BRC Recent Competitions

So since my last competition update post Buddy and I have had three competitions and all of these have been with British Riding Clubs so I thought that it was only best to do these as a post all together so that I didn't have too many competition updates.

So my first competition was the BRC Area 5 indoor showjumping at Moreton Morrell. I was competing in the 80cm teams competition. When we arrived we went down to the office and got my hat tagged and got Buddy’s passport checked and then went and walked the course. My initial thoughts on the course were that it was very narrow but not the worst I have seen and so didn’t feel too worried about Buddy fretting about the jumps. So I watched a couple of rounds for the seniors, then went and got Buddy tacked up and warmed him up. In the warm up arena he was very out off by all the other horses in there as it was extremely busy; he kept getting in everyone’s way and just wouldn’t focus on what I was asking him to do, this wasn’t helped by the heavy snow which was also distracting him. When we got into the arena he didn’t seem to settle in much either, I believe that he was put off the the seating which covers the whole of one wall of the arena (short side) which caused him to not focus and overall effected our performance. Over the first jump he was hesitant but we got over but at the third jump he ran out due to me not riding completely well and him being distracted, the same also happened at jump 5. After that though he seemed to settle in well and put in a really nice round then meaning that we finished on 8 faults. Overall not the day I was hoping for but the team managed to grab a second which definitely made it worth while.

My second competition was the BRC dressage qualifiers at Moreton Morrell where we did Prelim 12. When we arrived we got everything checked again and then went and tacked him up and bought him down to the arena to warm up. He warmed up really nicely and as there were only about 5 of us in the warm up he was really able to focus and concentrate on warming up rather than all the other horses. We then went in and did a very nice test just mostly got marked down because of Buddy losing energy in walk and canter and him getting distracted by a pigeon that was flying around the arena which caused him to fall out of his canter. However the test was still decent and got us a nice mark of 63.52% which put us into 16th out of 28!

My final competition was the BRC 80cm team qualifiers at Solihull Riding Club. When we arrived we went and got everything checked, walked both courses and then got Buddy ready. Once again there were a lot of people in the warm up but on this day Buddy seemed to focus a lot more and we warmed up for quite a bit. My first round was in the outdoor arena and Buddy out in an amazing round only knocking one fence due to me letting his canter get quite long and flat. We then got a long break before our second round. After talking to others they said that the course wasn’t riding well and jump 3 was causing a lot of problems for people. When I went in and was heading for the first jump Buddy decided to spook and something (still don’t know what it was) meaning that we had to take, a very big oxer, from a trot but somehow still managed to get over neatly. When I got to the third jump I remembered what people had said and so round Buddy into it quite a bit and he jumped it very nicely. Compared to jump 3, jump 4 was very small and so I thought I didn’t need to really ride into this jump. However because of this stupid mistake Buddy hesitated and knocked the pole, it all would have been ok but when he knocked it the pole rolled out away from the jump right to where Buddy was landing! This meant that when he landed his foot went in the pole and he fell straight onto his knees and then nose, I instantly slipped into his neck not expecting this and was just about to slide off when he jumped back up however I was too far down his neck so all this did was flip me onto my back while I was falling. As soon as I fell off I knew I wasn’t hurt but when I was falling had seen Buddy go down so I instantly got up to see if he was alright. Luckily he seemed ok just a bit confused about what had happened and so we were allowed to carry on. Everything went ok apart from a run out at jump 8 and a pole at 9 because of us both being a little shaken up still. However at jump 10 when rounding the right corner Buddy saw jump 6 and decided that was the one he was supposed to be jumping. I did manage to pull him out but we were too close to 10 by then so I had to turn a circle and then jump it which meant I retraced my steps and got us eliminated.

Not really how I wanted to end the round but the team was already unable to qualify so wasn’t the end of the world. Definitely taught me to ride properly into every jump as well no matter how small!

Thank you for reading and I hope this gave you a quick and brief idea of how January and February have been like for Buddy and I.

Liv and Buddy