From Entering to Eventing!! - April - June 2023

I did not think I would be eventing this year at all and then Stafford announced their last ever event. I’ve been every year to Stafford, three times one year, apart from 2011 when Tilly tweaked her suspensory, and it is my favourite event.

So then we joked about it but it started becoming a serious idea over the next 24 hours and we had a chat about which horse we would aim for it.

Moo, who has four wonky legs and has been doing BD and just jumping at home and the odd schooling day for the last four years or Eve who has only been xc schooling once and is quite difficult and emotional to ride!

In 2019 we started the year at Stafford, barefoot, and had such a ball we then went to Kelsall but then Moo was slightly lame after it. So I am very conscious of keeping her sound and not doing too much with her.

Eve, however needs some serious miles on the clock and we need to trust each other a bit more too.

My plan is to take Moo XC schooling this week to make sure her heart is still in it and then concentrate on her fitness and only jump a max of once a week until the event. We can go to the beach each week for our fast work training. Meanwhile I will continue with Eve’s training so she can be a back up and then hopefully it will kick start me into eventing for the rest of the year.

It will be my first event since my bad fall that started my journey and Moo’s first in four years at the grand age of 15

I will diary this and let you know what crops up for me in the mindset arena and how I deal with it. I am also starting out on my spiritual journey and this is confirming how important all the hypnosis I do in my courses and all the limiting belief work is.

So tonight Moo has cut both of her hind legs. Only slightly but I think she is self harming due to too much talk of eventing!

Tuesday 18th April – we went to Somerford to see if Moo was still keen. It’s two hours in the lorry and now you can’t take dogs either so Sausage went on a play day. I was very excited as in my mind I was only jumping small jumps so nothing to worry about!! We set off and Moo was keen. To begin with she put some long ones in and we didn’t feel very together and those voices came to tell me I was too old and we weren’t good enough. SO I had a little assess of the situation and realised I was tottering about into the fences and not riding forward like I would at an event. Once I got my act together it all came back to us! Poor Moo having to put up with me pottering around!

Last time we went Moo wasn’t keen on one of the ditches and refused first time which is not like her at all. Only the second ever time she’s stopped and the first was because she went lame.

This time she popped it like it was no bother and just wanted to know which one was next!!!

We had an amazing time and really enjoyed it. I even accosted a young man who was jumping big fences on a grey horse to see if I could pay him by the hour!! We are taking Eve back on Tuesday and he is going to have a ride on her and give her some confidence. We were planning on going anyway but I would have been nervous so this takes the pressure off me now. I fully intend to ride her whilst we are there too though. Turns out the nice young man events at 3 star!!!

Thurs 20th – Loose schooled Moo to make sure she looked ok! Vet came to Eve for a check up for regumate and he had known Moo through all her lamenesses...they have been many! He says she’s still slightly lame in front but she’s as good as she gets and he says she’s a medical miracle!!! I was told 6 years ago that she wouldn’t be able to do a cross pole in the school and would need remedial shoeing for the rest of her life. We went barefoot then and have been eventing twice since!

Fri 21st – so now I worry that Paul said she was lame and are we doing the right thing…..those mind monkeys!! I rode Moo on the flat this morning and she felt great :) I had a little jump on Eve who was also very well behaved and she felt amazing!

We have been hacking out and schooling, I have jumped Moo and she was well up for it and loved it. My mind monkeys have been telling me that I shouldn’t be taking her and I should cancel but I recognise them now so I can deal with them!

9th May

I had forgotten about this diary!

Ok we have had Eve to Somerford where Josh rode her first and I was very glad I was not on top while her tail was bolt upright and waving around! He had a couple of stops but he was trotting around, not really riding her forward. He had a good canter round and jumped some small jumps followed by some big jumps, which she may never jump with me! She settled down as there were a few horses out on the course, she was good in the water, but tried to walk through the ditch at first! She did this at Kelsall too. I got on after about half an hour, went in the other water with her, had a canter around, she got cross with me and shook her head and had a bit of a strop and I’m not sure if I had a bit more contact that Josh had. I did a few small jumps and was happy to leave it at that.

And then on the way home the exhaust got a big hole in it!!!!!!!!

That now posed a big issue as the part is hard to come by for the lorry as it is old and I need to get to the beach to get some fast work in for Moo.

We used Jill’s arena 20 x 50 for some interval training the first week and then I begged James the mechanic for a time estimate as I was thinking I would near to hire a box or give up on Stafford.

He patched a patch on the exhuast so I could make short journeys in it and we are currently waiting for the part to arrive. This weekend I have Eve at BD on Sat at Myerscough and Moo at a mini event at Kelsall on Sunday. I will not want to go in my wagon unless it is fixed or James says it’s ok so might need to hire another box for the weekend. I will hopefully know tomorrow.

I have to admit I did have a mini pity party of about an hour when it all hit the fan, but I let the emotions come and I felt them all and then I practiced my mindfulness and my reiki. The difference after a few minutes was amazing, my upset had gone and I was just ready to deal with it all. A feeling of calmness came over me and a feeling that it would be ok, one way or another. I felt like I was above it all and it didn’t really matter in the great scheme of things.

We have been to the beach twice with Moo now to do some interval training and I am feeling better about her fitness. I have booked her in at Kelsall on Sunday. They are having a use the facilities day. We do a dressage test, show jump in the indoor and then choose which xc fences we want to jump. I will use it as one of her training days and not an extra as I don’t want her to do too much jumping. I will be nervous but nervous excited!!

The one good thing about he wagon being out of action was that it made me realise how much I really want to go eventing again. I felt like the bottom had dropped out of my world when I thought I would have to cancel it.

11th May – Couldn’t work out what was going on this morning. Went to the yard ready to ride and wanted to have a jump on both of them, ready for the weekend for Moo and a bit of fun for Eve. However, I found myself sitting in the tack room, feeling down, wanting to cry and not ride. Now in the past I would have not bothered riding, gone home and felt rubbish and upset all day, the world would have been ending for me.

Now I know better, I let these feelings wash over me and tried to work out why they were here. I have two wonderful horses, albeit one is quite hard work, the weather was good, I had time to ride both and I was booked into two competitions this weekend…….and there was the issue!!!

Those pesky mind monkeys were chattering away behind my back!!! I was worried I wasn’t good enough so they were trying to sabotage me! So I let the feelings go and reminded myself how wonderful we all were and rode!

I rode both horses and they both jumped really well, Moo jumped higher than she has for four years, probably much to her surprise as mine! I got off feeling amazing and really looking forward to the weekend!!

Report to follow!!!

Eve then went to dressage on Saturday at Myerscough College and we did the P17a. We were first on and she worked in very well as it was quiet and then we did our test. I was happy with it but her left canter was a bit dodgy and I have been feeling it for a day or two. Jo the physio is booked in for Thursday so it will be interesting to see if she can find something.

Moo then went on an adventure to Kelsall on the Sunday. Here we got to really go eventing without it being a competition. So we did our dressage test, where she tried to show the judge she couldn’t do a left canter transition, and then we got to do a round of show jumps in the very posh indoor school and then the exciting part….we got to go xc ! She couldn’t believe it!!!! We were a bit sticky at the first couple and then we got it together and she flew round. The best feeling ever!!!

However more practice is needed with the stop watch as it went off half way round the course!!

So we had an amazing day.

Moo got Monday off and I rode Eve and it just started me thinking that I’m not enjoying her the way I should be and I think having such a good day out with Moo made it worse.

I jumped Eve and practiced flatwork and was pleased with her so I popped round to Jill’s to practice my dressage test on Eve the next Thursday. Let’s just say Eve thought jumping was more exciting and didn’t really want to practice her dancing moves so I went home a bit deflated.

Jo came and said she was a little sore in her back so I gave her the benefit of the doubt and took her back to Jills the morning after but she didn’t want to play.

So rather than get frustrated and carry on, I got off and went home.

Moo took her place in the combined training the day after at Myerscough and we won and we won money!! Real money…...ummmm I am still waiting for the bank tfr though!!!

I think all in all it’s made me wonder if Eve is right for me. It’s a combination of age and can’t be arsed anymore!! I just want an easy life where I can get on and worry how big the jumps are not everything that’s going on inbetween them too! It is greeness but maybe she needs more miles than I can give her.

So I have just been jumping her at home this week as she enjoys that and we have fun!

So Stafford Horse Trails was yesterday! I wanted to go through some techniques I used in case you find it useful.

Now we haven’t evented for 4 years and during that time I had the fall that changed my life, so a lot’s happened and my mindset has changed massively! Moo came out of dressage retirement so keeping her sound for 7 weeks of training has been a feat of it’s own! We’ve taken it day by day and the fact we even arrived at Stafford was a miracle in itself. She wasn’t meant to jump a cross pole again ever!!!

To start with I did myself a hypnosis recording of arriving at an event and walking the courses and then riding them and I listened to it about four times last week.

Every time I felt nervous (usually about the showjumping) I turned those nerves into excitement and told myself to embrace the showjumping and really enjoy it.

The night before the event I watched my Maisey videos from other events and this made me realise how wonderful she is. Because she has had soundness issues all her life, I tend to think she can’t jump well enough, but this is not the case. She tries her heart out for me!

As I walked the showjumping course, the hypnosis recording came into play. I cannot believe how much it helped me.

We did the dressage and she was a star, producing the only sub 20’s score of the weekend! I thought it was a misprint at first! Peter even cleaned his glasses as he couldn’t believe it!!

We then went to the show jumping, now previously I used to get so nervous for this phase that my legs wouldn’t work properly.

We popped the cross pole a few times and then sat for a couple of minutes remembering the hypnosis and doing some breathing, whilst watching a couple go round the course. This wasn’t great as the horse before me had a few stops!!! Typical, anyway we put it out of our mind and set off.

I got a good canter, rode forward and let Moo do the jumping. I had to kick on for a couple but some had been causing a lot of problems through the day. We had a short stride at a couple but we got round and we’d had a great time.

Then we changed tack and went to the xc where there had been a few hold ups at fence 6, which in some respects I would have liked not to have known, but it did make me kick on. It was the fence before the water and it was in the shade so looked a bit funny.

In the working in, I had a canter round but didn’t like the look of the warm up fence so decided against jumping it. The ground was hard and we had just done our show jumping so I knew we would be ok.

We had the best time, Moo loved it and I made sure I rode every fence and we ended up 8th as we got time faults.

It was lovely to have the lowest dressage score of the weekend and be in the lead going to the XC, but it’s not about winning for me anymore. It was about having my beautiful kind pony, try her heart out and have the best time ever together. We had a family day out and we all loved it.

Needless to say today we are having a slow day!!!

Well done to everyone who made it this far!!!