Eventing Update

Its been some time since I posted and since then the horses have been out to another three events with some mixed results.

Lincoln:
Beanie's (Donnermere) second event of the season was the Novice at Lincoln.  He performed what I thought was a reasonably good test, better than his test at Oasby, and so did everyone watching.  I thought he would get quite a good score but the Judge thought otherwise and gave me a poor mark of 41.0.  Luckily as the scoreboards were so far away I was not aware of this until the end of the day as I am sure it would have disheartened me!  In the showjumping he was looking everywhere but at the actual fences so had an unfortunate 4 faults at the first fence.  He gave me a fantastic ride on the cross country, it was quite a technical course and the coffin was causing quite a lot of penalties, but he was amazing jumping all the straight routes and finishing with no time faults.  He was out of the placings of course due to his poor dressage score.

Belton International:
Next it was off to Belton for the ONU18 (Q) with Beanie and we were hoping for a better dressage score. He performed a good test and scored 35.0 which was fairly good in the section.  He showjumped quite late on in the day and had an unlucky 4 faults at a black and white parallel which seemed to be causing lots of refusals for some reason.  The cross country course was quite big and beautifully presented with perfect going!  I was really looking forward to riding it on him as it was a bold course which I knew would suit him well.  He was foot perfect around the whole course getting the time and even earning a round of applause from the 3* riders who were having a course walk together at the coffin!  He was placed 4th which I was really pleased with earning him another 3 BE points.  I will definately be back at Belton next year!

Donnermere Novice Belton:

Eden Valley:
The next event was the BE90 at Eden Valley in Cumbria with Louis (Kellys Lad).  After Oasby where he found it a bit of an eye opener and was somewhat surprised by the whole occasion we were hoping he would have learned from the experience and found it a little less daunting.  He performed a very relaxed fluid dressage test on VERY wet muddy ground and coped well with the conditions scoring a very good 33.5.  The showjumping was on an arena which I was glad about as the ground conditions would have made this a difficult phase on grass especially as he is not even 5 yet!  He had an unlucky 4 faults at the planks off a corner but jumped a lovely round.  He was very confident on the cross country and jumped very boldly finding the course easy and finishing with no faults or time faults.  He came 4th in his section, his first proper BE placing!  I am so pleased that he performed so well and acted so much more mature.  His next event will be the BE90 at Northallerton and if all goes well he will upgrade to BE100 at Richmond in May.

Hope you are all enjoying your horses and having a good season
Phoebe Powell and the Eventing Team

Oasby BE ODE 2011. 12/03/11

Finally the start of the eventing season has arrived and we were lucky to have great weather and ground at Oasby horse trials in Lincolnshire.

Donnermere (Beanie) was entered for the Novice as we felt he finished so strong at the end of last season at this level. Kellys Lad (Louis) was entered in his first BE event in the BE90 section and with only one cross country schooling session (due to very wet recent weather) we were aprehensive as to how he would cope.

Beanie was first to go and didn't perform as well as I was hoping in the dressage due to him being very excited. He scored a reasonable 35.5 and was in the upper half of the board. He jumped a pleasing round in the show jumping but rolled the pole on the last fence so had 4 to add. The cross country was up to height for such an early season event with a 3-part water jump and some pretty decent fences, but he cruised round taking every direct route and finishing with no time penalties to add. He finished a respectful 7th which I was very happy with. His positive performance bodes well to a hopeful upgrade to Intermediate later in the year!

Louis was a star! He was 'a little vocal' in his dressage test but performed well scoring a good 36.5 which put him 10th after dressage. In the show jumping he had a fence down, which he still finds a bit scarey, and wasn't concentrating to the next fence which was a double, so he jumped the first element and was somewhat surprised by the second element, but he circled and jumped it very well second time and completed the course with 8 faults and 10 time faults. He gave me a really lovely ride on the cross country from the very first fence with just a wobble at the sunken road picking up 20 penalties. Apart from that he jumped everything brilliantly including two steps down and a fence to water which I was very pleased with and it gave him a very positive experience. His next event will be Eden Valley BE90.

I am very pleased with the horses and I am looking forward to Lincolnshire BE ODE next weekend with Beanie in the Novice. I will keep you updated with every event.

Phoebe Powell and the eventing team.

Donnermere Novice Show Jumping:

Kellys Lad BE90 Cross Country

February 2011 Report

Hi everyone, here's what we've been doing so far ...


JAS BISHOP BURTON:
On last weekend of January we loaded up the horses and set off for Bishop Burton's British Eventing Jumping and Style competition! 

We had Louis (Kellys Lad) entered in the BE90, this would be the first event on his record so we were hoping for a good result.  He was very excited when we got there and showed this by putting in some quite big bucks in the warm up!  He thought the cows in the barn next to the warm up arena were very scarey!  He soon settled down though and showed a very mature attitude for his 5 years by jumping a lovely double clear over some fairly spooky jumps and gaining a style mark of 21 with 3 time faults on the xc so finishing on 24.  We were really pleased with him and he ended up in 3rd place overall.  Not bad for his first 'official' event!

Beanie (Donnermere) was entered in the Novice section.  After finishing the 2010 season with some strong placings we were hoping for a positive start to the season and he didn't disappoint!  He jumped a fab double-clear with an amazing style mark of 1 and only 2 time faults to add, finishing on a total mark of 3 and winning the section by a huge 13 point margin over 2nd place!!!

A very successful day with both horses qualifying for the finals at Addington!

OTHER NEWS:
Horses all going well, Louis has been going to BSJA competitions, and he has been jumping fab round British Novice and Discovery classes getting some double clears on his record and winning a little bit of money!  He has also been to dressage a few times and the Judges seem to really like him.

Beanie has started going to the gallops again (which he loves) to fitten up for the event season.  He loves galloping with mum's horse!  We took him showjumping training yesterday to Richmond Equestrian Centre and he jumped amazing! I have spent a lot of time over the Winter working on the quality of his canter and rythmn which seems to be paying off in his jumping. I am having a Dressage lesson with Ian Woodhead on Monday evening who has been helping me with my flatwork, so hopefully I can get some even better scores this year.

As soon as it dries up, we will be cross country schooling with the horses so I will let you know how that goes.

Feel free to leave any comments.

Phoebe Powell and the eventing team.

Louis- BE90:

Beanie- Novice:

Welcome to my blog ......

Hi everyone,  I hope you like my new website and welcome to my blog!  Here I will keep you all updated with the latest results, training, the run down from our events, and all the goings on at home on the yard. 

Only 4 weeks to go until the first event of the season and I can't wait to get going!  The horses are starting to lose their weight gained in the bad weather in December when we couldn't get any work into them and they spent most of their day eating, eating and more eating in their stables!  They are now back working and competing and starting to feel like eventers and not retired horses.

Keep visiting my website and follow the progress of the horses through the season.   Please feel free to leave any comments on the website.

Phoebe Powell and the eventing team.