Vicky Glasow’s round up of Addington High Profile
On Saturday we arrived at Addington Manor at 3 o’clock. Although I wasn’t competing until 6.40pm in the Inter 1 we wanted to arrive early to make sure I could give Villu a good 20 minute walk and leg stretch after travelling. For those who haven’t followed our journey, the warm up and cool down is vital for us to work with him due to his previous injuries.
Warming up for the Inter 1. Villu felt fresh and but a little bit tense. I quite like him like that though as if I can get him to relax then that slight edge of freshness can work to my advantage. However when it came to do our test we went in to the competition arena, which is a lovely big indoor arena and I just felt him rise and tense up again whilst having a little look at the judges tables! Generally with things like that Villu isn’t a spooky horse but because of previous injuries he hasn’t actually been out competing much, so you can’t really blame him for having a look! Our test wasn’t too bad but our most costly mistakes were- in the 2x flying changes we did a 3 and a 1 and we mainly got marked down for tension and comments for tension in the mouth as he was faffing with his mouth a little bit and not very steady in the contact. We got a score of 64+% I was disappointed in our score but it was fair. I just put it down to nerves and our lack of experience in being out competing with him!
Day Two and we competed in the PSG. He hadn’t eaten his breakfast that morning so despite him looking chilled I knew that he wasn’t quite 100% settled. In the warm up he came out super fresh!! Any little bang or another horse coming too close and he was having mini little spurts of enthusiasm!! Generally though once he got going and started to concentrate he then felt much better than the day before! I thought “Yes this is more like it!” He felt more together and quieter in his mouth then on to our test…. We probably couldn’t have had many more mistakes in it if we tried! He got stuck in one of his walk pirouettes, he changed late behind after one of our half passes, we did a flying change just after one of our canter pirouettes near X (we were meant to wait until C), in our 4x changes he popped in a 3 and coming back from our extended canter where we were supposed to collect and do a flying change… He broke into trot!!!!!!! So it wasn’t quite our day and we got a score of 62%! It was so disappointing at the time but looking back now with Villu, I have to remember that after everything we have been through with him it’s just amazing to even be back out there competing at this level again with him. Although it wasn’t our best weekend at least he was feeling fresh and well and that he is fit and healthy to go out and do it all again!
So for now we will go back to basics and work on keeping him fit and then we’ll start to build the work up again and try to fine tune a few things as best as we can. We are slightly limited with previous injuries and also we only having a 20x 40 arena!
Onward and upwards though and we’re back focused again working towards achieving the dream! Catch a snippet of Vicky’s warm up on our You Tube Channel HERE .
