Sod Dressage, we like JUMPING!

After the sucess of Mally's first outing, I planned a trip to Eland Lodge to do the Clear Round jumping they hold every Wednesday.

Eland Lodge is one of my favourite places, they have a beautiful XC course, a lovely arena, the staff are wonderful and they have a tack shop that could get me in a lot of trouble with the bank!!

The plan was to do a round, she how she felt and go from there. We arrived with plenty of time to spare, meaning I had plenty of time to look at the course and start feeling that perhaps this wasn't such a good idea, the course suddenly looked very bright and had a couple of sheep fillers under the last fence! Mally experience of fillers is rather limited, given we haven't got any, so I have had to be creative and have taken to putting easibed bales under my jumps, on the basis they are rather bright!

Once I got on I started to feel better, Mally was trying very hard not to be her usual gobby self in canter and was positively pinging the warm up fences...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjz5t2TkvX8&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

I was first up and started to feel rather weak and pathetic in the heat, so was eternally grateful that I was allowed to compete sans hacking jacket. Mally wandered in as cool as a cucumber, wibbled into the first but jumped it! This pattern was repeated until she got into the swing of it for the last two fences and flew them, so I was chuffed for just 4 faults.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjz5t2TkvX8&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

After a quick think, I decided to take her in again and then go home to cool down. This time she knew what was what and flew around, despite some muppetry riding from me! I really need to stop firing her into fences! She did take a flyer at one point, completely unaided by me, but settled into a nice enough rhythm by the end when I started to allow her to come in by herself and just support with my leg.
I was chuffed to get a clear round and went home with the feeling she found it all very easy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HodxQ6rTZ4&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

So the plan is to do another dressage on the 30th of April (if I can get time off work!) and then aim for a 70cm one day event at Eland Lodge on the 22nd of May, in the hope we will have had some rain and the ground will be less concrete-like.