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( yay for world domination )

Am v. stiff today :p It's amazing how quickly muscles forget.

Jumping was much fun, tho did fall off, nice soft roll off onto lovely bark surface, no damage done!
Arrived a bit late, so didn't have time to get used to the horse before we started. Did the 60cm course, 1st time round got the line wrong to a tricky dogleg and he ran out. Then at the start of the 2nd round, lost a stirrup just before the first jump, tried to pull the horse up, horse was all 'but I WANT to jump!', managed to haul him away from the jump just in time (v. bad form that tho), lost balance and slid off.
Got back on and got tricky dogleg line (yay) but then horse was spooky coming round to the final treble (3 jumps in a row), couldn't get him going forward so he took the middle one down. So not great, but not completely awful.
Somewhat reassuringly, the owner's daughter rode him in the 70cm class, knocked down the one I had a refusal at, and also couldn't get him going forward.
I'll have to go up again tho, but arrive earlier next time so I can get on the horse for a while before the start. Plus I got a rosette for coming 3rd out of 3! Go me ;p

(no subject)

For my own reference really, the course I jumped yesterday (very roughly), but also on the off chance anyone was wondering what I meant by 'doglegs'. A dogleg is basically an angled turn, so you have to go
|
|
\               
. \ to get to the next jump. This course was a bit odd in that it had 2 doglegs right at the start, which basically meant you had to be jumping for no. 3 right from the first jump, its fairly technical for a low level course.
It was tricky in parts, particularly the turn to no. 3. I missed it the first time because I jumped too far to the left of 2 and couldn't get back on track.
Other people had the problem that if you jumped 2 square, the horse sees no. 6 as the next fence. Got the angle right 2nd time round tho ;)
The treble combo was quite odd too, in that it was 3 strides between each, normally its 1 stride then 2 or 2 then 3.
In the 60cm round, we stopped after 5, didn't have to do 6 and 7, tho in later classes a few people had the problem again that after 6 the horses naturally took 2 to be the next jump.

So a tricky one. We didn't do too awfully (apart from falling off) got the line to no. 3 right 2nd time round, but were too slow going into the treble, got a bad take off to the 1st, stumbled over the 2nd taking it down and leapt hugely over the last - all because I couldn't get a good rhythm going into it. Still, its all learning and it was fun - plus good to know that I did actually have the nerve to get on a completely strange horse at a strange arena and jump a course. And that I didn't fall off over the jumps ;p

( course )

   

Picnic On Sunday

Are we still doing this? Cos if so, I should probably book flights and stuff :p

Also, what area of London are we likely to be in, so I can find a hotel?

Oh and vashti still on for London Eye in the morning?

swimming

swimming time - 1hr

54 lengths

1 set of 8, 2 of 10, 1 of 12 and 1 of 14.

Really felt the stiffness from riding yesterday at the start - which means I must be using a lot of the same muscles, which is Good.