First of all i don’t have great history over the years with the Petplan Area's in fact every time I’ve been or tried to go it’s culminated in a disaster of some sort.
I did previously enter Galante for the Petplans at Kingswood, when 2 days after i had entered he came down with a cough & strange sneezing thing. I tried everything to sort him but reluctantly withdrew & lost all my entry fees. :(
A few days after withdrawing we realised that the cough & sneezing was due to the swallows that had hatched in his stable he was standing inhaling there "Fecal Matter" basically eeeewwww.
So we set about with operation Vent lol which entailed putting a big vent in the stable right under the swallows. The next day cough & sneezing had vanished. Typical, so thanks to the swallows i lost a lot of money & my boy lad had suffered.
I had decided not to bother trying for any more Area's then stupidly decided last minute ( well with a few days to go to entry close) to go to Arena UK for the Novice Open. Bit of a drive for us which was 185 mile round trip, but hey what’s a tanks of fuel:eek:
Day came & my usual groom my wonderful Mum had come down with not only a severely bad back but terrible sickness. Thankfully just as a friend had stepped in my Dad decided to come, he hasn’t been to a show with me in probably over 20 years & I wasn’t sure if I would cope with him tbh. But Thankfully he is also a human satnav so i knew with him as co-pilot i would at the very least get to Arena UK.
Got there & wasn’t let down by Arena Uk's facilitys it was everything the photo's promised huge arena's loads of parking just space galore. I had a quick walk round & asked people who were all very friendly where to go. It felt very relaxed & i was happy that i had made the decision to enter at this venue.
Warmup was huge, once in there a friendly face appeared & asked if i was so & so to which i replied yes & then i recognised the person. I had known them online for years but we had never met in RL. So that was lovely i went on to meet a few more people which was great.
G warmed up super & was mega relaxed we didn’t even book in for the w-up class as i knew we would never get there in time. So it was just the AF test for us considering he’s never seen flower pots I wasn’t sure what he would do.
So onto the test he went into the arena fine a little lookey at the descrete flower pots but nothing rememberable.
We where then greeted by the judge at C who had now jumped out of his box. Without even a smile we got barked that “he hadn’t got a bell so could we enter NOW”.
I was a little taken aback by the judges tone especially as we where a few mins early for our allotted time. However I politely replied with a smile “of course thank you” so we started G got a little tense at points & was a bit worried going down the first c-line that the Judge was going to jump out again, so feeling he was about to spook big time I made the turn a little early but nothing serious, he did a lovely sweet test tbh.
Transitions especially the canter /trot where ropey. The walk also wasn’t great but we hit every marker & i was pleased with the test overall he felt super at points. I Don’t think I could of asked for more, he is super sensitive horse & not only reacts to every aid he also picks up on your mood. He can go very inward at shows which results in a behind the leg horse it due to his lack of confidence, but he didn’t this time he stayed forward so huge achievement.
Unfortunately due to the distance & the ridiculously slow scores I ended up having to leave the Area's without knowing my score. Which if I’m honest i was very disappointed about. BUT thanks to my friend who lives near by I got my score just after I had got home she very kindly text me. It turned out we had managed a respectable 64.19% & 13th place out of the 32 starters there were some super horses in the Novice Open so my baby Spanish didn’t do bad at all. Super pleased.
Here's a few piccy's thanks to the Human Satnav aka Dad for taking them:D
We still dont have our Petplan Sheets so im yet to find out what the judges thought :(
Now where almost coming into November all of us at CT dressage will be taking things a little more quietly for at least a month. I dont have holidays so i think now would be a good time for a few weeks off, horses will just do hacking.
December we hope to come out & start our mission to complete summer qualifications for both horses.
