What’s that expression? Proper preparation prevents piss poor performance? Something like that anyway… I should probably look it up. And learn from it.
I’ve had a bit of a mixed weekend, and – worst of all – the rubbish bits were ALL.MY.FAULT.
Let’s start with the good – we went to the beach on Satuday. F was on his toes at first (heck he wouldn’t even go onto the sand, because clearly beach sand is way more terrifying than arena surface!) but settled nicely and I didn’t lose my bottle at any point. We had some nice canters, paddled, took his bridle off and had a wee canter round. I took him into the sea much deeper than our accomplices were willing to go – he went willingly, which is good – and came back at the speed of light, which was both terrifying and awesome. This is what neckstraps are for! And we got some ace photos. Score.
And today we did an elementary, and it was OK. There were bits which were quite nice, and bits in the warm up which were good. And I actually think there were some quality bits, hidden amongst the less good bits. Ah, yes. I should come on to those, but I’d better start at the beginning…
Firstly, before we even left on Saturday, I managed to liberate rat dog, who went exploring and made me late. Not ideal. Then I was busy hitching up the trailer and the highlands managed to get loose on the road. Also not ideal. By this stage I was not only running late, but frantically stressed! J stomped his way to the A12 in the trailer as he tends to do, adding to my tension, while I played “hunt the petrol station” as I knew I wouldn’t make it to the beach and back without filling up. Fiine, bit of luck, found a convenient place and pulled in for fuel, and then it hit me…
Friday night, I’d miraculously lost my landy keys. Not a blinkin’ clue where they’re gone. How? No idea, they were on my key ring, then *bam* they’re AWOL and I’ve had to sent the MPs out to drag them back to barracks…
*Hold on, you said you’d driven to the yard, hitched up, driven to the station – so you found your keys, right?*
Ah, well, I have spares. So what’s the problem? Well, I drive a 1996 Land Rover Defender. It doesn’t have central locking. It doesn’t even have single key entry – ignition. Yep, I live in the stone age – and 99% of the time, I love it! I have 3 keys: door, immobiliser, ignition. And I have spares for the immobiliser and ignition. The spare door key may have been lost in battle against a stubborn bottle top in a pub. Don’t even ask… But this too is fine, as I discovered long ago that the driver door can be opened with another completely unrelated key I happen to own. So I unlock the door with that key, open the rest of the doors from inside, and use the correct keys in the immobiliser / ignition – simples…
Except that the fuel cap is locked. With the door key. Which I don’t have. *BOOM*. It hit me like a grand piano from the seventh storey. I was 40 miles from home with a trailer, two horses, limited diesel and no means of filling it up.
Yep, I had a little breakdown. And then I argued with my mother who was on dog and photo duty for the day. And the whole thing spiralled into looking like a rather unpleasant trip…
Being me, I drove on to the beach to meet the practical, sensible friends I was riding with, and pick their brains. We tried every key we had between us. I bent the landy ignition key in the lock – yep, I’m smart – and had a worrying few minutes convincing it to turn in the ignition later! Eventually, I picked the lock with a hair pin and penknife. This is why I love Land Rover engineering. It’s so reliable (or do I mean reliably poor?!). I could say it was more luck than judgement, but actually, I’m changing my name to Bilbo the burglar and adding lock picking to my CV.
So my day was saved. But really. Who loses their keys? I am a barely functioning adult here… And who doesn’t think of these things before trailering around the countryside? Not to mention the whole “avoidable stress” issue which would have been negated by just allowing more time…
And then today. Well lets see. I forgot my dressage square – I have about half a dozen. Every single one is currently at home, waiting to be washed before the BD debut, except the brand new shiny SRS one I was planning to pick up before I left. I found an ancient black numnah on the yard before leaving, but it’s not the same…
My competition breeches were in the wash from my most recent lesson (yep, I need to wash stuff more often!), a lesson which seems to have killed them too 😦 So I was sporting ancient beige jodhs. My stock hasn’t recovered from our most recent “dressage drenching” well and is in need of some remedial care.
The pony was clean and plaited, in a fashion, but not to my preferred standard due to lack of time and a spectacular display of poor manual dexerity from me. All in, I was feeling rather lacking on the aesthetic front.
I was relying on my recollection of the test from 3 weeks ago – how this didn’t come back to bite me on the arse, I will never know. I love my memory though – it’s great for trivial things like dressage tests and plots of Casualty from the late 1990s. Fannying about with his plaits and looking for a suitable alternative saddlecloth had bitten into my rather tight schedule and I rocked up with half an hour to tack up and work him in. I walked into the arena to warm up at T minus 20 minutes, and F felt like a thing possessed for the first ten minutes of those. I got him working sweetly enough, in and out of people quietly oblivious to all standard warm up rules known to man, and took him in.
The test itself was fine, but not quite “F”. I felt like we were at odds, just not quite communicating. I was trying to keep him in front of my leg, to keep my hands forward, not to let him yak, but not to block him either. I couldn’t decide whether to aim for the right diagonal on the right rein, or to sacrifice that for “togetherness” so I changed diagonal every other stride on that rein. I tried so hard to keep my rising in tempo in the mediums I kept changing diagonal there too. Generally, I rode like a mentally subnormal ferret on LSD – a million ideas buzzing round my head, but no real focus or plan. I allowed myself to be distracted by the buzzer for the next door arena, and I allowed my generally unfocussed state to influence the geometry of the test. Counter-intuitively, the trot work wasn’t too bad (looking at photos), nor was the first canter. By the second canter, I’d all but given up riding him and was just cruising round. He yaked into trot and we came down the centre line in a marginally better fashion.
“meh”
The judge, I believe, tore her own eyes out in horror, and vomited bile over the test sheet. Which I thought was a little harsh, for what was a distinctly mediocre test, but I suppose having blinded herself watching it, she probably felt a little bitter. That’s 5 minutes of her life she won’t get back, after all…
Am I worried about BDing at elementary next week? Yes. I’m no fool and I know I’m competing at a more ambitious level for our stage of training than many people would. And I don’t want to embarass myself entirely. However, I can also learn from my mistakes. I’m good at that. I get enough practice…
Next week, we will have every single bit of sparkle, bling, smart saddle cloth and all that crap everywhere. I will feel like we look the part – and that will make us feel the part. We will be prepared. His plaits will be done and done again until I am happy with them. We will look like the dog’s bollocks. Hopefully not literally.
I will make a plan and I will not deviate from it. I will ride that test according to the plan. And the plan will focus on the fundamentals – rhythm, balance, impulsion – and only one or two “new” thoughts or “changes” if you like. We will have plenty of time to warm up. I will spend the day before schooling not hooning in the sea (he performs best when he is schooled lightly the day before). I will consider this week whether to put him in his double (he rides differently in it and it may help) or keep him in his snaffle (which is safe and easy).
We may still cause actual bodily harm to the judge, or cause them to have a psychological break down of some description. But at least it won’t be because I haven’t tried hard enough. I can live with being second best, mediocre and dull. I can’t stand pussying around, failing for the want of trying. Because at least by trying, I’m already succeeding, in my own way.
In our own way, together.
The life and opinions of the Hot blooded Highlands 
There are some days when everything goes wrong and you are just safer staying at home. However, look on the bright side – you now know what it feels like when you’re less prepared than you should be, so you know where to aim higher! Your Mum obviously did exceptionally well with the photographs and I love the one of you guys sans bridle whooping it up!
Haha yes I was having one of those weekends! But yes, it was education all round – and we did have an absolute blast at the beach! Yep, she’s pretty good at wrangling dogs and camera really 🙂 Thanks for commenting!