Fresh from our success with Matt Ryan last Sunday, on a fit of upness I entered a couple of dressage tests at Allenshill.<\/p>\n
I love that place, it’s all so chilled and relaxed.<\/p>\n
The first thing that struck me as I drove towards the lorry park was that the burger stand was gone!<\/p>\n
Oh no! This is a crisis of massive proportions! What am I going to do without my many mugs of hot chocolate and, ahem, fried egg sandwiches?<\/p>\n
We rolled to a halt, I switched off, got out, lowered the tail ramp, patted Vin and gave him a slice of apple and went for a Recce.<\/p>\n
The first thing I noticed was that the burger stand had merely been moved.<\/p>\n
Waves of relief washed over me as I watched the guy setting up for me<\/strike> his many customers throughout the day.<\/p>\n
Our first test – P7 (or Prelim 7 if you prefer) – was at 09.38 and that, my friends, was the sole reason The Lovely S wasn’t with me; she’d worked all day Saturday and I didn’t want to drag her out of bed at 06.00 on a Sunday.<\/p>\n
We worked in, went forward, did our test which although wasn’t brilliant it didn’t feel bad, considering we’ve not schooled as hard as we should have – prior to a competition.<\/p>\n
Our second test was at 10.30 which meant Vinnie got rugged up and a light snack and I visited the burger bar for, ahem, a chat.<\/p>\n
Both refreshed we worked in, went forward and did our second test which – given that P14 (or Prelim 14 if you prefer) is a horrid, start-stop sequence of movements that come up very quickly – actually went very well.<\/p>\n
Vin felt brilliant for both tests, but he was much more relaxed during the second.<\/p>\n
Back at the lorry I untacked, groomed, rugged up, put him in the lorry and gave him his haynet, then I visited the burger van. Again. Ahem.<\/p>\n
I had a quick chat with Max who co-owns\/co-runs the place, she said she reads this drivel!<\/p>\n
Picked up our marked sheets for both tests – we were placed in P7 but P14 was still going on so don’t know how we did there.<\/p>\n
Closed the ramp, drove back to the yard, unloaded, swapped Vin’s rug for an outdoor one and put him straight out in the field with his buddies.<\/p>\n
I think I may have startled Jodie with my version of Mr Brightside by Killers – I didn’t see her in the barn and I really was belting it out fortissimo! Dang these iPods! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
Back home by just gone 13.00.<\/p>\n
Showered, shaved, clean-clothed and in to Bromsgrove for a hot chocolate and slice of cake with The Lovely S.<\/p>\n
And now – 17.51 – back home where, after a spell of eyes closed, deep and rhythmical breathing whilst I contemplated the nature of the universe for half an hour, it’s still daylight outside.<\/p>\n
Brilliant.<\/p>\n
Sundays should always be this good.<\/p>\n
An email has just rolled in from the Riding Club asking if I’m happy with a 14.30 slot at next weeks show-jumping clinic.<\/p>\n
More than happy.<\/p>\n
Bring it on, that’s what I say.<\/p>\n
Bring it on.<\/p>\n
B<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fresh from our success with Matt Ryan last Sunday, on a fit of upness I entered a couple of dressage tests at Allenshill. I love<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}