2 May 2010 - Waihora ODE

Well what an amazing day for me, not so much for poor old Shannon, however she should be very proud of herself and if she hadn't knocked a rail in SJ I would have been forking over for a new show jacket for her. Shannon did her dressage test first, not as good as previous ones she understood why she got 10th, so thats good. Lace did mostly a nice test, however first canter there was some head movement, but our loops were spot on, and our circles at canter, as they were supposed to be, and other than one trot before the marker she did a really nice test, enough to get us 3rd. XC well, they were full height, for me, very scary, there were some big wide jumps out there. She tried to put me into the tree before jump 1 but once she saw those flags she headed straight for the jump, then we had to go through a gateway, yet again all stop, I did manage to go a tad forward at that point, doh! After that, we were in cruise mood and the scary number 5 she jumped beautifully and I started to get my confidence up. She was responsive, and came back when asked and really jumped beautifully. We got to the drop to the water, I slowed to a trot, she worked it out and said pretty much ' bugger this were off' and leapt in, she wanted to take the big element out, luckily I hadn't lost that much of my reins and we took the right one and we were homeward bound. We kept it slow because of her shoe, but no issues there, still on, and no more cracking. Shannon (who Julie kept an eye on, cause I was riding) flew around the course, much better pace and clear all the way - well done Shannon I'm so proud of you! Jim and her seem to have so much confidence in each other now its great! My SJ was a nice round, however I yet again managed to loose a stirrup, so not sure whether I'm not putting my weight down evenily or tilting, so need some help here. But she was just fantastic, they were small, so no issue and I could set her up nicely for each, so no rails no stops. Shannon who has a problem with Jim flattening out, kept him in a beautiful outline and nice and rounded however she relaxed (you could see it) before the final jump and he just flattened out and took the rail with his back legs. Shannon would have been in the placings if the fence steward had gotten it right, but in future she's going to yell her back number out as she comes up. I managed to stay on 3rd and I must say 1st place was a beautiful horse and rider, so well deserved.