A hike up north on Tuesday for Jonelle with three 7 year olds for the 3*Short class. And I mean North…Burgham is in Northumberland, just one and half hours from the Scottish border.
Unsurprisingly for that part of the country they were greeted with rain on arrival but the first time the horses have seen proper green grass in weeks! It is run by a lovely welcoming team and Jonelle rode all three on Tuesday afternoon and then was up early on Wednesday with Faerie Usian (Maude) running number 3 in her huge section of around 100 horses.
A tough test for the young horses to perform as they step up to this level with a simple change out of counter canter at both A and C….for the uninitiated that means cantering around the corner on the short side on the wrong leg, then a change of leg through walk and back to true canter, all in the space of a few strides. And as Jonelle commented, maybe they can do that on a surface but on grass, and wet grass at that, it’s just a balance issue! Maude is a big bird and that’s a very hard thing for her to do right now but she did her best right up until the last halt when she went to swing her quarters as she stopped. Jonelle kept her leg hard on to say “err…thats a no thank you” so she knocked into herself and then proceeded to have a total melt down and leapt up and down and all over the place. Really not the way to impress the judge as she wrote her closing observations. A 39 wasn’t exactly an unfair score.
I Like it de Rohan (Kiki) is making steady progress through the intermediate level and the training and has been fairly on side throughout her first season with Jonelle but she wasn’t particularly tractable when Jonelle rode her on Tuesday and when she warmed up for her test today she was really really not in the mood! Jonelle went through the motions and did her best but I think a near record score of 51 (for Jonelle that is, I don’t even think Grappa Nera has passed the 50 mark!) was enough to convince Jonelle that something is not quite right so Kiki is spending the next few days hanging out on holiday many miles from Dorset. Vets on site are running various tests and she has cheered up considerably having been told she is off games.
If Wednesday didn’t quite go to plan then Thursday didn’t start off too well either. Jonelle woke up to discover that Tim’s E bike had been stolen overnight and it was in company with 11 others as it turned out. It really is unusual for the super friendly eventing community where no doors are locked and bikes are parked up by the trucks everywhere we go.
Jonelle was keen to not repeat Faerie Good Golly’s tantrum behaviour in the ring at Royal Jump last month but try as she might she couldn’t find any arenas to practice in before her test. Golly had warmed up well in France before thoroughly taking advantage in the main arena and then just 10 mins before they were due in a steward allowed Jonelle into an arena. And no sooner had she entered than she turned into a total witch, “lit up like a firecracker and started double barrelling out behind in her ‘get your leg off me’ mode” in Jonelle’s words. With about 9.5 minutes to go Jonelle decided she had no choice but to take Golly on as a repeat of cantering all through the trot work which is what she did at Royal Jump wasn’t a preferred option at this stage. Of course, no sooner had Jonelle attempted to work Golly through her tantrum the steward came over and said “Are you having a moment, Jonelle?” which was slightly stating the obvious for sure! What followed was 9 minutes of “tumultuous” arena antics with the girls standing on the sidelines in Oh My God Mode as Jonelle and Golly crossed swords on acceptable behaviour. Jonelle was well aware of the stewards presence and was also noting that if this continued she was going to pick up a not so cool reputation as she was already sitting on a 39 and a 51 so it was pretty fraught. Just as Jonelle started to feel she had worked through it it was time to go in and to Jonelle’s utter relief Golly stayed with her in the test for a 31 which is no disgrace for a 7 year old.
Jonelle described it as “a moral victory” and also mentioned it never ceases to amaze her how horses can figure out something so quickly. Before Royal Jump Golly had never blown up but she certainly decided that on balance that was a great way to spend arena time and was quite prepared to replay that scenario again today. Classic Moet was a proper hot mare but she just used to get faster and faster in her tests, she was never deliberately and downrightly naughty like her daughters!
Let’s just hope it’s a teenage phase and that they step up to the jumping phases tomorrow. It’s been quite the rollercoaster so far at Burgham but the cross country will be live on https://www.clipmyhorse.tv/en_GB/ tomorrow. Maude runs at 9.34 and Golly at 11.40 so at least they are finished up nice and early.