So, I still can’t believe it, but… we actually managed to WIN our section in our last One Day Event of the season with LandS Eventing at Offchurch Bury on Saturday, with a 20.5 dressage and double clear! Yep, that’s right! For the first time in the two and a half years I’ve owned Belle, we’ve actually won something!!! The best day ever!!
It really was the best day ever, but it didn’t exactly get off to the greatest start ever. Our washing machine blew up this week, and when I came to get my competition stuff ready on Friday night (around 10pm, as you do), I found my white jodphurs nice and muddy at the bottom of the washing basket, where they’d been sitting since our last One Day Event. And yes, I only have one pair.
A late night kitchen sink handwash later, and the jodphurs were clean and brilliantly white, all ready for Saturday morning.
And after wearing the jodphurs for roughly five minutes on Saturday morning, they looked like they’d been back through the wash. The rain. I mean, seriously – the rain. My gloves were soaked through, I couldn’t feel my fingers, my bum was wet from my saddle, and even my pants were soaking!! Top Groom Johnny wasn’t enjoying it much either, trying to hide under the trees in the dressage area! He really does deserve a proper medal.
Feeling like I’d wet my pants must have done something good for my riding, though, and when I walked up to the scoreboards and saw 20.5 next to our name, I nearly dropped dead. I thought it must be a typo. We’d definitely had a generous judge, there were plenty in the twenties in our section, but we were the second best dressage mark out of everyone – totally unbelievable!
After a quick sit in the lorry cab with the heaters on full blast to try and dry out my gloves, we were on to the showjumping. The ground in the warm-up was getting pretty churned up, but the LandS Eventing team were doing an ace job of moving the warm-up jumps across so that there was always decent ground in front of the fences. Belle felt fantastic in the warm-up and didn’t touch a pole, so I went into the showjumping feeling quietly hopeful that we’d get round ok.
It definitely wasn’t the most stylish round we’ve ever done… number one was great, number two was ok, but by the time we got to three it had completely fallen apart and I was riding like a potato, and between six and seven I completely lost my reins when they slipped through my soaking gloves! But by some small miracle, we managed to go clear. I massively owe that horse!
So, we were going into the cross country phase on a 20.5 dressage with nothing to add from the showjumping. What the hell was going on!? I’m not going to lie, I definitely started feeling the pressure a bit as I knew we were in with a pretty good chance of getting placed if we could go clear round the cross country.
After a lovely chat with the volunteer at the start box who completely took my mind off the nerves, off we went round the cross country. I hadn’t been feeling mega confident about all of the fences; there were a couple of things I hadn’t seen before – a corner, a drop and a step up out of a ditch thing – and I had absolutely no idea how to ride them!
I needn’t have worried about any of them, though. Belle is totally amazing cross country, you just point her at the fences and she takes them all on with her ears forward the whole time. She absolutely loves it and it’s such a wonderful feeling to ride a horse that is genuinely enjoying her job. I brought her back to trot for a couple of the bits that were muddy and downhill, so we ended up with a couple of time penalties for being over the time, but I wasn’t bothered. We’d just gone clear around our toughest course to date, somewhere completely new, over different kind of jumps we’d never tried before. Absolutely amazing!
We were pretty early on in our section to finish and so I think Top Groom Johnny was hoping we were going to be heading home pretty sharpish to find some dry clothes, but I had a new situation I’d never been in before. I’d finished on a score of 22.5, and I’d gone into the lead. And even though there were lots in our section still to ride, there were only a few who could have beaten me. There’s no way I could have left before finding out the results!
Top Groom Johnny made himself at home on one of the handily placed benches near the scoreboards with a burger and a tea, and propped his phone up on the table to watch the rugby. I, on the other hand, was glued to the scoreboards. Mary Hunt from the Secretary’s Office told me that if I didn’t want to hang around, she’d be posting out rosettes (how great a service is that!?) but I couldn’t leave!
I’d like to try and explain how I felt when I saw we’d won it, but I can’t, really. I almost cried, and then thought that was slightly excessive. Everyone with horses knows how much time and effort we put into doing this – we’ve worked so hard, we only did our first competitive 80 One Day Event in May, and it wasn’t that long ago that I was too nervous to hack round an open field. To end up winning, in a section full of amazing scores with some really experienced riders, was really the best thing ever. I’m so grateful to Belle, she’s honestly the best horse and I owe her SO much.
We had the best time on Saturday; LandS’ events really are my favourites and we’re so lucky to have them in our area. If you’ve been thinking about entering one of their events this year and haven’t, honestly make sure you do next season. They totally empathise with numpty novice eventers like me and their events always have a really friendly feel, so you don’t stress and you can just enjoy it. Top Groom Johnny 100% appreciated the dressage steward who laughed and told me not to be silly when she overheard me having a last minute panic attack about knowing the test, and asking him if he could read it out and video me at the same time! And now we’ve won, we’re rocking our winners’ LandS Eventing saddle pad with pride.
So, our 2018 Eventing season is over, and we’ve finished on a win! I’m so chuffed with how much we’ve come on, and huge thanks go to top trainer James McCullough who’s helped us massively. Maybe we’re not totally amateur, after all! Well, at least not always. But maybe I’ll invest in a second pair of white jodphurs and remember a spare pair of pants.
Totally Amateur Eventing 