Eventing and Showing Weekend

Woowee what a weekend! I've managed to slightly cook a shoulder in this unseasonably warm heatwave we've had for 1 spring week! How I managed to get a little sun burn is cause I was out and about at competitions all weekend, although not with Georgie and our horses this time. 

Saturday morning I popped along to the Horseheath British Eventing 'BE100' event which is not far from me as I wanted to go and watch and seeing a couple of friends.

I met up with my lovely friend Harri and her partner just after Harri had finished her dressage, sadly I'd just missed it but she was about to go into the show jumping with her lovely mare Cuz so while she warmed up I got my Camera out and snapped away to practice. Turns out that my warm up pictures came out better than her actual show jumping pictures did. I hadn't yet photographed a single horse jumping, only point to point racehorses which actually seems easier. I realised when there is a lot in the background my auto focusing lens likes to focus on those rather than what it is I want to photograph e.g Harri and Cuz, not the spectators still in the dressage 200 yards away! Seems I'll have to stop relying on auto focus and manually focus instead.

The sun was well and truely shining and in a blink of an eye Harri and Cuz were nearing their cross country start time. I excused myself to Harri when she went off to warm up so I could go and find a space on the course where I could spot most of the action and get as many photos as possible. I chose the water feature as it had two fences as it was sectioned in two!
Turns out it was a great spot and I managed to get lot's of photos of Harri's impressive round! 

After a quick sausage sarnie and an ice cream I again excused myself to nip off to the cross country course and watch some more jumping when Harri set off for home. I managed to spot long term friend Emma and got photos of her whizzing round on her new horse Mav! They also impressively flew round and I got my 'eye in' for better, more focused photos! 

 After an early night (walking all that way around the course in the heat must have worn me out) I was up bright and early and made my way to Fordham, just outside of Newmarket, for the Worlington Riding Club Spring show at which they were hosting some RoR qualifying showing classes.

This event is always well attended and this year was no different! It was another hot day but tweed jackets were donned and competitors made their way in the ring for the RoR Open In Hand series class. Everyone had turned their horses out brilliantly and everyone did a great job trotting their horses up in the heat! 

Once this class was done there were other unaffiliated classes that whizzed by quickly so all competitors doing the ridden classes flew backed to their boxes to tack up and warm up only for the next few classes take forever so shade was sought out and horses allowed to rest in the heat for a while. After the judges had refreshed themselves the call was made and riders were in the ring. This time for the RoR Amateur ridden show series class; again well attended and so lovely to see much beautifully schooled horse and rider combinations. The judge pulled in their provisional order and each person was asked to do an individual show before stripping for conformation judging. 

I watched on eagerly to see who would snap the first place. It was one by Leanne, a lovely lady who has attended our RoR schooling clinics this year and evidentially they'd paid of! Well done to everyone who competed their RoR over the weekend, it really has shown me the hard work and extremely high standard of retrained racehorses we have in the region and I am very proud of every single one of them!

While I was off doing my volunteering duties Georgie has taken Frankie to 'Mini Tetworth', a long running childrens cross country hunter trial. There are pictures of Georgie and I whizzing round 'Mini Tetworth' as children both as pairs or individually so it's awesome, if not slightly weird to be taken the next generation to compete too. 

While tack cleaning on Saturday night we got a phone call from a wonderful friend Charlotte to tell us we'd managed to get a place.. You see, Georgie hadn't read that you needed to pre-enter and hadn't, much to Frankie disappointment so with this new change of plan Frankie was very excited indeed. Georgie decided that it was an awesome idea to give Frankie an early birthday present of her new cross country colours! Obviously they went down a storm and frankie immediately put them on and ran around the house!

This week Frankie 'turned a corner' with Ronnie and really got confident cantering and jumping so I know Georgie and Frankie went into Tetworth with much excitement. The low down I got and by the looks of the rosettes, is that Frankie did awesome!

Georgie ran round for direction and to keep everything on track but was not needed it would seem as Frankie was away!

I'm so proud of her and can't wait to see them strive and improve. Very proud Auntie!

Overall it's been a great but slightly weird weekend for me attending events but not competing but was really nice! 

Now to liaise with Georgie to see what we'll be up to for the next few weekends.

Sophie x