New School Year, New House

What a wet summer and September we have had, but this hasn’t stopped us from cracking on practising for the Pony Club dressage regionals and one day event. My new pony Cracker (who arrived in March this year) and I had a bit of a falling out with to start with. My little arms and legs against his thick neck and big bottom didn’t make much impact at first. However, as Mummy says, practice makes perfect.

 We learned to understand each other better by doing lots of ground work with him, playing in the field, transition work, lots of lessons, and went out every weekend to different places.

With Cracker and friends from the Brocklesby Hunt Pony Club we took a team of four on the long trip to the regionals in Melton Mowbray — and we only went and won! Cracker and I got 69.52%! Which meant we qualified for the finals at Keysoe this September.

But the practice didn’t stop there as we then had a One Day Event at Rolleston, a beautiful new BE 80 course with lots of bright coloured fences and I found it a really nice ride. 

Forgetting the test

Our dressage did not start well this time, as for once, with all the hype and pressure I put myself under, I forgot my test at the start.  But I put all of this behind me after a little cry. Mummy said not to worry about it and to concentrate on the next two phases.  I was then really surprised to find we’d scored well with 34.7 penalties in the dressage — sometimes Mummys do know best! The team came third overall so that was another championship at Keysoe to attend, fortunately the same weekend as the dressage championship.

Don’t tell Mummy this but I’m actually quite enjoying dressage and learning new things and cracker and I are now in harmony with each other.

 At the Keysoe championships, the dressage day was not  a great day one for our team, but my friend and team mate Coby did brilliantly, coming first individually with a mark of over 71%! Cracker and I got 60.48%, my worst score ever with him. But I took it on the chin and let it go over my head! I knew that Sunday was my day — the eventing. 

We had to be up early for my 9.20am dressage, and I was nervous and knew that I could have done better, but I focused on the jumping to come. I was last to go in the show jumping and went clear, so spirits were already high in the Brocklesby team as the dressage scores came in —  I had got 31.7penalties! We went out on xc and set off like a bat out of hell..... but pulled it back on course since you can get penalty points in Pony Club eventing for going too fast.

We got clear as a team round the cross country and came back so excited! It was a very long wait until 5pm for the results. There were 33 teams here and over 120 competitors all of whom had qualified at their areas by finishing 1st, second or third in previous months. We sat anxiously for the results to come through.. the team came 4th, and in 4th place individually ROBYN BYRNE AND CRACKERJACK! Mum was crying but I don't know why?