Nationals 2016 is here!! It was our first trip to Nationals and I was quietly rather nervous with it being a big, major show and not having been there before. We had two international Para judges for our classes and I was very excited but very nervous about riding in front of them and getting their feedback. I wasn't looking forward to the long drive down either but hey ho - off we went!
When we arrived I was absolutely shattered and my back and legs were aching after driving the whole trip. We stopped in Taupo for a 45min break and Lucy took Tech off for a wander around and a bit of grass at the NEC, but it was such a LONG drive. We won't be doing it all in one day again!
We set up camp and had an early night, and the next day brought sunshine and more paras arriving so there was lots of catching up! :) Jody rode Tech in our arena familiarisation and said he felt rather tense in there, so to get him in there as much as we could over the next few days. Our first test was the next afternoon, so Lucy and I took Tech in for a walk around the indoor in-hand at 7.30am the next day to give him as much exposure in there as we could before my first test. Luckily we weren't riding until about 5pm the first day so the worst of the heat was over and done with which was nice! Tech felt amazing! Yes he was a little more tense than usual, but a lot of that was probably down to my nerves coming through to him. I've never been so nervous going into a test before! I tried my hardest to stay calm and channel calming energy to Tech, but inside my stomach was doing somersalts! I'm very pleased to say though that Tech stayed focused on me the whole time and we rode a good test - we scored 67% which I was stoked with! Great start to our Nationals!
The next morning Lucy did some speaker desensitisation work with Tech in the warm up arena - he was being a bit silly whenever the loud speaker went off so we needed to get that under control as it's not ideal behaviour when I'm on board! Then we watched the Grade 3 & 4 para tests and then set about bathing Tach and getting ready for our test later that afternoon.
Tech felt even better today, and warmed up really well (luckily there were no loud speaker announcements during our warm up hehe!). We had some feedback from thet judges in our test yesterday that Tech needed to be a bit more forward, and I've been feeling lately that the loops on my reins need adjusting because loop 2 feels too short and Tech finds it hard to walk out freely, but look 3 feels too long and like he's not together enough. I rode the previous day's test on loop 2 so thought I would try riding on loop 3 today and see what the judges said. Well it worked! We scored 69.78% for our Champs test yahoo!! Our best score all season! Tech did feel a wee bit long though so I'll be getting a new set of reins made with loops in-between 2 and 3 so I can have some finer adjustments, but I was absolutely stoked with our test and our score and had some amazing feedback from the judges too. Couldn't have gone better!
Saturday was a rest day for the paras, so Mel hacked Tech out with Aimee and Larghie (Grade 2 paras) and he had a bit of a chilled day. We got to watch the awesome Grand Prix Freestyles in the Extravaganza Saturday night, and cheered on our faves Jody & Ali Baba in action which was fun!
Then we woke up Sunday morning to the glorious sound of motorbikes speeding around the track next door echoing around the grounds. Oh great! ;) The stewards decided it was safer for me to get on Tech once inside the indoor arena due to everything going on outside, which was really nice of them. So Jody warmed Tech up outside and then we took him inside for me to get on and warm up while Chontelle was riding her freestyle test. I was looking forward to riding our freestyle as I really LOVE the music, and everything started well... in we went, halt, salute, off we go and straight into our right 10m circle. But half way around Tech did a big snort and managed to snatch the rein out of my weak left hand eek! So our 10m circle turned into a small spiral as I struggled to get my left rein back, which I managed to do and get back onto the centreline and get lined up for my left circle. Phew! I felt like I was back on track, although still trying to sort out my left rein as we were going across the diagonal into our 8m figure of 8. I finally got my reins sorted, then went into our 5m loops off thet centreline, but the music for this part of our floorplan was incredibly loud, and I could feel Tech tense up and start panicking. I tried to calm him but as we got to the middle of our 2nd loop he froze and nearly tipped me forward. I managed to stay upright but he felt like if I'd have asked him forward again at that moment he would have spun and taken off! So I let him stand there and look for a few seconds before I felt his body relax a little, and then coaxed him through the last part of that music saying 'Steeeaaaadyyyy.... whoaaaaaa...' every step of the way! Needless to say I didn't let any rein out for my free walk which was the next movement, and just tried to get through the rest of the test without breaking into trot! Well we did it - we survived and even though it felt like I was on a steam train carreering out of control for the second half of my test, it doesn't look as bad from the ground!
We managed to score 66% for that test and I'm pleased with that. The photo of me and my crew coming out of the arena at the end of my test is all smiles - we're all super stoked that I managed to get through it unscathed haha!!
So that was our first Nationals done and dusted. We had a fantastic show - loved every minute of it and we'll definitely be back! Huge thanks to my amazing crew as always for looking after me and Techy Boy so well. You guys rock!
Next stop: Horse of the Year!