Cricklands June 08
Cricklands Show Jumping is held at the David Broome Event Centre in Chepstow. The June show is a Three day show so this means stabling the horses and staying at the show ground. We decided to take 5 horses Muppet for Amelia, Phoebe for Freya, Jynx for Leigh, Fred for Sarah and Carys. Jess brought Cleo up for me with her horse Billy. We left early Friday morning after packing the lorry the night before with 3 on the Lorry and Phoebe on the trailer. We found our stables when we arrived and then entered. Freya Jumped Phoebe and Leigh jumped Jynx in the 2′3. Jynx was a bit naughty and nappy and Leigh and Jynx parted company. Freya won the Class. Amelia and Muppet had 2 down in the 2′6 but he was fairly well behaved and only napped once. Leigh did better with Jynx in the 2′6 and although he had a few fences down he did get him round the course. Freya had some problems with the fillers in the 2′6 and Phoebe was eliminated. Sarah was riding Fred on the Friday in the Junior 2′3. Sarah held the lead in the Jump off until the last person went in and just beat her leaving her in 2nd place. In the 2′6 Sarah did a very quick Jump off and won the class there was lots of cheering and we celebrated with a can of lager. Friday afternoon Jess arrived with Cleo and Billy, Sharon and Jenni arrived later, so now we have two lorries 6 horses and 3 tents. After dinner of precooked spag bol with a couple of glasses of wine followed by several vodkas and a visit to the club we staggered back to the stable block to do the night hay and water. Somehow I managed to shut my foot in the lorry door cause severe pain and blood loss to my toe, Freya (proficient in First aid) gave me a wet wipe. The following morning I really thought I had broken my toe and I had a dressage test at 11.44 I couldn’t walk in trainers although my riding boots were a bit better, rising trot was a bit painful. I didn’t spend long warming her up due to the pain and although the test went OK she really needed a longer warm up but still at least I did it. Getting off was the next problem I couldn’t put any weight on that foot and 17hh is a long way down. Everyone did well in the jumping on Saturday although no one got placed except Carys who was 4th on Fred in the 2′3. Carys did very well as there were a lot more entries on Saturday. I was really pleased with Jynx and Muppet because although both are green and likely to take fences down (which they did although Muppet went clear in the 2′6) both can also be a handful to ride and nappy but neither of them were on Saturday and neither of them stopped at any of the fillers. The weather had been kind to us and it didn’t rain at all when anyone was riding but Saturday night was horrendous, thunder, Lightning, gale force winds and heavy rain. 10 of us in my lorry was a bit of a squash, Several more vodkas needed (medicinal purposes for me obviously). I was so glad I wasn’t sleeping in a tent, I’m surprised they were still up in the morning. The lorry was bad enough, Sunday everyone went for a hack but no one jumped as it was on grass and slippery. We watched the Renault Jump series with some of the top riders jumping 1m50. Then packed up and loaded the horses. Phoebe traveled on the trailer. We traveled all the way on the motorway to where the road works are near Cardiff when Phoebe seemed to become restless in the back, at this point I am in a single lane on the motorway (no hard shoulder) and the trailer is lunging back and fore. I was about to stop when she seemed still although to close to the window so I crawled on a bit more then we saw her legs rearing up at the window, and quite a bit of panicking so I stopped which immediately caused a tail back on the M4. We undid the side door, she had managed to get the breast bar down which was a bit of a problem as there was a secured wheelbarrow at the front of the trailer and had her leg over the Lead rope which I could not untie as she had pulled it so tight she panicked again lunged forward and caught her leg in the wheelbarrow but then stayed still fortunately, until someone burst the tyre on the wheelbarrow and freed her. She traveled the rest of the way home fine and apart from a few scratches seems none the worse.
Going to Majorca for a week tomorrow, toe is OK in flip flops
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Posted on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 11:06 pm 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.
