was another 40 mins before we could look at the phone. I just wonder why an earlier text couldn't have been sent to say there was a slight doubt or something on the website last night warning us to check phones regularly and I would have woken Ant up, I thought it was a good luck message texting through.

We are home now, Sweep the lorry dog has refused to get out of the lorry as we are not where she thought we should be going!

Sweet William and Hartpury Twilight went to Hartpury yesterday, a dressage show. William was 3rd  with 65% in good company and Twilight was on his best behaviour to wobble greenly through his test for 63%.

Withdrawn Already :(

Hartpury Take It 2 The Top is out of his next few events, he has sustained a graze to his front leg that caused his leg to blow up like a balloon, he got caught in his Premier Equine rug straps on Sunday. As he is is so narrow these very deep rugs hang a bit low on him. He will be back in work early next week, we are hoping to run him in a couple of weeks, but it means he is WD from Somerford and Gatcombe.

Sweet William went to Moores Farm this week www.mooresfarmequestrian.co.uk . Here they have a clear round day every Tuesday you pay £10 per horse and jump as many times as you like, the height goes up 10 cm every hour. He jumped clear round the 90 cm although I was glad of a school around the 80 cm first. Twilight also went along and did the same in the 70 cm and the 80 cm. they both behaved perfectly, I was very pleased with my boys.

Dangerous stirrup breaks, see picture, a rider I teach was trotting when it snapped, thankfully she was on an arena when it happened and not on the road or out XC. They are only a couple of years old and still looked brand new, but as you can see they had rusted inside the rubber covers.

 

Aston Le Walls first event 2013

It was very exciting to be out eventing, the event had banned lunging to save the ground so I led Take It 2 The Top around the lorry park for a while to settle him. He was as good as gold in the dressage scoring a fab 31, putting him inline for a good place, especially when he show jumped clear too, the show jumping seemed very little and caused very few problems. The XC looked lovely, I was worried how spooky he would be at fence 5 The Water, it was a decent house jump just before the dew pond, need not have worried he popped in easy. Although he gave me a pretty green ride XC he jumped all the difficult fences easy peasy, he went green as we galloped past people walking the course and as we passed by fences not being jumped.   I expected him to be spooky and had a bit in his mouth that is far too strong for him normally, so I had him over anchored giving us 5 time faults, but a double clear is more important than a rosette. Next run he will be back in his snaffle as hopefully his spooks will be out of his system, although I doubt it, so watch this space for my 20 pens at a flower jump!!!!!!

A really good day, perfect ground, fab event, good organisers, friendly secretary and brilliant XC commentary.

I almost forgot both William and Twilight went to Allens Hill Friday to do long arena tests, they went really well and both won their class. William is due to have a go at a BE training 80 class soon.