First event of my very first season

Photo by John Britter

I can now reveal what happened at Tweseldown in the BE90 class last Sunday.  More exciting than even Heat magazine.  The first event of my first ever season, several international riders in my class (with youngsters I guess), how hard can it be?  Mackie, my 17.1 ginger bundle of Irish monkiness, was both bold and forward going as well as jumping beautifully.  The only downer was that it was the dressage phase and the judge didn’t see the funny side.  Mackie, however, was having a wail of a time.  The lessons with Petros certainly paid off at this point.  Instead of  a complete disaster, I managed to rescue some semblance of a semi-respectable score finishing with 39 penalties.

The SJ track was up to height and spread but a fair question.  The thing I really liked though, was the extra space available to turn my orange supertanker.  Yet again, unauthorised enthusiasm came to the fore.  I can only liken the experience to attempting to steer an erupting volcano.  Despite dancing a salsa in front of the scary harlequin fence and jumping it from a virtual standing start, it was a clear round.  As the Krankies would have said, “Fandabbydoubledozeee!”  Our first clear round SJ ever.  Big grin commenced at this time.

The XC warm-up caught me napping.  Mackie seemed calm, relaxed and popped the 2 jumps nicely.  I was instantly on my guard.  Once we were finally released (several previous riders had falls), Mackie quickly established a cruise and popped the first jump calmly.  Petros had worked out that we both jump better when I give a running commentary as it forces me to breathe whilst giving Mackie more confidence.  I didn’t stop talking all the way round, much to the amusement of the commentator and the fence judges.  We went clear, with just some time penalties and Mackie barely sweating.  I had remembered Petros’s advice of not to push hard on our first outing…have fun.  At this point my grin took on biblical proportions!

What lessons did I learn? 

1. Get lessons from an excellent instructor and listen to them.  They do know best.

2. Preparation is everything.  Training, training and more training.  There are no shortcuts.

3. A great support team make life so much easier.  My wife Tracy and our fab friend Sally were awesome.

4. Get a ginger horse and have an extra hour in bed. No poo stains that show!

We finally finished 14th out of 43 and gained our first BE Foundation Point.  By the way, the grinning still hasn’t stopped and my wife wants me to go to the GP.