I have been fairly quiet with training over the last couple of weeks, mainly due to the horrid weather we seem to keep getting! I really can’t wait for some warmth and sunshine! I was meant to go XC schooling to Tweseldown with a group of friends, however the ‘Beast from the East’ take 2 stopped this from happening due to the lovely Tweseldown being hidden under a blanket of snow, so my tactic of ‘no prep is the best prep’ was put into play for Munstead!

In the lead up to Munstead I had the physio, Leanne George of LGAP out to check over Ollie. I’m afraid I’m a little bit old school with physios in that I don’t religiously get my horses backs checked every five minutes. I have never had issues with horses backs and I’m sure it is mainly due to the regular slow work in straight lines whilst hacking that strengthens their muscles and helps to support their backs. Despite the fact that Ollie felt as good as ever, I did think it would be a good idea to get him checked before the season kicked off. Luckily there were no major problems, a bit of tightness here and there from general wear and tear but nothing too awful and considering it is over a year since he was last checked, Leanne didn’t seem too concerned! It always makes me chuckle when people discuss the fact that their horse is slightly tight in his back and that must be why he/she isn’t winning whereas us horsey humans very rarely wake up with no aches and pains and we just carry on regardless!! If only we took the same care of ourselves as we do our noble steeds!!

It has to be said, last Monday I didn’t think I would be competing at Munstead and all credit to the team there for keeping the show on the road despite horrendous weather in the lead up to the event. The ground was as good as you could expect at this early stage of the year and the team had done a fantastic job with the ground and reversing the XC course to give it a fresh feel. I was given late times on Sunday afternoon so I had some of the worst ground and it was still good considering the recent horrid weather!

I was competing in the 100+ so this meant I would do a Novice level dressage test, 1.05m SJ and 1m XC. We arrived at lunchtime and I got Ollie ready for his dressage. He was very relaxed so I was hopeful it would continue! I hopped on and walked over to the dressage warm up. Ollie often gets extremely tense in the dressage warm up and needs about 45 mins of work to chill him out! Luckily the warm up at Munstead is huge so I managed to find a quiet corner to work him in. I have also invested in some sound reducing ears for him which I think helped, so they will be used again! He did a nice test with a couple of tense moments but generally he went sweetly enough. He scored a 24.8 which I was very pleased with, however with the leader on a score of 13 (yes you read that right) I had some catching up to do!

I then had a long gap of 3.5 hours before my SJ which meant I had plenty of time to sort Ollie out and go and walk the XC course. The course was nice and I was happy that it shouldn’t cause us too many issues. Ollie is generally a XC machine at 100 level however we had a couple of not such great runs at the end of last season at Novice level where he got really tired due to his breathing issues and I had to retire right at the end of the course. With this in mind I was keen to make sure that he didn’t get into a habit of pulling himself up at the end of the course once he started to feel a bit tired! Overall I really liked the course, it had enough questions to not be boring but would be a nice first run. During my gap, I also went and watched some of the 100 SJ to get an idea of how it was riding. There seemed to be a fair few poles falling and the ground in front of a couple of the fences had become fairly deep so I was pleased I took the time to look out for the problem fences.

 

It was then time for me get ready to show jump so I tacked Ollie back up and put his studs back in. The showjumping warm up had got pretty muddy by this point so I didn’t do too much warming up and just popped the practice fences 2 or three times. He was jumping well so I didn’t want to spoil it! After a short wait it was our turn to jump. He jumped really well considering he hates the mud, I tried to keep to the sides of the fences where the ground was better when I could, which he seemed to appreciate. He was unlucky to just get a bit deep to the penultimate fence and just touched it to have it down. This was a shame as he didn’t deserve it.

It was then a quick change of clothes for me and boots for Ollie ready for the XC. There were only 2 in the warm up in front of me when I arrived at the collecting ring so I had a quick pop and it was time to get cracking! He flew the first few fences cruising along bang on my minute markers, jumped the corner which had caused a few run outs earlier in the day, turned the corner to the trakehner and the anchors went down… We have had a few issues at Novice level last year at this fence, however I thought we had overcome the issues as later in the season he had jumped them (albeit cautiously!) Well today he decided their were horse eating lions hiding in that ditch so 20 pens it was… he received a smacked bottom which then sent him into meltdown and a whole minutes worth of rearing and refusing to even look at the fence proceeded. He eventually decided he was bored and popped over the fence as if it wasn’t there… Tit!! He then flew round the rest of the course like a pro. I wanted to test how fit he was so despite the 20 pens I still pushed him to keep going at 100 pace which he did with no problems, and he crossed the line still full of running with this ears pricked!

So although the event didn’t look great on paper, we achieved a lot from the day… He scored a PB at that level in the dressage, the pole SJ wasn’t anything to hold against him and he felt so much better XC than he had last year. We were able to feed him like normal in the lead up to the event and he even had haylage between the dressage and SJ and didn’t cough once! So despite having a bit of a naughty horse, I do at least have a healthy one, which is a much nicer feeling!

We are going XC schooling on Good Friday before competing at Goring Heath on Saturday to hopefully practice some trakehners! Fingers crossed Goring gets to run… At the moment i’m not too hopeful :(

Charlotte and Ollie xx