TW, Fonz and Paris were off to the spectacular Tonimbuk International Horse Trials in the CIC 1*, PN and Intro respectively. The pressure was on as Trojan and I need one more qualifier for us to be off to the prestigious Sydney 3 Day Event at the end of April.... so I must admit it was a bit... "all about Troj" this weekend (not that that paid off in the end anyway!) .. 
It was set to be an absolute SCORCHER of a weekend with temperatures reaching nearly 40 degrees and with TW's err.. tendency to be lazy in the show jumping we took extra measures to make sure he had as much energy as possible.. This VERY expensive trip to the feed store included nasal breathing strips, 2 tubes of electrolytes, electrolyte molasses for the water, lots of feed AND unlimited lucerne hay lol and luckily Troj was third in the tough draw of 51 riders from all over Oz so he missed most of the heat with early times for dressage and cross country. 
The weekend before TW was lucky enough to win an $100 Equissage voucher at Seville HT which we tested out before his dressage .. he was very relaxed and persuaded the equissage team to go for a little longer than intended with those big brown doey eyes and was clearly showing them the areas he would like them to work on! However a scratching required us to ride a little early and he didn't quite feel through enough to score exceptionally.. 10 more minutes warm up and I think our place on Day 1 would have been miles above where it was. He was also surprisingly a little tense in there and kept staring into the audience with pricked ears and spooky eyes (so I'm told lol) and our score of 61.2 penlties reflected this. We were sitting around midfield. 
Fonz however pushed the majority of his "rangaisms" aside and performed a beautiful test BUT.. did not do one step of walk (THE ULTIMATE RANGA-ISM) and the whole score was brought on due to a consecutive three 3's for the walk movements.. In his defence - the walk was in the direction of the cross country... and we all know how he feels about that phase! 
Little baby Paris completed a quiet and calm test at his very first intro and scored midfield.. not bad for a big lanky TB straight off the track. 
With no stand out performances on the dressage day we were determined to come home quickly on xc with no jump penalties and that we did!! Despite a few big questions for TW's first international with skinny's, Irish banks, lots of combinations and a big brush into the water (which Queenie has lately informed him contains many sorts of swamp monsters) but a bold ride across the country saw us clear with just a few time penalties. Fonz and Ben cruised around their first PN together without even a hiccup and were one of the fastest of the PN although no one even got close to the difficult time! Paris also cantered around without any problems but did get stuck behind someone and as it can be difficult to overtake in intro due to no big gallop spaces did incur a few time penalties.

Paris and Fonz both show jumped beautiful clear rounds for Ben to finish in 10th and 12th (would have been 6th and 4th without time penalties) Speed up Nanna!

But Trojan's show jumping was a whole different story.... In the warm up he felt tired but focused and I had hoped the indoor atmosphere would pick him up and help us through our weakest phase however he again was distracted and nervous staring at the spectators and not focusing on those top rails. Having a couple down on the way to fence 8 but starting to get more into our rhythm, his over jumping was throwing me around a little and BANG over fence 8 (focusing desperately on trying to keep my lower leg secure and keeping weight in my heels) my stirrup gave way and I DROPPED like a fly! lol apparently everyone thought I fainted after complaining about the heat during the coursewalk lol! Although neither of us were physically hurt, we are now REALLY under the pump to do well at Wandin International in 2 weeks time to ensure we are ready and qualified for Sydney! Maybe my first step should be to buy some new stirrups... and organize lots and lots of jumping lessons!

Until then, Happy riding, Amber and Ben!
XXX

To say I was excited to be back out there is a bit of an understatement but with only 2 weeks of solid prep time I was a bit out of whack! Lucky Trojan and I had our super coach for bootcamp the week before!!!
 
On Friday we were not off to the best of starts... Firstly Ben forgot to coordinate his shifts at BONDS so that we could leave at midday so we decided to go on Saturday morning... (AT 2AM!?!) ... then a last minute decision to leave at 9:30pm  and finally after a Iphone torch lit yard hunt we were tucked up in bed at 2am!  (I dunno whether getting to bed at 2am or waking up at 2am is worse.....)

In the morning we got up and must have been REALLY exhausted because Fonz looked like a warped Looney Tune.... oh wait no his entire face was swollen particularly his eyes and nose and his body was covered in hives so an 8am vet visit showed concern for his airways and him and Ben were withdrawn from the PN! Now it was poor Ben's turn to try on the strapper hat for size...

Queenie did a very average test (not horrible for her and my first one back) for a score of 51penalties and went clear across the country and clear showjumping to finish in 7th place AGAIN and got herself a big purple sash (much better than brown thank you) and another bottle of saddle soap to clean all my beautiful FFE gear with! lol!

Trojan and I argued our way through our dressage test for a pretty average dressage score of 58.8 and although we were the fourth fastest across the country we still got 7.2 time penalties (there was so many turns up and down the front of the hill it was tricky to get a good gallop in and it was like 35 degrees!) However I was super proud of his SJ round because he was totally stuffed and still managed to only rattle one which is .... incredible for Trojan who usually counts how many he can punch out in one round! Lol! He finished 10th. There's a long way to go in a short period of time.. but jumping at Berwick show next weekend and a local pony club event the next and then its Tonimbuk CIC our first big international 1* together! Bring it on!

So after breaking some fingers and having all 4 wisdom teeth removed just 2 weeks before Lakes and Craters its fair to say the boys and I were not fit to run at any event let alone up and down that Camperdown hill for 10 minutes so I relunctantly withdrew Fonz and Trojan from the CCIYR* and put my strapper hat on! (For future reference.... I can not plait with one hand and Ben can not plait with 2 hands... lucky we were rescued by superhero Kaitlin Adamson who ensured my ponies didn't go zebra style in the dressage! AND camping is barely the best scenarior for someone who can only eat jelly and icecream!!) but none the less Ben was entered in the Prelim on Queenie and now, after my unfortunate circumstances, Fonz aswell!
Ben had a lesson the day before the dressage on Queenie with Katja Weimann and she was on fire... now we just have to get through the dressage test with no acrobatics and minimal chatting (or extremely loud neighing if you prefer)  to Fonz!
Dressage day: Queenie managed to restrict her exessive talking to 2 whinnies for an almost error-free test. er only major mistake was a huge bum swing in the last halt!!! The score of 45penalties reflected this and Ben was 7th and the only amateur in the top 10!
Jumping day: Queenie flew around what we thought was a challenging xc for her... and after being pretty certain her chubby self would not make it up the hills within the set time, she proved us all wrong coming home too fast and incurring 1.2 very annoying but ironic time penalties! One little spook in the SJ caused a baby rail and we were so excited for her to finish 6th..(Her best EA Placing yet) altough she was not at all impressed with her poo brown rosette!

So Trojan and Fonz met for their first 1* head to head and with Trojan's dressage improvements and Fonz's show jumping flare its bound to be a close one!
So Fonz kicked off the dressage with what felt like a terrible test but actually scored quiet well with a score of 59.1. Trojan then went on to complete a super test but only scored 0.3 above Fonz (58.8). Strangely enough both judges had Trojan on the same score however they disagreed on Fonz's score by over 10 points! They were provisionally 5th and 6th - a very exciting place for them to be coming into their best phase, cross country!

Meanwhile, Ben did the most fantastic test on Queenie in the Prelim BUT....after learning the old Prelim test instead of the new P1, he managed to squidge the most ridiculous "half-circle to simple change across the diagnal" into 20metres instead of using the whole arena... (seriously try to imagine it - if you can't thats because it was that insane! it was very neatly done though! LOL) so 2 errors of course lost him 4th place but still she was a perfect balance of activity and relaxation so finished 8th despite her jockey incurring some extra penalties...

Now onto cross country day! Now I was feeling pretty confident with Fonz seeing he has cruised around this exact xc several times with no problems.. and 6th place is a good place for the ranga-man to be. However it was not to be, a very sneaky run out at the skinny out of the water (perhaps it was related to our fall at the skinnys at FOW?) got us a costly 20 penalties. As if that wasnt annoying enough - it was a line where I could have taken the option to circle..AND carnege across the course would have had us sitting 1st after cross country... Grrr! 
There was no time for sulking however as there was less than 15 minutes until Trojan's cross country and we had to get our game face on. Luckily the skinny proved no issue for him and he came home clear with only 2 time penalties to creep into 2nd place (not bad for his first 1*) however show jumping is his weak phase and the 30 minute break proved to be too much for him as the exhausted boy clipped 5 rails. Ironically Fonz show jumped the only clear and undertime round despite there being some very competitive 2* and even 3* combinations in the class. So although this weekend I was so very close to being the YR state champ, it just goes to show how cut throat this crazy sport really is! and the tough course did keep them in the placings with a 5th and 6th (Fonz overtook Trojan by 0.1 in the end!)

We're getting closer so fingers crossed it all comes together soon! Lakes and Craters YR 1* champ maybe??  On a side note, Queenie jumped clear across the country and had one fence down to finish in 7th.

Next was Werribee Pony Club Horse Trials with Fonz and Trojan in the Grade 1 class and Queenie (the baby of the family) doing the grade 3. Trojan put in a solid effort in all 3 phases despite being his first one back at this level since having 6 months off due to a severe respiratory infection and Fonz was still suffering from “ranga-itis” in the dressage but was only a few points behind! They both had one fence down in the show jumping which was a good effort because the night time, full crowd atmosphere is quiet intense (even more-so than M3DE!) and does upset some horses and both jumped a double clear xc. However, the spread of marks in dressage was quiet bizarre (the winner was 200 points in front of the last place getter with 30 points between 1st and 2nd) so even with super jumping rounds the boys stayed in 7th and 8th. 

However Little Miss Queenie was a super star all weekend with a winning test and clear rounds to win her first Horse Trials. She won some yummy feed thanks to Prydes EasiFeed, a voucher thanks to Buckskin Jodphurs and a woollen quater sheet thanks to Piaffe. Hopefully this is the first of many successes to come for our little lady.

Avenal CNC was hopefully the biggest disaster I will have to deal with for some time! Everything that could go wrong did go wrong and the few things that wern't a complete mess were average at best. Perhaps we can laugh about it now!
The weekend before Avenal was spent at Boneo Park where both Fonz and Queenie led me into a false sense of secruitry with fantastic, CALM tests and clear jumping rounds to place 6th and 5th in the 1* and Prelim. During the week, our float sold which meant we had 3 horses entered without yards and a way to get them all there so we had 3 days to find a new float and book local stables.. This should have been SCRATCH sign one!
SCRATCH sign two could have been the realisation that we had misread the dates of Ben's Dad's Engagement Party and it was actually on the Saturday night and an unforeseen 2 minute change from top boots to high heels in the Flinder's St Maccas was in the stars for us..(Well, me - Ben wasn't exactly wearing heels)...This also necessitated a midnight XC walk with high powered torches that did give us a vague idea of the fences I would face in the morning however they didn't seem to detect the giant slippery cow patties that were EVERYWHERE) quiet as clearly.. I'll say no more.
1.00am we returned to the float .. and Trojan had not only ESCAPED from his brand new steel yards but destroyed these brand new yards and cut his leg open so he had to scratch.... (ironically he was the only one who behaved in the dressage with a 70% and a provisional 5th. So we were left with two dressage monsters (Queenie and Fonz) who bucked, bolted and practically did backflips  in their tests and were still in the bad books despite both jumping easy doublle clears on jumping day! I'd like to blame their cheeky behaviour on the aeroplanes that seem to always follow me down the centreline...but there is just something about Avenal. (DId I mention Fonz got time penalties because he refused to go in the start box for what seemed like forever for  the first time in 5 years of 1*.....Lucky a kind stranger came to our rescue and give the little sulk a lead through the box but no matter .. Maybe we'll leave "Fantapants"  at home next Avenal!

I have finally fully recovered from LAST YEAR’S Year 12 and have a full team
out eventing again as well a part time job at a pharmacy, lots of university
homework and a bit of pony club teaching on the side. Not a lot of time for
sleeping and eating…. 








Our season kicked off at Friends of Werribee CIC. Ironically, this was my first event wearing my new jumping vest and let’s just say it was worth the money. Fonz (Sea Student) was extremely excited and“Chestnut” at his first CIC in 12 months and this resulted in a very nice reinback (at nearly every marker...) and lots of nice travere (too bad it wasn’t in the test!) in his dressage test. You would think that his very “expressive” test would have relieved him of all early season “Fonzisms” however his attitude problem transferred over to cross country day and although I managed to win most of the arguments across the course a BIG disagreement at the second last fence (I said wait, he said ‘as if’) resulted in green joddies and a very sore (but not broken) rider. Who would have thought I would christen my new back protector at its very first event! I then bravely but perhaps not wisely jumped my Prelim horse (Trojan) to finish in 3rd, although I must admit I don’t remember a great deal of that course. I must have lost a few too many brain cells from my fall!