Day 2: Showjumping!

[gem]

After dressage yesterday Saffy was a mini-eventer and did showjumping today She was on form!! We usually drop anchor at the first practice jump. Today she leapt into canter and dived over it She then proceeded to jog around the warm up ring. Most unlike her! We did the clear round first and she flew round no messing.

Our first class was the senior novice. She was great bless her. The planks had a plank on the floor underneath, making it look a bit like a ditch. SO many horses stopped at it! I knew I'd have to ride her into it quite hard. There had been one clear by the time I went in (I went in last). I pushed that to the back of my mind and set off. Popped the first, easy to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, over to number 6 with a new filler, bit of vocal encouragement and over she went, upto number 7 (the planks) and I growled my way over it She barely even backed off to be honest but we got in too deep and she just clipped the top one. She popped the rest no problems at all. That left 2 of us with 4 faults and I'd got the faster time as the other girl had a stop, leaving us 2nd!! Very pleased No pics of that one I'm afraid.

Second class was over 138cm (horses, not the jumps!) and we waited well over an hour for that to start Jumps were bigger and there were 2 (very poorly measured out) doubles. Again I went in and there had only been 1 clear. I was determined to go clear this time! She was fantastic. It wasn't the most glamorous round by any means, but you get no points for style!

Got in quite deep to the first


Landed over the 1st and she was disunited. She continued to be disunited all the way down to number 2 and still cleared it Number 3 felt perfect..


Number 4 was quite hefty off the corner but she felt good over it


5 was fine, 6 was the double




7 was the planks, not a problem. 8 and 9 were fine too.




So we'd gone clear!! Yey!! There were quite a few to jump off for 3rd-6th so they went in first and I went in first for the 1st and 2nd place JO. The 2nd fence in the JO was at right angles to fence number 1 so it was a bit crap. Tried to jump 1 at an angle but still had to do 2 very tight turns to get her round to the 2nd fence. Bless her she did just what I asked but we hardly had any space to turn so came at number 2 from a very backwards trot. Most would've stopped I'm sure, but she had a go. Unfortunately she trailed her back leg so we had it down, but at this stage I'm more concerned about her not refusing. We got in a bit of a muddle then and came round to the double on the wrong leg. Clipped the 2nd fence of the double but then completed the rest of the course very well, even with my terrible jockey skills The other girl went in and took the long way round to all the fences seeing as she only had to go clear so we came 2nd again. Very happy with her though. Considering she's not built at all like a jumping pony she's holding her own against the big boys!!

Some stills from the jump off...

Fence 2, may as well have done it from walk!








Clever girl will be getting a nice long day lazing in the field tomorrow

xxxx

[rowy]

aww clever girl! looks like shes closing her eyes over the last lol. another 2 rosettes to ur collection

[Anni~Bell]

Look at her go!!!
Well done for the two seconds

[Horse Mad Mum]

fantastic Gem go team saffy there is no stopping you this year when you think back to how things were thistime last year very well done so very pleased for you HMM XX

[Bek B]

Well done. She's looking very comfortable with jumpng these days.

[Tanner]

Wow, what an excellent season you've had and it's only the first weekend in May! You both look great, Saffy is a little super star

[annmarie]

fantastic xxx

[bella127]

Well done!