Being a toad
We had a show hunter lesson with Tracey Page last week and it was fabulous!!! Spyke jumped like he has never jumped for me before. It gave me a lot of confidence.
Yesterday I took him to a Mini ODE. It was NOT a particularly good day. He did a very average -slightly below average dressage test, the judge even commented that he looked uneven :-( which is a bit of a worry!!!!! He had a stop in the show jumping which I should have ridden better as I knew it was coming and then in the cross country he was a TOAD!!!!!!!
Dressage
Show jumping
Finally jumping
It took me about ten minutes to get him NEAR the first jump!!!!! The nappy little rat didn't want to leave his buddies. I tried everything to get him going forward but he would NOT move. Unfortunately for him I have a stubborn streak a mile wide so even though it took us about 10 minutes (the course itself was only about 1 minute long) to get to the first jump, get to it we blinkin' well did!!!!! It was all of less than a foot high, I was soooooooooo mad. He had another nap (a MUCH shorter one) at the second jump and then the third was pointing in the right direction for Spyke (ie back towards his mates) so he had no more 'problems'. Grrrrrrrrrrr.
After the Comp
We were allowed to go and 'play' on the course after the competition and he behaved much better. Grrrrrrrrrr!
On another note, Robert and Moira arrived on Wednesday and it is FANTASTIC to see them. It's like they have never been away. I am really looking forward to our South Island holiday next week followed by..... The Wedding. :-)
The blinkin' photos are a bit big :-) but you can see them here: http://s152.photobucket.com/albums/s169/Paddockornament/More%20Spyke/Mini%20ODE%20010210/
