Training At Home

His First competition…. it was interesting to say the least.  We left at 5am to get there in time.  We only got lost once… which was impressive as this place was in the middle of no-where!  He was brilliant in the float it was lovely to have a horse that floats really well as my last horse had an accident once and was completly usless in the float! 

I tacked him up and my nerves where ridiculously bad, i felt sick and weak and light headed.  I need to work on those i think!  So anyways, He was good when i was tacking him up, he just stood there like a sweet innocent little child.  Much to my dismay, once i went into the practice round…. he was completly the opposite.  He played on my nerves and was so seriously naughty, he’d never been that naughty not even when i first got him.  I was really upset by the end of the practice round, I wasn’t even sure if  there was much point in taking him in the REAL round.

The time came for the real round, he was really wobbly to all the fences but i rode him really hard and tried to be as defensive as possible as i have now found out he has a really dirty stop in him…. you know the kind where you go flat out to the jump and litterally 2 strides out he slide halts to the base of the jump and sticks his neck down and you most of the time go flying over his head.  Yep one of those stops.  I was really happy because he only had one stop at the last fence which was a water jump with a HUGE big blue mat underneath it…. aparantly the horses were surposed to step on it but my horse being the clown that he is didn’t want to go near it, not even jump the whole thing but he did second go. 

I was happy with the round as he’d never seen those jumps before.  But I am really un happy about how much his bad behavior un-did my confidence.  If any one has any tips on how to over come your nerves.  I can see this being our down fall.  I need to get confident agian, I have lost my “grrr’ somewhere along the lines.  I’m not sure when.  I love this horse and he is amazing but if he can upset me so much that i can’t ride then i shouldn’t have such a talented horse.  I know i can ride him, but my nerves cripple me.  Any Thoughts?  I would love some feed back!