BSJA Pencoed 20/01/08

Today Amelia took her two horses Ami De La Destinee (Destiny) and Watts Middlemarch (Leo) to Pencoed College for the BSJA ShowJumping. Thinking we weren’t in any rush as she didn’t jump until about 5pm last time we were there, I rang at lunchtime to find out what class they were on, as they had not had so many entries for the bigger classes I discovered we only had an hour to get there. I do not like the order of classes at Pencoed as they start with the 1m10 and go up in height then drop back to the Bitish Novice, Discovery and 1m open. Which means Leo could only jump one class as he has won too much for the British Novice and Discovery. He can jump the 1m10 but that means being there for the first class and the last class and jumping the bigger class before the smaller class. Destiny will soon have won too much for the British Novice, therefore she could jump the 1m10 first class then two 1m classes at the end of the day. For us that would mean bring them home about lunchtime and going back in the evening if it was a busy show the alternative for many people would be to sit there all day. A very silly schedule I think and from speaking to others many people think so to. The weather was appalling blowing a gale and raining. The outdoor school is used for the warm up ring and it is a good size school although the surface was very deep. Amelia warmed Destiny up, jumped the cross pole a few times then put it to an upright and then moved to the oxo which for some reason Destiny didn’t like and stopped about 5 yards from it twice, She can be a very spooky mare so this didn’t look good but Destiny jumped a good round in the British Novice (approx 3ft) with approx 20 in the class. Unfortunately taking the first fence down in the jump off so ended with 4 faults with the second or third fastest time. Griff Griffiths won the class. In the Discovery she again jumped a good round. Amelia took a chance in the jump off and cut a tight turn inside an upright, managed to skirt around a floral display making a tight turn into a large spread but Destiny took it on, jumping a clear and finished in 2nd place. Destiny went on the box and Leo came off there were only six competitors in the last class so by the time we had got her on and tacked him up there wasn’t much time to warm up. He rarely stops but also stopped at the oxo in the practise ring about 5 yards out which was strange, it was as if they could see something but no one else seemed to be having problems. Amelia only managed two practice fences and she was in the ring He needed longer to warm up and was a bit to strong and took one fence down. This is where it would have been ideal to have been able to then take him in the 1m10 he prefers bigger fences anyway and almost needs the first class to take the edge off him. All in all a good day though.

Posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 12:42 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.