Training Day

A couple of months back my friend sent me a link to a British Eventing (BE) training day coming up. It included flatwork, showjumping, and cross-country tuition from Olympic event rider Sharon Hunt, information from BE, a goody bag, training ticket to allow you to enter a BE80 event, and information in how to go about it. All for only £40! it was also based in our area (well, nearly 2 hours away, but in East Anglia still) I booked in immediately!

I had been really looking forward to it. I had planned how I would do child care, I had looked up the distance on the map, and it was very exciting.

Things never really run smoothly though do they?

Childcare had to be rearranged due to a school inset day. There were various road works on the route, and we had had a setback and knock to our confidence only a week before when I had taken the mare to the riding club for some team training, where we proceeded to demolish the showjumps. I had misunderstood the session, thinking it was just flatwork, so left behind our jumping bit and hunting breastplate, which apparently makes more difference than I realised!

The horse has also gorged herself this week and appears to have turned into a hippo. Sadly she is a bugger for jumping the electric fencing, so keeping her to one section is nigh on impossible.

Anyway, Friday morning my alarm went off at 4.30am, I picked up my gear and got to the yard for about 5.20am. Thankfully the mare had stayed clean over night (we nearly fell out over the state of her on Thursday evening!) We were on the road for 6.30am. Sadly I seem incapable of correctly following a sat nav, so we had a few detours, and at one point I honestly thought it was wrong and we were going to be lost in deepest, darkest Norfolk for days!
However, we managed to get there somehow, still with plenty of time.

The plan for the day was as follows:

9-9.30am flatwork riders A + B
9.30 -10 flatwork riders C + D
10 - 10.30 flatwork riders E + F
10.30 - 11 flatwork riders G + H

11 - 12 showjumping riders A, B, C, D.
12 - 1 showjumping riders E, F, G, H

1 - 2 lunch and a chance to ask Sharon questions.

2 - 3.30 xc for riders A, B, C, D
3.30 - 5 xc for riders E, F, G, H

Let's say I was rider A.

The flatwork was kind of as I expected, general riding and Sharon picking up on little things. In my case my tendency to turn my right hand in, and raise my right heel. She also encouraged me to ask for more from the canter, and had us cantering 15m circles in an effort to improve my riding of the mare rather than just letting it happen. So pretty happy with that. It's always nice to know you are at least vaguely on the right track.

The showjumping I was a bit worried about. I was concerned there would be a huge course of smart, brightly coloured showjumps set at 3ft and us expected to be able to jump them effortlessly. As it turned out there was a set of rather tired looking jumps in a field with slightly too long grass, I immediately felt more at home! Sharon had us all cantering over 4 poles spread around the field, trying to establish a decent canter and keeping it. Then a tiny x pole was introduced to this layout, then we had to jump two small uprights on a related distance. Then a small course. No jump was any bigger than 2'6" which was perfect. I tried hard to get a bigger canter and keep it consistent and actually ended up jumping quite a flowing round. This is quite an achievement for us as we tend to lose momentum on the turns and go full pelt at the jumps. I have to work very hard on aiming slightly right of the jumps as I constantly drift left. I think we managed all but one jump on the right stride, and that one wasn't too bad, just missed the stride a bit and muddled through. But it was a huge confidence boost for us both.

The other horses in the group were a mix of young and old and the riders were similar ability, but with a range of experience. It was a good group.

Over lunch we had the chance to speak to Sharon about eventing in general. She really knows her stuff and was happy to share her tips and experience. We talked about making the step up to BE events, and what is different about them. The level of fitness needed, and where to go for a good first time outing.

The afternoon was so much fun! We went out onto the XC course and started off with a canter, then popping over a dinky little hedge, everyone managed this fine, though one of the horses, a 5yr old, was quite suspicious to start with, even though he could step over it! We moved on to a ditch, which I took my time over, letting the mare take a look if needed, but she was quite happy with it. We ended up giving the 5yr old a lead over and over the ditch which was hugely beneficial to us too, as it made ditches rather dull, rather than something that we 'might' have a look at. There was a rail one stride after the ditch, so we progressed onto ditch and rail, then brush, ditch, rail, which went really smoothly for us. Unfortunately two of our group fell off at the rail, one taking her bridle off with her, which caused a bit of excitement! Thankfully everyone was ok. So we moved on to a row of small jumps. The mare was having a wonderful time at this point and flew. She didn't fight me at all, it was really enjoyable. We nannied the baby horse over these too, then popped down and up a step, then did step then rail. Then linked about 5 jumps together and popped those.

Some of our group started having some problems with the next jump. It was a beehive type jump, but with spooky cut outs in the front, and some horses really don't like those. The mare would have jumped the moon if I had asked her at this point, so jumped this little jump beautifully. The others mostly popped this ok, though one horse took a huge dislike to it. It took a lot of Sharon's different tactics to get the horse over it, the horse was actually being quite naughty, and so we did some more leading. Eventually it jumped it twice, to the huge relief of the rider!

Next up we headed to the water. This was also not very straight forward! All went in fine. We walked through, trotted through, stepped down into it, stepped up out of it, then popped a 90cm skinny table/roll top type thing with flowers afterwards which I really enjoyed doing because my mare, Alice was just being a dream to ride. Unfortunately the baby horse had a bad time at the skinny, having decided at the last minute to bank it! Both horse and rider tumbled but thankfully got up unscathed. We then led them over some little uncomplicated jumps to get their confidence back.

We finished up doing a 90cm ditch, stride, roll top combination, which although not quite right we jumped ok.

I don't think I've ever felt so proud of my little horse as I did that day. She seemed to enjoy it as much as I did, and I am almost considering a BE80 attempt.

After a bit of grass and a good wash off we headed home. Alice got turned out into the field with her well deserved feed and lots of grass, and I headed home, picking up my children on the way. We got home at 7.30pm and only slightly late for the children's bedtime. I bribed them with stickers to get ready without fuss, read them Hairy Mclarey and gave them snuggles, before collapsing in a heap on the sofa still wearing my breeches. What a fab day!