Off we went to Rosedale for their Training ODE. I walked the course the night before & it was quite a hard training course I felt. There was one jump in particular that I emailed them about that night to be told to suck it up basically.
Cobs warmed up nicely for the dressage & then got told that they had changed our dressage times....awesome. So hopped off him and stood round for almost an hour. I hopped on again as the judge came and he went all tense & stupid. Tried to warm up but he just got worse. Because they had mucked us round there was no-one to do the dressage so I offered to go in. Thinking they would at least give me one trot round the arena but NO. Soon as I left the judges car she rang the bell. Went to go in the ring & he just went dog and was all tense & sideways. Got a growling in the corner and after about three movements finally relaxed & did some okay work. Was pretty disappointed as he had warmed up so nicely & if we had done our test at the time we should have it would have been a nice test.
Anyway...walked the xc course again and the jump I was most scared of didn't look as horrendous so figured I would give it a go if things felt okay. He was an absolute idiot in the warm up ring which was....exciting I guess? Maybe it means he finally has the idea of xc??
So the first jump was a nice jump up a hill, he stood off that and pinged off. Next the dreaded #2 - it was a hedge that had been grown over a normal fence - was max brush height etc. Came into it and the take off was all fugged up from others stopping so I stopped riding into it. I could NOT get my head around doing that jump - I was most scared about him dragging a leg through it and getting caught in the wire. So I made the decision to just flag it & went and did the intro one instead. MUCH nicer. Third was a big roll top which he did okay, fourth log which he jumped nicely. Fifth was the water complex - had to drop in, canter through (long water jump!) and then jump out and then a stride to a skinny. He jumped in really well and cantered through but half way through just died so we jumped out & missed out the skinny, I came round to do it but there was no way there was enough room so just cantered round it. Next was quite a big table top but that jumped okay. The the sunken road - big vertical, one stride to ditch then one stride out over another vertical. I just jumped the ditch & last vertical. Then was probably the coolest jump on the course - skinny in between two Jeeps. That was wicked & he jumped that really nicely. Next up was a palisade, then tyres then out the back to a big corner. Did all three really nicely. Then a nice big long gallop round to a max height oxer with flax bushes - got a hugely long stride off that one but was cool. Next up was an big upright with hay bales stuck down the middle of it - was worried about this one with it being so upright but he flew over it. Next was another ramp thing - easy. Then there was a very gappy oxer with a ditch under it. Wasn't worried about this one but as we came up to it he was all disunited - I half halted a bit too harshly so he went down to trot & then just died in front of the jump. Came round & did it again & again he trotted into it but had enough bounce in his step to launch over it. Then the last was a ramp which we absolutely flew over.
Was SO super happy with him. Yeah sure we got eliminated but I don't want to push him and if I am not riding confidently then there is the potential for things to go wrong. On the upside though from about number 8 through to 14 he really took me to the jumps & felt super confident. Of course there are no photos from that side of the course damn it!
I didn't do the SJ as there wasn't much point. Save his legs for another day.
