Weston Park U18 Championships

After some hard work on Donnermere (Beanie)'s dressage with Rachel Lupton, we felt ready for Weston Park CCI* Under 18 Championships!  Beanie was newly clipped out and looking very fit and smart, and we had been cantering him regularly to prepare him for the 9 minute cross country at Weston.  He was competing as part of the Northern Team of 10 riders who had been selected from the qualifiers that ran earlier in the season.

We arrived at Weston on the Wednesday and he was due to run on the Thursday in the dressage (day 1), 2nd to go out of the Northern Team.  He settled well into his stable and has now started to get more used to going away and competing.  After a light dressage session on the Thursday morning, he trotted up well for the ground jury.  We decided not to work him too hard before his test as often he produces his best work within the first half an hour.  He performed a very nice, relaxed and consistent test, with only one small mistake in one of the counter canter movements,  but other than that we were delighted with him and he scored his best FEI dressage score to date of 52.2.  He was well placed on the scoreboard after day 1. 

Day 2 and he had a hack round the park, while dressage was on all day again in his section.  At the end of day 2 he had slipped down to about 30th out of 77 starters so still plenty to play for!

Day 3, xc day!!  The course was quite long and up to height for a 1* but his xc is always very keen and enthusiastic so I was looking forward to it.  He was amazing, really enjoying himself and making it all feel really easy.  He completed the course 30 seconds under the time and recovered really quickly, showing that all the fitness work had really paid off.  He had moved up the board quite a bit too!

Day 4, he was not due to showjump until after lunch, so after his trot up in the morning, he just had a bit of grazing in hand.  He warmed up well for the showjumping, but unfortunately just before he went in he overreached quite badly and his foot was pouring with blood.  We managed to stop it but he felt quite sore on it.  He did showjump well, however he did have 2 fences down, but the course was causing havoc and there was hardly any clear rounds at all.  So all in all we were pleased with him and felt he had performed very well in the whole event.  He finished a respectable 24th and the Northern Team were second in the country by 0.8 of a penalty, so a good team result as well.

Beanie is now having some time off work in the field, for a well deserved rest with the other horses!

Reflecting on the 2011 season, its been a great year for the horses and they have performed very well.  Louis is ready for an upgrade to Novice/1* next year and Beanie hopefully will run at Intermediate/1* and maybe try a 2* next year, fingers crossed!

I hope you have all enjoyed your year eventing and have liked reading my blog this season.  I will start writing early next year, when the horses are all back in work and getting out and about a bit.

Phoebe Powell and the Eventing Team

September Event Update!!!

Allerton Park

We had the whole weekend at Allerton Park in Yorkshire, Saturday with Louis (Kellys Lad) in the BE100 and Sunday for the Intermediate Novice with Donnermere.  We were hoping Louis would do a better cross country round after Hendersyde Park with his green moment at the coffin, and he has been over to Heidi Woodhead's for two training sessions dealing primarily with steps, sunken roads and ditches which are fences he can still be a little babyish with.  He went well on his training sessions and his confidence improved lots.

When we walked the course at Allerton they had built a new sunken road on the BE100, so it was time to test the training!  He started with a fairly good dressage test and was given 37.0, which was a good score in that section.  As usual, he did a lovely clear in the showjumping.  His cross country was lovely, and he felt the most established at this level that he has so far, he did the sunken road beautifully and finished with just 0.8 time faults.  He finished 4th overall in his section, which was a great result!!!

We were back early the next morning with Donnermere.  He had his dressage really early, but unfortunately when I went to get on him I realised that I did not have my boots with me.  Anyway, after a quick call home, my dad brought them up to Allerton where they arrived only when the horse in front of me was doing its test, and they could not manage to move me in the section.  So with no warm up I went in to do my test and I can't say it was one of our best ones!  He was a little tense and the sitting trot wasn't helping matters either!  Anyway, somehow he got a score of 40.5, so not as bad as I was expecting.  The showjumping was a fairly ok round and he just had one down.  His cross country was amazing though and he flew round well within the time and feeling amazing.  Needless to say he was out of the placings that day.

I wore a hat-cam at Allerton on Louis that weekend and I will upload the video on to my website and facebook page asap.

Kelsall Hill (2)

We went up to Kelsall Hill for the weekend, it was to be Louis last event of the season in the BE100 regional finals and we decided to enter Beanie for one more run before Weston Park CCI* as we wanted another practice of a dressage test!

Beanie was first to go, and we have had a couple of dressage training sessions with Rachael Lupton since Allerton and he was starting to feel more supple and connected.  He performed the best test of the season so far scoring 29.5, which was the best score in the section.  I was really pleased with him as he really tried hard.  His showjumping was a faultless and lovely round and he had nothing to add.  He bounded round the cross country finding it really easy and finishing with 0.8 reverse time faults and coming 1st in his section!!!!!!  It was a great result for him as he had come so close to winning a few times this season, but it had not quite happened until now.  He now has moved into Intermediate points.

Louis was next to go and he didn't perform as well as usual in the dressage phase as he spent the time whinnying at mums horse who was doing dressage at the same time as him in the next arena!  He was given 38.5 which was probably a fair score.  He did a lovely double clear to finish on his dressage score, but unfortunately did not qualify for Badminton Grassroots Championships.  Thats him finished now for the season and will have some well deserved time off  in the field relaxing before preparing for next year.

Last event of the year for Beanie next which will be the British U18 Championships CCI* at Weston Park, I will blog and let you know how it went!

Phoebe Powell and the
Eventing Team