Post by pboy on Nov 8, 2015 19:33:26 GMT
Also known as the British Dressage (BD) British Association of Purebred Spanish Horses (BAPSH) championships 
A bit of an essay follows, but then it was a weekend I want to remember so I don't apologise!
Wow what a 24 hours we had! Indio and I had qualified for the inaugural BD Spanish Horse champs at Prelim level, but having looked at the start list I was looking to enjoy the experience of our first championship. There were 11 horses in our class and the vast majority had qualified at Novice (the level above) and even Elementary (two levels above) as well. The championships were at Keysoe, which google maps said would take 2 hours with no traffic. I figured 2.5 hours with a trailer so I thankfully decided to travel over on Friday and stay the night - Indio at the venue and me at a Premier Inn 10 miles away. We possibly didn't have the best preparation as I was away with work so I didn't ride all week, and then hubby got a bad back and couldn't come. My (very unhorsey) mum stepped in as a substitute!
Indio clearly wanted to look his best so he gave himself a good mudpack on Friday morning:
Baths are his least favourite thing on the planet but I managed to keep him under the hose long enough to get his head and neck vaguely white! I also gave his tail another go and it's starting to look a little less yellow. I checked through my long list of stuff to pack and loaded up, leaving the yard at 1:45 in the hope we'd arrive before dark. Best laid plans...we hit every traffic problem mentioned on the Radio 2 traffic news and final rolled into the dark, wet car park at 5.30ish. The office was closed so I asked a nice lady where the show stables were, got Indio's bed ready and tucked him in with a big bucket of food and enough haylage to feed the Household Cavalry! He doesn't tend to eat on a trailer so he was quite happy to stuff his face.
I was first in the stables the following morning at 6.30, and woke up a yard full of gorgeous Spanish horses. I don't think they were impressed by the single feed I had in my wheelbarrow! Indio is the first grey on the right.
I fed, mucked out and plaited then wandered over to the canteen only to find it hadn't yet opened
I hadn't even had a cup of tea by that point and they were cooking the bacon already, talk about putting salt in the wound! I went to change, then mum arrived (I let her have a lie-in ) and finally they opened 20 minutes before I needed to be in the saddle. Grabbed a quick cuppa, my friend Carolyn arrived and we went to tack up. Hopped on and headed to the indoor to warm-up (I was extremely grateful for a roof over our heads!). Our warm-up test was outside, but I took a quick snap of the championship arena:
Indio then saw flower pots for the first time! Carolyn came to the rescue and told him that they're not scary, thankfully he believed her You can enjoy the commentary!
He felt a lot more forward going than at other shows we've been to, normally he drops behind the leg but he was feeling very lively! It was nice to have energy to work with, although I was a bit tentative with my legs. The warm-up test proved useful as I could work out how much leg to use and how. I was grateful that Indio's yard is usually windy as the weather was awful! Sideways rain and gusting winds. He was very tense on our first trot around the outside, then he settled and I felt it was one of the best tests we'd done - we made some mistakes but he was forwards, felt 'with' me and much straighter in the contact.
The video has some dramatic Spanish music as the venue's background Spanish music was copyrighted (plus the commentary from mum and Carolyn was a bit interesting...!). It's still editing so you may or may not get the new version!
Sadly my phone didn't cope so well with the elements and decided to go on strike for an hour, so I'm waiting for photos and videos from the rest of the morning! We chilled for 15 minutes, then I hopped back on for a quick 10 minute warm-up before the championship test. It didn't feel as good as the first one, he was a bit nappy towards the warm-up area which meant our canters towards A were very 'yeehaaa!' and away from A were quite sticky I also nearly fell off in hysterics as I thought mum and Carolyn had gone to the grandstand, so I was a bit surprised to see them squished into two seats in the K corner both with their phones up videoing. They looked like two of the three monkeys! I was laughing so hard that it probably helped as I relaxed, gave Indio a kick and rode forwards. I didn't think we'd get a great score but we'd done everything in the right place, except breaking early in the left canter, and enjoyed ourselves.
We put Indio away then I finally got breakfast - it was still only just after 10am! Keysoe is a lovely venue (and much posher than any of our 'locals'!), and the canteen did excellent breakfasts and cake and even alcohol! After half an hour we headed over to check the scores and I nearly fell over - we had come third in the first class, less than 0.5% behind the winner and on equal marks with 2nd place, just losing out by one collective point. Then in the championship class we were sitting in 2nd with half the riders still to go! The leader was a palomino stallion who competes at Elementary. As we were standing there, four more scores went up and I was still in 2nd with just two more scores left
We went to find the organiser as there was a mounted prize-giving - she said the presentation would be up to 6th place so we'd better tack up! Poor Indio was deeply unimpressed when we appeared with his saddle, but he tolerated it. I rode back into the arena and the steward said the last two riders hadn't affected the placings so we were definitely second!!!! I'm still in shock TBH.
Indio was very grumpy and tired in the prize-giving, he kept twitching as he was falling asleep - poor boy! The photographer managed to get him to prick his ears, then we had a very short lap of honour where Indio decided to get out as quickly as possible so we nearly crashed into the winner...I don't think anyone noticed... Indio had an hour's rest while we had coffee and cake, then we packed up and headed home. Only 2hr 45 on the way back but we went right through Milton Keynes - I was sick to death of roundabouts by the time we got home!!
A quick snap of our posh rosettes (and Xasco's nose):
I've bought a few digital images from the pro photographer too so I'll stick those up when they arrive.
A bit of an essay follows, but then it was a weekend I want to remember so I don't apologise!Wow what a 24 hours we had! Indio and I had qualified for the inaugural BD Spanish Horse champs at Prelim level, but having looked at the start list I was looking to enjoy the experience of our first championship. There were 11 horses in our class and the vast majority had qualified at Novice (the level above) and even Elementary (two levels above) as well. The championships were at Keysoe, which google maps said would take 2 hours with no traffic. I figured 2.5 hours with a trailer so I thankfully decided to travel over on Friday and stay the night - Indio at the venue and me at a Premier Inn 10 miles away. We possibly didn't have the best preparation as I was away with work so I didn't ride all week, and then hubby got a bad back and couldn't come. My (very unhorsey) mum stepped in as a substitute!
Indio clearly wanted to look his best so he gave himself a good mudpack on Friday morning:
Baths are his least favourite thing on the planet but I managed to keep him under the hose long enough to get his head and neck vaguely white! I also gave his tail another go and it's starting to look a little less yellow. I checked through my long list of stuff to pack and loaded up, leaving the yard at 1:45 in the hope we'd arrive before dark. Best laid plans...we hit every traffic problem mentioned on the Radio 2 traffic news and final rolled into the dark, wet car park at 5.30ish. The office was closed so I asked a nice lady where the show stables were, got Indio's bed ready and tucked him in with a big bucket of food and enough haylage to feed the Household Cavalry! He doesn't tend to eat on a trailer so he was quite happy to stuff his face.
I was first in the stables the following morning at 6.30, and woke up a yard full of gorgeous Spanish horses. I don't think they were impressed by the single feed I had in my wheelbarrow! Indio is the first grey on the right.
I fed, mucked out and plaited then wandered over to the canteen only to find it hadn't yet opened
I hadn't even had a cup of tea by that point and they were cooking the bacon already, talk about putting salt in the wound! I went to change, then mum arrived (I let her have a lie-in ) and finally they opened 20 minutes before I needed to be in the saddle. Grabbed a quick cuppa, my friend Carolyn arrived and we went to tack up. Hopped on and headed to the indoor to warm-up (I was extremely grateful for a roof over our heads!). Our warm-up test was outside, but I took a quick snap of the championship arena:Indio then saw flower pots for the first time! Carolyn came to the rescue and told him that they're not scary, thankfully he believed her
You can enjoy the commentary!He felt a lot more forward going than at other shows we've been to, normally he drops behind the leg but he was feeling very lively! It was nice to have energy to work with, although I was a bit tentative with my legs. The warm-up test proved useful as I could work out how much leg to use and how. I was grateful that Indio's yard is usually windy as the weather was awful! Sideways rain and gusting winds. He was very tense on our first trot around the outside, then he settled and I felt it was one of the best tests we'd done - we made some mistakes but he was forwards, felt 'with' me and much straighter in the contact.
The video has some dramatic Spanish music as the venue's background Spanish music was copyrighted (plus the commentary from mum and Carolyn was a bit interesting...!). It's still editing so you may or may not get the new version!
Sadly my phone didn't cope so well with the elements and decided to go on strike for an hour, so I'm waiting for photos and videos from the rest of the morning! We chilled for 15 minutes, then I hopped back on for a quick 10 minute warm-up before the championship test. It didn't feel as good as the first one, he was a bit nappy towards the warm-up area which meant our canters towards A were very 'yeehaaa!' and away from A were quite sticky
I also nearly fell off in hysterics as I thought mum and Carolyn had gone to the grandstand, so I was a bit surprised to see them squished into two seats in the K corner both with their phones up videoing. They looked like two of the three monkeys! I was laughing so hard that it probably helped as I relaxed, gave Indio a kick and rode forwards. I didn't think we'd get a great score but we'd done everything in the right place, except breaking early in the left canter, and enjoyed ourselves. We put Indio away then I finally got breakfast - it was still only just after 10am! Keysoe is a lovely venue (and much posher than any of our 'locals'!), and the canteen did excellent breakfasts and cake and even alcohol! After half an hour we headed over to check the scores and I nearly fell over - we had come third in the first class, less than 0.5% behind the winner and on equal marks with 2nd place, just losing out by one collective point. Then in the championship class we were sitting in 2nd with half the riders still to go! The leader was a palomino stallion who competes at Elementary. As we were standing there, four more scores went up and I was still in 2nd with just two more scores left
We went to find the organiser as there was a mounted prize-giving - she said the presentation would be up to 6th place so we'd better tack up! Poor Indio was deeply unimpressed when we appeared with his saddle, but he tolerated it. I rode back into the arena and the steward said the last two riders hadn't affected the placings so we were definitely second!!!! I'm still in shock TBH.Indio was very grumpy and tired in the prize-giving, he kept twitching as he was falling asleep - poor boy! The photographer managed to get him to prick his ears, then we had a very short lap of honour where Indio decided to get out as quickly as possible so we nearly crashed into the winner...I don't think anyone noticed... Indio had an hour's rest while we had coffee and cake, then we packed up and headed home. Only 2hr 45 on the way back but we went right through Milton Keynes - I was sick to death of roundabouts by the time we got home!!
A quick snap of our posh rosettes (and Xasco's nose):
I've bought a few digital images from the pro photographer too so I'll stick those up when they arrive.
I'm still so happy! 
for so much hard work we thank ye!!