Looking forward

Since this blog was meant to be about the Accidental Eventer, with a bit about Coolie thrown in it seems that I need to refocus its direction.

I thought about not continuing on with the blog, but in the end I decided to continue. It has been an interesting process documenting everything over the last year and I feel that the Accidental Eventer is more of a reference to myself than to Dakota!

Over achiever

This weekend we were once again very busy. Saturday morning we were up early to ride before going to view a new horse. The viewing got cancelled though so instead we did chores before I went to coach at the first pony club rally of the year.

Sunday we headed off to a dressage and show jumping training day. Coolie was entered to do a novice 2.2 test and a round of SJ at 90cm and 2 at 1m.

Dressage was first, he warmed up nicely and did an ok test. We still have so much to work on but he tried really hard and the trot work wasn't too bad. Need to work on the canter now!

Coming together
Show jumping was next and by then it was getting hot. Thankfully we didn't have to wait too long and after a quick warm up we headed in. Coolie was feeling rather well, so well he forgot how to woah and how to turn! I put in a couple of well placed circles and decided to put my reins down a hole on my bit for the 1m. He jumped well and only had 1 pole down because I didn't fix his canter.

The 1m round was much nicer. He listened a lot better but I need to get better at maintaining the rhythm around the course. Not being fast enough with adjustments meant we had 2 poles down, but he put in a massive effort and felt good so I decided to scratch from my third round (it was also approaching 37C!).

Last night I has a flat work lesson, were we worked on straightness and getting him to more his shoulders. It was a bit of a fight but far less than we used to have and we got some nice work. We also worked on my position as Coolie is great at displacing me. Following our lesson I was chatting to my coach about buying new horses. We are both looking for new ones for eventing. Bec mentioned that Coolie was probably capable of 1* which is exciting and more than I could have hoped for. I think this season is well and truly off to a good start!

Slightly unorthodox 







Comments

Popular Posts