Saturday, 9th November continued...
The walk up to the arena and the go round was much quieter today which Stella appreciated. The arena had been opened on time so the ponies from the rescue village had their go round in-hand, and when they went back to their beds we went in. Stella was very good, relaxed and quiet so Tory gave her half an hour of mostly walk which was a victory (she much prefers to trot everywhere) and left.
The stable walk round skipped us. The lucky attendees saw the amazing Valegro, the People’s Horse Art, and had a good chat with the Ben Atkinson team about their training methods. So we went shopping. There is so much here and lots of very interesting people to talk to so if you’re horsey you can’t get bored between the lectures, the demos, the interviews and the shopping. We quickly tracked down our quadrille teamies, and Equestriman Simon, then went to lunch with Alison and her Mum, and two lovely ladies who Alison coaches up in Yorkshire.
The performance was looming. Tory was getting nervous, but Stella was much calmer today. We wandered a little through the shops on the way back from lunch but aimed for the camper for some quiet time before tacking up.
It’s difficult to time these things. It takes approx 5 minutes to tidy up a clean horse, and 2 minutes to tack up. We allowed 15 😂
It then takes about 1 minute to go up the horse walk to the arena and then there really isn’t anywhere to work in so you have to walk in circles until given the ok to enter. We were a little early. We have already established that Stella prefers to trot than walk, so getting her to stand rather than walk or trot is a real challenge! The audience had lots of questions for the stunt team before us, then the arena was levelled so we were a little late getting in. Rachel and Francesca timed it perfectly, trotting up the track just as the arena leveller left. So we all went in.
Stella was on a mission, and it is really really scary riding in there with all of those people watching. Thank goodness Alison is miked up so she can talk to the riders. Tory did really well. She got into the zone quickly and was able to lose the shell shocked look! She pushed Stella forwards and kept her concentrating on her until she settled, which she did. She gave some nice work after a few minutes so Alison could demonstrate some prelim music moves and talk about how to calm your horse down. Tory described Stella as feeling like a UXB! She looked marvellous though.
I hadn’t mentioned that on Saturday it rained. All day. Stella is very nosey so her head was dripping wet from being over the stable door! We put her exercise sheet on to walk to the arena, and Tory had her coat on. The idea was that they would be stripped out of waterproofs and show the Equestriman branding before going in. Stella’s speed mission meant we couldn’t do that so they did the whole display inside with waterproofs on 🙄
Tory was petrified going in, but sage advice from Sharon Hunt in the morning - it’s OK to be nervous beforehand, but you have to get your head into the zone when you’re actually in there and all will be OK - meant she was prepared and was fine almost straight away. Good to see. After we had settled Stella into her pad and locked everything away we legged it back to watch Rachel and Francesca dancing with their horses. Equestriman Simon had stayed to take photos. Hopefully some came out! It’s quite dark in the arena so the camera was struggling to focus
When all was done we breathed a sigh of relief and opened the wine again!
The heating in the camper chose our return time to stop working. This was bad because everything was soaked! Luckily at midnight it woke up and by the time the 5.30 alarm went off everything was dry again.
Sunday, 10th November
The work in time was 7.30 as usual so we tacked Stella up and because I had been railroaded into riding the performance tonight Tory rode the warm up. The warm up was so much more relaxed today. We got top tips from Ben Atkinson on relaxing knees for dressage: flop like a puppet with its strings cut. Pick up your body using only your back, and when you are upright again you will find your weight is through your seat, your knees and hips are loose, and your arms are in the right position. If you do it standing on the floor you can feel it in your glutes.
Another Ben Atkinson top tip is to ride like everything is normal around you. Even when around you is a circus - and I mean literally!
We finished the warm up after some really lovely work and took Stella back to her stable and ourselves back to the camper to process 🤔
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