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Paris the Politician

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Posted: 23/08/2021

Time is flying, I don’t know where August disappeared to but we are almost at the end of the month. With only two horses jumping, a staycation and time off from work my schedule has felt so disjointed. For now, my homebreds are my focus, I am still working hard on my own riding and producing my mares to the best of my ability while also aiming to move back up the heights someday soon. I definitely need a kick, I am a fiend for getting stuck in my comfort zone. Watching the Olympics and more recently the RDS national championships brought home how much timing, skill and focus is required to succeed in our amazing sport. It was incredible to see two Irish breds representing Ireland and both produced at home here in Ireland at the beginning of their career. Speaking of RDS, it felt so weird to not make the annual pilgrimage to the hallowed showgrounds, and stock up on all of my favourite brands from equestrian world.

 

 

Luckily Paris is not influenced by my ways and is happy to step out of her safe place and continue to improve. With young horses, especially a sassy chestnut mare, every day is different but the progress at the end of each session is beyond rewarding and makes me always come back for more. Although its not always plain sailing, my ego ends up in the sand at least once a month. Since my last blog, we have had three shows and two lessons. Feeling rusty after our unplanned hiatus, Paris and I had a brilliant lesson with Sophie. As always we went away feeling much more focussed and with a plan, a weakness of mine is to only focus on one element of my riding, weather it is my lower leg, the quality of the canter, or using two hands at once. Who said women can multi task, I clearly missed the memo. After our lesson, we went jumping on Thursday in coilog. Its great to have time off work and the option of a midweek show. Paris was a star and jumping a lovely clear round in her metre class. We are really settling into these now and I am happy with the partnership we finally formed. Next up was Pixie, I knocked the first jump again. After the heart breaking thud, she jumped her socks off to finish on four faults.

 

My brother had a video of my round (Dad cant keep up with my preference, video, don’t video, I am full of notions). It was really obvious my canter was all over the place, I was giving Pixie mixed signals, coming and going, she really is a saint to put up with me. If rugby is a game of inches then show jumping is the sport of mm, whether it’s the spot we place the horse to the slightest rub. All week we worked on our canter being soft, consistent leg, not speeding up when changing lead etc, I could feel a huge difference in Pixie. I also head the flu and was feeling very sorry for myself, true to my drama queen tendencies, I declared I was dying at least every hour. However after my negative covid test everyone ignored me, including my horses who expected service as usual, breakfast at 7am please, housekeeping (muckingout) completed by 7.40. Thursday I got my vaccine, this on top of my flu, left me feeling like my head was under water. The show must go on and I went to ride. Pixie stuck to her side of the deal extra treats for good behaviour. Paris, true to form had other ideas, one second I was trotting along, the next I was sitting in the sand and Paris was practising her extended trot across the arena. It happened so fast, even Dad missed it and wondered how I ended up on the ground. ( I was wondering the same myself).

 

The weekend arrived and we went to Coilog summer show. Paris went in her first jump off, we never know what to expect with her, she has so much personality, maybe because she was bucket fed but she is like a person. Tom holden was building and it was a lovely flowing track, which suits my mare with her big stride. From fence one, the mare was in great form and jumping super, all of the distances came up nice and we maintained a lovely balanced canter, after we passed through the clocks I asked the mare to open up a little. Paris, flickered her ears as if to say excuse me we are working on a controlled canter what are you doing. The corner to the second last she was still wondering what on earth I was doing. I was really pleased with her performance, she ended up in firth place (the youngest horse in the line up). Chilling after her round, she had her head out the window with a very smug look on her face, she reminded me of a certain politician, can you guess who? Pixie was in the 110, we had a great warm up, the lime arena with 4 jumps offers everyone lots of space and options. I decided to try ride on a loose rein and less hand, Pixie was really jumping, however she was so offended we expected her to jump a plank from another tack shop and kicked it off, I think David told her to chip the paint. Joking aside, the mare did look into the jump and we had four faults, again I am at fault for not offering her enough support off the ground.

 

The forecast for Saturday didn’t look promising, but we loaded up, ready to tackle another course. I had an internal debate if I should leave my favourite samshield gear at home to avoid the rain but decided it wasn’t worth it and wore my fairplay plastic jacket instead. Foolishly I thought we had the worst of the rain and left both that and my favourite pikeur jacket in the jeep when getting up. The metre went to plan, we avoided the rain and finished on a clear round, good girl Paris. It was now Pixies turn, over the first clear, yippee! All was going to plan, until fence 13, the combination, I sat up controlled our canter, a lovely, b good, c we ran out of space and the final pole hit the floor. That’s showjumping, another horse to ride, so no time to dwell. Paris was in her first 1.10, as soon as we stepped into the warm up it poured rain. She was disgusted, how dare I expect a queen like her to get wet( she is very precious and doesn’t like to roll in muck or stand out in the rain). Ears pinned and snarling at anyone who looked at her we entered the ring.

 

Links to the rainwear, I should have worn.

Searching Waterproof Jackets & Leggings - Equestrian World

Pikeur Ginny Ladies Jacket - Equestrian World

 

We were drenched, my jacket felt like I was jumping with a weight jacket on, when I squeezed my reins I ended up with two handfuls of water. We ended with four faults at the first double. The rain didn’t subside, and we had a soggy drive home. My jods are now the colour of my saddle. My jacket washed so well and it demonstrates the quality of samshield to withstand horrendous weather. This week, I am going to use my equiline half pad(linked below) on Pixie for extra support under her saddle, although she doesn’t feel sore and is jumping super in practise, I have a physio coming to check if I am missing anything. I think it’s a case of four faultitis, that I am truly ready to recover from. I may resort to lighting a candle to the showjumping gods!

 

Equiline Sheepskin Half Pad Argo - Equestrian World

 

 

Equestrian world have opened their Christmas club, which is a great idea! You can order your Santa must haves now and spread the cost before xmas. Making the top products accessible for everyone. An added bonus to shopping early for xmas is the new draw David is running, you could be in with a chance of winning a 1000 euro voucher! Imagine all of the goodies you could get with this! Every 20eur spent online or in store gets a raffle ticket! I also spy new products arriving for winter, which is also my favourite season for style!

 

Happy jumping,

 

Jade.

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