I was initially extremely nervous about today - it was mine and Savannah's BE debut and I was convinced I was going to be eliminated in the dressage for some tiny rule I'd managed to over look. However, I soon forgot all about my worries after I practically swam around the course instead of walking it. Thankfully, the heavy rain didn't last long and had stopped by the time I needed to get Savannah out of the trailer.
Savs warmed up for the dressage brilliantly despite the slightly boggy conditions, and so when the steward said they were running slightly early I was happy to go ahead of my time. Annoyingly, as we were trotting around the edge of the arena, Savannah decided there was an invisible gremlin in the bush just to the left of A and so some of our movements were slightly tense/ unbalanced. However, there were definitely some lovely moments, especially her left canter which was one of the best she's ever produced and her final halt which scored an 8! I was still very pleased with our test as it was still 100 times better than some of our previous tests, and I am finding it much easier to get her relaxed in the test as well as the warm up. We scored a very respectable 33.5 which put us in the top ten moving into the Show Jumping.
Our warm up for the SJ was slightly erratic as the warm up arena was absolutely chaotic, but after I managed to get a couple of good jumps in in places, and I decided less was probably more in that situation. I was trying out wearing spurs for the first time in competition as she tends to get slightly behind my leg in the ring sometimes, and they seemed to do the trick. We had a slightly awkward jump over fence one (due, I think, to our not so brilliant warm up) but we had a much better one over fence two, and then she was in a much better rhythm. She absolutely flew around the rest of the course, just rolling one pole down a related distance where I completely over rode the line causing her to just slightly flatten over the upright jumping out.
The XC course looked brilliant, so I was very excited to get into it! The warm up, like the dressage, was very boggy and so I didn't jump much but she was moving forward and listening to my leg so I knew we'd be okay. She rocketed out the start box with very little encouragement, and flew the first two fences like they were nothing. Fence three she spooked at a quad bike just to the right a couple of strides before, but I managed to straighten her, and she didn't even hesitate. From there, she jumped absolutely everything foot perfectly, meeting every fence on exactly the right stride. There were a couple of reasonable questions, but every time I asked her to sit up and wait or lengthen and go she did exactly what I asked. She felt incredible the whole way round and finished the course full of running, just a couple of seconds over the optimum time. Unfortunately those seconds cost us a top ten placing, but that didn't matter as I was so proud of how she'd gone round her first BE.
For Savannah's first BE I am incredibly happy with how she went - we didn't disgrace ourselves at all but there is plenty of room for improvement for the rest of the season. Very much looking forward to Goring Heath on the first weekend of September!
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