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Sponsored Rider's Report: Anne-Marie Styles
Thursday 27 May 2010
April - May Report
Hi to all!
Well the season has surely flown past again, and our long drought has finally broken...it definitely feels like winter now!
The last event I reported on was Kihikihi over the Easter weekend and following that we had a break of three weeks before the next competition which was the CIC*** at Woodhill Sands. It was the first time Woodhill Sands was running a CIC*** so it was a new course to look forward to riding. The committee did an excellent job of putting on a top quality event. The dressage and show jumping phases were on a beautiful couch grass surface, and the cross country, while not overly big, was technical and the terrain tricky. I had both my horses entered and both acquitted themselves well in the dressage, although I was a bit disappointed with both of their scores. Opera Groove (Claude) was in 5th place overnight and As You Like It (Pete) was in 7th. Pete was the trail blazer and put in a solid cross country performance, however I missed my turn at fence 6 and 7 which was a table top with a roof to a big corner, so I had to circle in between and pick up a few extra unwanted time penalties,.however at the end of the day he still had the second fastest clear round. Claude was having a great run, until a pilot error led to a run off at a skinny....frustrating but I decided to walk home and save his legs for Taupo Three Day. Pete was lying 4th after XC and jumped a beautiful clear show jumping round to elevate him into 2nd in the final standings. My young horse Leo Getz also had a good weekend finishing 2nd in the Training class.
We then had another three weeks to wait until the big finale of the season, the Taupo Three Day Event, which is our National Championships. Both horses were on really good form leading into the event and I felt very confident about my chances. Claude was the trailblazer in the CCI*** and unfortunately the occasion got the better of him in the dressage...as he has done before at Taupo, he was quite full of himself and eager to get on with the cross country. We were well down the field at the end of the first day. Pete did a really nice test, with an unfortunate break in the half pass to sit in 4th overnight. The cross country was typical Taupo...very spread out with the big hill to start and long galloping stretches in between the jumps. There were some grunty new combinations on course, and the consensus was it would take a bit of riding. Claude put in a stellar cross country performance, storming thru all the straight routes; he gave me a brilliant ride to make up for the disappointment of the day before. Unfortunately I had less fun on Pete, who I was running in pads for the first time in the wet. It was ignorance on my behalf, but he was not studded appropriately for the conditions with the pads and he just didn’t have any traction. We were slipping and sliding all over the place and after having a problem at the water I called it a day. I was gutted. Anyway....Claude had pulled up to 3rd after his great XC run so all was not lost! Claude flew thru the trot and was very full of beans on the Sunday morning. We had a long wait till our show jumping in the afternoon. Claude excelled himself in the show jumping putting in a good clear round to put the pressure on the remaining two competitors. Second place took a rail and had some time faults so I moved up to take that spot. Heelan Tompkins was in first and while she had one rail it was still enough to keep the lead, so I finished up in 2nd in the National Championships. A good result to finish the season on!
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