You can’t win ’em all!
It’s not the winning that’s important, it’s the taking part!
You win some, you lose some!
You learn by your mistakes!
Just some of the clichés you can use to describe the disappointment of a poor performance, or for not doing as well as you had hoped or knew you were capable of – like us at Hickstead last Saturday! I never expected to win – no that would have been far too optimistic! But I had hoped for a better outcome from myself and Chunky. *Sigh* The weather wasn’t an excuse, we only had ourselves to blame!
Saturday was the Dressage Masters Southern Semi-Finals. This is a fairly complicated league table-based event, where horse and rider combinations accumulate points throughout the season (August to May) based on their placings in certain affiliated dressage competitions at selected venues throughout their region. So if you come 1st, you are awarded 10 points and for 10th, you receive 1 point and so on. Sheets are provided by show organisers verifying your placings and points awarded, which you must then send to your Regional primary centre, in my case for the Southern Region, this is Hickstead. They will then administer the league table of horse and riders’ accumulated points. At the end of the qualifying period (end of May) the Regional centre invites the top 28-30 horse and rider combinations at each level from Prelim up to Advanced Medium to take part in the Regional Semi Final, with the top 4 combinations here then qualifying for the Dressage Masters Championship which takes place at the prestigious Royal International Horse Show, Hickstead in July.
Get it? Simple eh?!
So, having taken Chunky out to do British Dressage competitions fairly often since last August, we managed to accumulate a fairly healthy number of points from our modest competition results. The little and often scenario clearly worked for us and we ended up ranked #13 in the league table at Prelim level, well within the safety zone to be invited to the semi’s. Well done Chunky! *looking smug*
This also had the added attraction of the opportunity to ‘do dressage’ at the Nation’s premier venue – Hickstead – and to trot in the same hoofsteps as the great and the good of the dressage world. The Championship classes would be located in the famed International Arena, whilst the warm-up classes would be in the lesser known, but only marginally less intimidating Jaap Pot Arena.
Hickstead is, as you would only expect from a venue of this calibre, incredibly well organised. Our times were published 4 days in advance and I hunted for my name in amongst the list of 19 competitors, only to find it right at the top – we had been drawn to go in first! No pressure at all then!! *gulp*
The night before, Chunky received his usual pre-event bath. Fortunately, being dressage as opposed to showing, I didn’t have to get the white bits too white, his hogged mane was still fairly neat – his Mohican wasn’t too sticky uppy – and I left his whiskers on. By the time I finished he was definitely presentable…for dressage!
We set off nice and early. I like to get to a venue in plenty of time to relax, chill, have a look around, unload Chunky and let him figure out what he’s going to be doing. This was no exception! We drove in through the gates and along the winding approach road, turned onto the grassy field where the sign directed us to park and realised we were all alone! I didn’t think we were that early! Oh well, plenty of time to mooch around.
I thought I’d just go along to take a look at the arena and work out where everything was. Good thing I did! Although we’ve been to Hickstead before, the first thing that struck me was that the International arena was back to front. If I had entered at what was originally ‘A’ and proceeded down the centre line, I would have had my back to the judges! Hmmm! Second thing that caught my eye, was an enormous PUDDLE!! I couldn’t believe my eyes. But this was Hickstead! The International arena! Where medals have been won and lost! Surely we shouldn’t find puddles here…should we?!
I spent some time admiring the arena (and the puddles) and listening to the organisers adjusting the volume of the music through he speakers. We would be having some background music to perform to…very relaxing. How civilised.
Anyway, time was ticking by so I decided to get busy and go and sort out Chunky. Tying him to the outside of the horsebox with a haynet, I went to take off his tail bandage and was confronted by his ample bottom, completely smeared all over with poo!
A baby with a runny tummy couldn’t have done a better job!
It looked as though he’d lifted his tail to have a dump, got poo all over the interior wall of the horsebox behind him and then rubbed it in good and hard with a long itch. Great job Chunky! There’s no way I could take him into the arena with a bottom looking like that. The sponge and coat whitener would have to come out and there would need to be some elbow grease applied…lots of it in fact. The poo was quite deeply embedded.
My faffing time had been drastically reduced now and didn’t have many minutes in which to get myself and him ready. But there were no other disasters and I was soon on board. I was really pleased with Chunky’s warm up. He felt great right from the start. Really soft and light with a real spring in his stride. Loosening off quickly and totally unfazed by all the activity. He likes the hustle and bustle and having other horses around him…which, I would soon discover, is half our problem!
The started called to me to make our way to the other side of the hedge into the International Arena. Deep breath. In we went. Maybe there was something in the wind, or the sensation of the vibrations from the music speakers on his whiskers (wish I’d clipped them off now) but Chunky didn’t settle. We proceeded down the centre line tracking right and cutting the corner (unintentionally) because he didn’t want to get his feet wet in the big puddle. The next 4 1/2 minutes were a bit of a blur as I felt my face redden – not with embarrassment but with the effort of keeping him moving! Chunky was losing energy fast! Or was he?
He groaned loudly. A sound he sometimes makes when I believe he’s concentrating hard. We pushed on and completed the final centre line with me kicking every step of the way. Saluting and smiling pathetically at the two judges, we left the arena. Jumping off Chunky to retrieve the whip I had thrown to one side as we entered (no whips allowed) I took a good look at him. He was panting hard and looked totally knackered. But we had done relatively very little! Much of my warm up had been at walk. He works much harder than this at home and manages fine. Then a thought occurred to me. That groan!!
He had been holding his breath! It’s not a sudden lack of energy he suffers from in the dressage arena, it’s oxygen starvation!
I stayed till the end to collect my score sheets and rosette – everyone received a commemorative frilly! Mulling over what had happened I felt sure that his tension and breath holding might be due to his anxiety or lack of confidence. How he went in the warm up followed just 2 minutes later in the main arena were chalk and cheese, with the only difference being that I had taken him away from a few equine buddies. Analysing other recent competitions in my mind, some seemed to follow a very similar pattern – fabulous warm up, completely backward in the test. Some weren’t so bad though, particularly those in an indoor arena, or where other horses were in sight. Maybe this was a crisis of confidence!
Despite all this we didn’t come last and actually we did very well for qualifying in the first place. This in itself was an achievement and it was fun to experience the phenomenon which is Hickstead and compete there. Hopefully we will qualify again next year and be slightly older and wiser.
Sorry Chunky, but I’m not quite ready to hang up my cream dressage gloves just yet!! 🙂 I’m determined to get to the bottom of whatever is going on in that handsome cobby head of yours!
Anyone know a good horse shrink?? 🙂
cobnuts 