showjumping challenge tomorrow *update + video

joosie

joosie

lifelong sufferer of restless brain syndrome
Oct 28, 2004
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New Zealand
Tomorrow I'm competing in my first 1m10 class with Jam. We train up to around 1m15 at home and the odd fence slightly higher, but I've only competed up to 1m05 before and have never done a full course bigger than that. So I'm really looking forward to giving it a go, but am also very nervous! I keep telling myself it's only marginally higher than what I've been doing already - and we had a really good result in our most recent 1m05 so we're on fairly good form - but this time last year I was watching 1m10s and thinking I would never be able / want to compete that high, so it does feel like a bit of a "milestone" in my jumping journey. My main issue with jumping has always been my self-confidence so this is going to be a real challenge for me in terms of holding my nerve! My boss has said she doesn't mind if we have poles down as long as I don't have any refusals/runouts or fall off... I said I will do my best :giggle:
 
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I find anything over 90cms pretty scarey these days haha so am in awe of you :wink:

Good luck and try to enjoy it as you sound while nervous you are excited :smile:
 
Thanks, to be honest I find everything over 90cms scary too... sometimes even smaller ones are scary... but I guess I'd never improve if I never pushed my comfort zone! At least I know Jam will look after me!
 
Good luck. I hope that it goes well.

I am aiming to get round a 60cm course. I cannot imagine being brave enough to jump the heights that you do. x
 
Good luck! You'll be great, you're clearly very competent so I'm sure you'll sail round!

*cough* remember to get pics *cough cough*
 
Well, we did it, we got round in one piece :dance: The class was 2-phase, so jump the first half of the course and then after number 7 it was against the clock. My boss wanted me to keep my turns fairly tight but asked if I would try to focus on riding correctly rather than attempting too much on the speed part - which was fine, I was too nervous to think of riding "competitively", I just wanted to get round without making any major muck-ups or looking too out of place! It was also 33 degrees by the time the class started at 1pm and Jam has never been very good with hot days (and at 16 I doubt he is going to change now) so I couldn't just rely on him getting us out of trouble!

My boss had 3 horses in the class too so it was all a bit rushed, but she managed to find a gap to help me through my warmup. We kept it to 10mins to conserve our energy and then headed down to the ring. Jam was a superstar and took care of me from start to finish - we had 2 spreads down because I let him get a bit strung-out on approach and he dangled a front leg, I got the stride wrong on a couple of others but Jam was well up for it so I just had to grab some mane and trust him - he was brilliant and I had a lot of fun. I am absolutely over the moon to finish without letting us both down!

3-day show so the pro pics aren't around til Monday but I do have a video. You may notice coming round the turn from 5 to 6, I took it a bit too wide and Jam had a think about jumping number 11 backwards instead :redface:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44EB7mMKi2c
 
Thanks for the reply Gattino :) I definitely wasn't calm on the inside, and there were a few norty words coming out of my mouth as we went round, luckily you don't hear it on the video! Probably not my best riding but I think this round meant more to me than any other so far, it has given me a long overdue confidence boost.
 
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