Saturday, September 25, 2010

Scone HorseTrials Day 1







A Beautiful day for it! T-shirt warm, slightly overcast by the afternoon, and the Whites of Belltrees, have hosted another successful Horse Trials event.
This is Paeon's 2nd HT competition and he is definitely excited about it. Tied up at the truck whilst awaiting his turn, he showed the patience of a two-year-old kid. When he was on his own he was NOT HAPPY! "Pick me, pick me, it's my turn!!!" digging his way to China with impatience, he couldn't wait for Emma's attention.
When something was happening he was completely switched on, but very demanding of attention when he was supposed to be chilling out waiting before his first outing, the dressage.
Emma said he had worked beautifully schooling the dressage the previous day, so she hadn't worked him long; in retrospect, maybe he needed more 'flattening.' But once she was on him he was attentive; and after 20 minutes schooling he was settled for his test. Not as fluid as last week, and left canter strike-off was dis-united and took a couple of asks to get right, but everything else was fine and steady. The 56% score was a bit disappointing but there were a lot of horses in the Introductory class of 34 entrants sitting on about the same score! so he's still in the mix for the competition.
Emma had 4 dressage tests, show-jumping for Prelim and 1Star horses,and Pan and Jimmy to ride the Intro cross-country course. Only one unhappy horse..in the Prelim s-j, where her ride seems to have lost comnfidence, for the moment!!
Not Pan!! He was just so happy to be on course! Emma rode him to get the time and he galloped gently round the course to come in exactly on optimum time. No questions.
He was much more relaxed at the end of the day than in the early, waiting, moments.
Show-jumping to come, tomorrow!!

2 comments:

  1. Go Pan and Emma.
    Love that photo of him saluting the judge with Emma. He's got that head bow down pat !!!

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  2. An extra special piece of "submission". You'd think he should score a 10/10 for that movement, 'buttering up the judges'. The judge in this case 'was not moved'!!! That's the subjectivity of the dressage judging phase. But 10 points for trying, Pan!!

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