Borde Hill, 30.5.11

Well on the whole a very successful day, however I am still very cross at myself but I will learn! I allowed myself just over an hour to get on and warm up ready for my test, so worked him in walk for a long time, and he was going really well so I was really hopeful. The other paces were just as good and he wasn't at all tense. I then found out I had 4 in front of me, so decided to give him a break. The steward then came up and said I could go in if I liked, so I went to warm him up again and he never quite settled - it wasn't really tense, just not as relaxed as it had been. I was happy enough with the way he was going, so I went in. His first 3 movements were all 7s! It then went downhill, he struck off on the wrong lead, changed in one of his counter canters, pretended he didnt know what rein back was.. or walk for that matter, and to finish it off did walk to canter in his walk trot transition! Although this seems like a lot of errors, the bits inbetween were really quite good (I think I am getting there!) I then went to meet Mark Corbett (the South East U18 coach) to go on a coursewalk. It was nice meeting other juniors, they were really nice! The course was straight forward enough, and very similar to last year, so I was feeling quite confident. However they took out the water jump as it was causing problems, which was a shame - as Ozzie loves water! Onto the show jumping, and I knew the pressure was on, as although I didnt know my dressage score, I knew if I could jump double clear we would be in with a chance. I jumped the grand total of 6 warm up fences, as the ground in the showjumping warm up wasnt great, and went in. I was slightly worried when Ozzie decided left lead canter was impossible! He quickly decided it wasn't and off he went. Well he was a star, made all the distances and didnt touch a thing to finish with a clear round! Onto the cross country and Ozzie walked down relatively calmly (obviously the influence of Lucyanna Westaways Tiggr!) We jumped 3 warm up fences and were off. He was just lovely, he never pulled and stayed in a lovely if fast rhythm. As I didn't have to fight him, he made up so much time. There was a combination at 15 and 16, which was a big brush and then a curving line to a corner, it was either a long 4 strides or a steady 5, well Ozzie did neither .. and flew through on an easy 4 - what a star. Unfortunately, due to timings from the water being taken out, we ended up with 8.4 too fast time faults ! The thing was he was just in such a lovely rhythm, so to say I am gutted is an understatement, I couldn't believe I had ruined Ozzies chance of doing well. It dropped him from 5th to 12th, however lesson learned, and I think a stopwatch is going to be used from now on! Ozzie will have a couple of days off before heading to some more dressage at Windsor on Sunday!
Will update you all after that
Georgie and Ozzie x

Here is the video;
http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=2112103167356