Post by racaille on Nov 11, 2013 6:40:31 GMT
I am soooooooooooooooo disappointed. 
Rain was forecast but I was hopeful and all the way there it did nothing more than a few spots. But by the time we arrived at Manosque it was bucketing down.The teenager did her hunter class on R and was utterly soaked through. We have never seen hunter classes before but it looked quite fun. However, whatever the judges were looking for, they obviously didn't find it in R.
I watched the whole class and there were a lot of eliminations for refusals but apart from that some really untidy riding, crappy lines to the jumps, shooting past the midway halt etc. Quite a few poles down too. In contrast R was an angel and I thought it was a very neat and tidy, even fluid round. He got a pole down (the teenager's fault) but went really nicely, calm and listening, quite a feat in the driving rain and as we all know a big feat for R! The only two things I noted were that he slipped a bit coming round a corner - hardly his fault and not the only one - and although he halted nicely, he pawed the ground twice (very Racaille!!!)
But I was very surprised that he was called in eighth out of the final nine who weren't eliminated. The teenager was pretty pleased though as he was really well behaved - even keeping calm during the warm-up when all the others were thundering around the arena in canter.
By this time though the teenager was sodden and even I was wet and cold. When the YO decided to cancel the derby cross because the grass was too slippery and change it to a SJ we looked at each other and said; let's quit. We were too cold and wet and a SJ against the clock did nothing for either of us.
I was really miffed though as I'd walked the XC course and really liked the look of it - nothing scary but a lot of fun. Rats
Rain was forecast but I was hopeful and all the way there it did nothing more than a few spots. But by the time we arrived at Manosque it was bucketing down.The teenager did her hunter class on R and was utterly soaked through. We have never seen hunter classes before but it looked quite fun. However, whatever the judges were looking for, they obviously didn't find it in R.
I watched the whole class and there were a lot of eliminations for refusals but apart from that some really untidy riding, crappy lines to the jumps, shooting past the midway halt etc. Quite a few poles down too. In contrast R was an angel and I thought it was a very neat and tidy, even fluid round. He got a pole down (the teenager's fault) but went really nicely, calm and listening, quite a feat in the driving rain and as we all know a big feat for R! The only two things I noted were that he slipped a bit coming round a corner - hardly his fault and not the only one - and although he halted nicely, he pawed the ground twice (very Racaille!!!)
But I was very surprised that he was called in eighth out of the final nine who weren't eliminated. The teenager was pretty pleased though as he was really well behaved - even keeping calm during the warm-up when all the others were thundering around the arena in canter.
By this time though the teenager was sodden and even I was wet and cold. When the YO decided to cancel the derby cross because the grass was too slippery and change it to a SJ we looked at each other and said; let's quit. We were too cold and wet and a SJ against the clock did nothing for either of us.
I was really miffed though as I'd walked the XC course and really liked the look of it - nothing scary but a lot of fun. Rats
for so much hard work we thank ye!!
