Wallaby Hill

Wow, what an amazing weekend was had at Wallaby Hill Farm! I was quite nervous when I set off at 7:15am on Saturday morning, having got up pre-dawn to plait poor Jedi up. He is crap to plait up, it turns out, and insisted on moving and doing some aggressive hay removal from the net just to keep me on my toes. He has a thin little mane too so his forelock looked like a rat's tail. Charming.

Never mind. He looked pretty handsome really! Crap, forgot to take a pic! Next time....

The drive was pretty uneventful and I arrived only slightly later than I planned. I had been given a pretty nice draw - 10:30 for dressage and 12:00 for showjumping as I was judging from 1:00pm to 4:00pm. A long day!! And I was really nervous by the time I arrived - first event since I stacked off Tux last year at Canberra, and first event for a green ex-racehorse!

He warmed up pretty well, considering how tense he started out. There were quite a few horses around so he got a bit freaked whenever one came a little close at anything faster than a trot! And he started trying to put in some good bucks when I first asked for canter. Little bugger. But he started doing some really nice work and I decided not to peak too early, especially given the heat was starting to build.

I had Coby Brinkman as my judge, a lovely local Canberra judge and very good with the green horses and riders. Jedi pulled off the best test he could do at the stage in his education and I was really chuffed with him. He generally kept a nice round outline, cantered on the right leads, gave the stretching circle a red-hot go and even did a decent long rein walk. Though, I've decided I need to start riding in spurs. No dressage whips allowed in eventing dressage, so no back up to my leg, which he chose to obey only intermittently!

I scurried back to the float, past the scary horse-eating storm drain, hearing 'Intro riders, you're needed at the showjumping, Intro riders!' So, I just chucked the jumping saddle and boots on Jedi, hauled myself onboard, butterflies going crazy in my stomach and headed off to the showjumping. I realised as we walked along that Jedi and I had really not jumped much more than 70cm together. We had each jumped much higher but not as a team. Butterflies turned to Bogong Moths....

I also hadn't had a chance to walk the course. I didn't have anyone to hold Jedi while I went and at least stood to watch, so I just parked him next to the course (it's a little obscured by lovely trees, if you haven't been to WHF, so not exactly a clear view!) and watched a couple of rounds. The course looked like a pretty straight forward Figure Eight. Sorted. Heh.

Warm up was interesting. He was actually really calm, but did a couple of his massive leaps over the tiny cross rail. I pulled my shoulders back, told him to wait and jumped a couple really nicely. Well, i thought, the height doesn't faze him. Should be ok!

And it really was. He jumped a lovely round - good rhythm, good striding, listening well. And clear! I was so pleased I nearly had a little weep. Probably sheer relief more than anything! We survived!!

Then off to judge on a very hot afternoon. I had stupidly thought Robertson would be balmy rather than scorching, so was wearing a polo shirt and jeans with boots. Idiot. Should've gone with the bikini! Lovely class, though, with some really quality horses, well-ridden. By the time I started, the throng of horses had thinned somewhat:

Such a beautiful day, just that bit too humid and hot to make it perfect. But I was well looked after by the Wallaby Hill team and must have downed 5L of water in the 3 hours I judged!

So, after a great dressage (from our point of view, anyway!) and a perfect SJ round, we were sitting pretty at 8th place. A really amazing start for our first event together. I felt justifiably proud as I headed to James Arkins' place for a bit of a sleepover. The crazy Rosthwaite Farm boys were heading back from Nowra Show (where they picked up a bit of coin with the 9 horses they took!), only to do a lightning fast costume change before heading off to Sydney for a schwanky party in their little lexus convertible. Shoulda been a showjumper. Sigh.

I helped their poor groom (Bob the incomprehensible Frenchman) put all 9 horses away in the gathering dusk with a pounding headache and desperate need of a shower and bed. Which I duly had, settling down with some greasy pizza I picked up from Moss Vale and the Winter Olympics. Life did not suck that night. Until James' crazy old dog started barking his head off at 3:30am....thanks mate.

Sunday dawned hot but very similar weather to the day before. Jedi was a little tense but held it together until we entered the warm up for the cross country. It was a fairly small area with a dam on one side and galloping horses starting and finishing the course on two other sides. Jedi started to quickly have a meltdown in that very race-like atmosphere and started trying to do his bucking-rearing number. I was having flashbacks to the last event when Tux just about reared over on top of me in the XC warm up at Canberra and found myself getting really scared.

I decided to shelve plans of cantering and practice jumps during the warm up and tried to just keep his lid on as we walked and trotted around. He basically kept it together but it was a huge relief to head up to the start where it was at least quiet. So, Jump 1 was our first practice jump! Not exactly ideal, but it was what it was.

The course actually rode fairly well, considering he was super-spooky for the first 4 or 5 jumps and he simply ground to a halt at 4A, where it turns out a lot of other Intro horses also downed tools. We got passed by the next horse to go just after that (we were trotting til that point) and the sight of that horse seemed to give Jedi a lot of confidence. We were completely fine from there on. Ditch? Check. Double of logs? Check. Tricky double of open corners? Check. Water? Check. He went really well and got braver and braver as we went. Lots of good feelings to build on.

Of course, with a stop and a minute of time penalties, we ended up dead last in our class. But I actually thought that was pretty ok considering it was his first ever event. First dressage test, first SJ round, first XC round, first comp. And he even got to hang out in Alex Townsend's schmicko stable while mum was off melting in a car. Stupid mum.

Lucinda Green clinic starts tomorrow and I'm super-excited! Good timing, really! Will blog both nights if you're interested.....

I'll leave you with a gorgeous pick of the valley where we live about a week ago....sometimes I just love riding first thing in the morning: