We’re stepping up a level… and I’m breaking my Golden Rule. Eeek.

I’ve been lucky enough to have had quite a few super horses over the years, and taken them up the levels. My absolute golden rule is that we have to have had a few consecutive totally easy-peasy uneventful runs XC (and obviously no dramas or impossible moments in the Dr or SJ phases) at a level before moving up. This weekend I am breaking that rule… gulp.

I should qualify this by saying that we are ‘only’ going from BE90 to BE100. But every step up, even when you’ve done much bigger stuff before on other horses, is a challenge. “She”, by the way, is my homebred, Daisy. She is out of an Irish jumping mare, by Fleetwater Opposition. By rights she should be doing Big Stuff by now, but the route to Eventing has been, erm, challenging. As has she… it involved a couple of years of “this horse is so wrong behind that she is never going to be able to be a riding horse” and an extended period on crutches for me, with a knee-rebuilding operation thrown in, after she hit the Eject button in spectacular style once. But now we’re eventing, and BE90s are feeling too small… but I’m still
wondering… Will she cope? Or might we have a stupid embarrassing drama (hereafter referred to as an SED)?

Since she’s already managed to chuck quite a few SEDs in at BE90s, a level for which we should both be very well capable, you can understand my slight concern, I hope!
We did a couple of BE90s last year. She sailed round the first 2, apart from an unnecessarily violent zig-zag spook manoeuvre at Keysoe which ejected me over her shoulder (SED mark #1) fortunately well away from any fences, so no jumping penalties. I stepped her up to BE100… the dressage was okay, the SJ was fine except for an expensive moment when I didn’t rebalance her enough and she rapidly had the next 3 down before I got her back (argh!), but XC she boggled at Little Downham’s infamous Barbie-Pink Corner of Doom, and somehow forgot to pick up one front leg. Totally forgot. Left it straight underneath her and skidded over the fence on top of it, landing with a lurch on her feet. Of course I fell off so that was that. Humph. Extremely SED #2.
We circumspectly went back to BE90s for the rest of the season. A very naughty run-out at a corner (spooking violently at the straw bale helpfully put on the end of it to help keep horses in, fgs!) was our only problem. Yep, SED #3.

We came out again this season at BE90 although I was itching to do BE100s. Little Downham went okay. Our dressage was hampered by me deciding on a bit change 20 mins from our time, and then the person before me disappearing, so 6 mins of re-warm-up evaporated. We still didn’t quite have it together for the SJ (since remedied by an AMAZING instructor or two!) but the XC was a very enjoyable spin, with no SEDs. Wooooo.

At Great Witchingham, after a super flatwork session with Sharon Hunt a few days before, Daisy did the kind of test I didn’t think she was capable of yet, accepting my aids throughout, for a good score. A decent clear SJ made me get my hopes up of a placing…
It all went awry in the XC warm-up. This was a very weird shape in a different place to usual, shoved into the corner of a field with no clear run-up to the practice fences, and I don’t know if it was that, or the heat (it was absolutely scorching), or something else, but Daisy was just NOT at the races, and dropped the bridle completely to stop at a simple rail a few times in the warm-up. This is unheard of. She jumped the next few absolutely fine, but I nearly withdrew her… and then thought ‘oh fgs, it’s only a BE90, flipping well get on with it’.

We started off XC, she felt great, and jumped the first 12 or so fences brilliantly. We did have a minor disagreement about which side of a tree to go in the woods between fences 2 and 3, but fortunately I said “oh okay, YOU decide” just before we ran into it. Luckily I have very flexible ankles, because my toe caught on it and bent my foot right back but it didn’t hurt at all… Hmm though. SED very narrowly averted. We sailed the trakhener, she was bold into the spooky water. I over-rode the stile, which was rather taller than anything else on the course, and she rapped it with her heels, which displeased her a lot (have I mentioned that she’s a sensitive over-opinionated bint?!), but we were clear so far…

Then, perhaps because Delicate Princess (who, incidentally, bears a passing resemblance to a Chieftain Tank) had just Rapped her Delicate Toesies on the Nasty Fixed Fence, she inexplicably decided to dive hard left a few strides from a skinny-ish (about 10′ wide, so not really skinny at all!) simple island fence, while cruising to it in fine style. She jumped it well at the second attempt. 2 fences later, she did the same again, then carried on and jumped all the rest very well, including the skinny. SEDs again. 40 pens at BE90. I might never live it down. 😉
This was very odd. I’ve never had one do what she did, and she loves her XC. I gave her a few very easy weeks (including almost week off when she went all feral and decided she didn’t want to be caught – again, extremely unlike her) and had her back treated, then picked her back up again. She was back to being happy in her work, eagerly wanting to be caught. No idea what that was all about… but that’s horses (or maybe just mares?!) for you! Onwards and, hopefully, upwards…

We toddled off to Shelford Manor for another BE90, last week. The dressage judge went awol for 20+ minutes, 6 minutes before my time (I was second in) which didn’t help at all, as I’d allowed extra-extra time to work in, as an experiment. Let’s just say that by the time I went in for my test, madam was totally cheesed off and feeling very uncharitable indeed. She did not feel like the same horse as I’d ridden at Great Witchingham, although it was the same test! We got through it, let’s leave it at that. The judge was marking low and gave us 35.5. 🙂
The SJ was fine. She felt a bit over-keen, and was rather surprised by how small the first fence in particular was… on the way to it I felt her thinking “But that’s smaller than we start over!!! Are you sure???” but she listened to me, was careful, and didn’t have any stroppy ‘leave me ALONE’ moments. She accelerated like a bit of a loony to the last SJ but I heroically managed to just bring my shoulders back and leave it to her, figuring that she’d learn either way, and was rewarded by a lovely big jump. Clear round. Not perfect by any means, but still, music to my ears.

Not wishing to be carted around the XC, I did at this point change her bit to something she’s never had in before, but which I have used with success in the past on just this sort of know-it-all horse, a copper-wrapped full cheek, single joint. She was instantly happy with it, it worked like a charm… 99% of the time anyway…

The XC was a cute course. Because they have a 4 yr olds’ class it is pretty simple and very short, which I didn’t realise, never having been there. Lots of logs, which I like for green horses. Not many skinnies, which I pathologically dislike for green horses in particular. I’d have called it a perfect first-timers’ course, maybe except for the biggish step down, and the spooky double early on, neither of which had an alternative, and both of which caused problems. Anyway, we pretty much romped round, I was able to adopt my favourite “helpful passenger” attitude for 99% of the round… letting the fences just come to us, letting her see the stride that I had seen, without much interference. It was fabulous… except for…

Ah, that 1%. Remember the ‘stupid embarrassing drama’? Daisy obviously felt that this was all far too easy and she’d better throw something more entertaining into the mix.
At one point the course goes into a narrow band of trees. The BE90 track runs beside the Novice log, and you go down a short, slightly steep slope, take a few canter strides across the bottom of the sunken road, up a cute little step out, and back into the open fields. So, that’s all we had to do. Go down a little slope, toddle across the bottom, and up the step. Simples, as they say.
It had crossed my mind when I walked the course that she might shy at the log, and maybe I should trot into the wood, just in case… but she’s been far more mature about other courses’ fences recently, not even glancing at them at Little Downham (where there are plenty dotted around!), and she’s 8 (for heaven’s sakes!) not 4, so I put that thought firmly out of my mind. BIG mistake. We cantered into the woods, she shied ultra-violently at the log in her best “I am the Queen of Drama” guise, just as we got to the little slope down. Since the ground was suddenly not where she expected it to be, this caused her to lose her balance a bit and hurtle sideways. She never felt like slipping over, the studs did a great job, but there was a definite, ah… loss of composure, shall we say.
I put my legs on harder and attempted to straighten her to get to the step out. Second BIG mistake.

She can be a funny minx and sometimes objects strongly to whatever I say or do. I ride her by a mixture of guile and encouraging suggestion, most of the time. Unfortunately this was one of her “leave me ALONE, I know EXACTLY what I’m DOING” moments. Either I reacted too fast, or too slowly, or used too much leg, or too much hand, or too much of both, or not enough of something, or she’d got out of bed the wrong side, or there was an A in the month… you get the gist.
Rather than straightening out in response to my supposed-to-be-helpful corrective aids, she totally locked herself against them and continued on a defiant diagonal trajectory to the little step. Uh oh.

There was probably about 25′ of it to aim at, side to side. It was not a skinny, fgs. But somehow we got to it, in spite of my very determined efforts to slow/rebalance and straighten her, diagonally headfirst towards the right flag, which was also the white flag of the Novices. We stopped, about to head-butt the flags. Oopsy. In her (slight, begrudging) defence, she had NO idea that there was a step there that she was supposed to jump, she was still far too busy arguing with me for daring to interfere in her sideways hurtle down the slope.

Sigh.

Turn a circle, pop up the step. “Oh, there’s a step there. Why on earth didn’t you say? I’m very happy to jump up that for you! Come on!” She felt slightly dicey to the next fence, a double of skinnyish island fences on 1 stride, but totally accepted my aids and jumped through it very well, and straight as a die. Hmm… dare I possibly hope that a little lesson might have been learnt… ?!

We continued, and had no further problems, with her actively looking for the next fence, ears pricked, keen as mustard, turning in the air over her fences, loving every second.

I did have that forlorn fleeting delusional hope that the Fence Judge might have had a white stick and a labrador, and might have decided charitably that as I had never actually presented at the step the first time (being far too busy arguing with my horse and trying to aim her at the flag, etc), and we might not be penalised, but of course not, we got a deserved 20 penalties for getting our wires so crossed.

But she very definitely needs bigger fences, and so I asked Prestwold Hall to move us from BE90 to BE100 this weekend, which they have very kindly done. She’s jumping out of her skin at home, and going sweetly on the flat most of the time, so let’s hope she does the same tomorrow!

I’m praying that the wires stay uncrossed this time, that I can keep her focussed, and we have a bit of luck! Please send Good Luck vibes in the Prestwold Hall direction on Sunday…