Arena Eventing take two...

On Sunday we headed off to Ashwood again to play at Arena Eventing but this time I decided to bite the bullet and take both my boys. I've only ever taken them out both together (with me riding both of them) once both before so this was kind of a trial run. We had a few glitches and stressful moments but this was always going to be the way until we get into the swing of things, its just going to take some practice to get there! No placings (although I think Jack was just out of it and came 7th?) but they were both very good boys. Sparkie flew round the first half of the course and would have completely walked it if he hadn't started napping in the corner which caused him to have a couple of run outs. Once he'd been told to get on with his job and had a little smack on the shoulder he was back to flying round, so it's a shame he had his little tantrum but we can work on this in the future! 

Jack was a bit of a handful on the ground as he gets separation anxiety quite badly so was being a bit of a plonker, so hats off to my mum and Emma for dealing with him! He was a lot more settled once I was on him, although still very attached to Sparkie; when he's like that it makes me want to not take him out because he's such a pain in the arse but the only way for him to learn is to keep going I guess- the best practice is ring practice. Unfortunately due to his girth mysteriously going missing he's borrowing one at the moment which is miles to big to his saddle would not stay put which was super distracting when we got into the ring. Also my skull cap is slightly too big and kept slipping down which a) is super annoying because I can't see where I'm going and b) super painful as I have excess brain fluid at the top of the nose which is now nice and swollen, cheers skull cap! Feel like I am making a lot of excuses there, but it made it quite hard to ride him haha, kind of had to just sit still and hope for the best so considering he was pretty amazing and flew round with just one run out as his saddle had slipped to a position that he couldn't have jumped out; he jumped it no problem second time round so really he was just saving my arse by running out! He found the jumps far too easy though so maybe next time we need to try the next class up! It took us less than 10 minutes to load him either way as well, good Jack pony; just to learn to keep all four feet on the ground all the time now.