So last weekend we decided to enter a TREC competition at the
local stables where the girls have been having lessons. It was part of the
Kelly Marks TREC Winter Series, sounded a bit official, but they assured me that it would be a fun thing, so I signed Ali and myself up.
Sunday morning dawned......wet and windy, but we had high hopes of at least having dry horses to start with as they've been coming in at night recently to the modest little residence they share with the cows - a yard and a big barn - but no, they'd clearly spent the night in the open munching on the haylage in the feeder. So we had to get the towels out to try and dry the saddle area at least, and resign ourselves to most of the mud staying where it was (just for a change).
Off we went, armed with a map, the stables is about 4 miles away from the yard. Most of the way is small country roads although we did end up in the middle of Cam on a Sunday morning being stared at by the locals going out to fetch the paper. Came across an interesting road sign on a residential road, never seen that one before!
Maybe because of the incredibly wet conditions they are expecting a surge in amphibian numbers this year?
After an hour or so of getting rained on and blown about, we arrived at the stables, and managed to get let into the indoor school where the competition would take place to have a look around. Sky, predictably, was a snorting idiot, staring at herself in the mirror, baulking at going round the arena, and generally refusing to listen to Ali.
Gandalf just stood in the corner, cocked a hindleg up and had a snooze. So I led Sky round to show her nothing bad was in there, then we went into an outdoor arena for a bit of a look round. Sky once again initially refused to go away from the gate, then decided to trot off and investigate the horses in the adjacent field, stopped dead at the huge puddle down one end and tried to tear off back to the gate. We did eventually get her settled enough to attempt to practise for the Control of Paces, but there wasn't really a lot of control involved......
By now some of the other competitors had started to arrive in nice shiny trailers, and they all looked awfully clean and dry compared to our two....
But never mind, we went and lined up for our turn to compete. Ali went in first, Sky argued all the way through the COP so
nuls points for that. Then it was on to the PTV, she wasn't too bad with some of it, but standing on her own for the immobility was too much to ask so she decided to go and stand with Ali and lose all her points......
Then it was my turn, Gandalf couldn't stay in canter round the corners but that's not unusual so I wasn't expecting points for that. We did OK on immobility and mounting (they provided a mounting block, how civilised!) and somehow even managed full marks for our jump (!) but we messed up with the gate which was one of those flimsy plastic jobs and was actually more difficult than the pole at Beaumont....
And one of the obstacles was to sidepass over a pole on the ground which I have never seen before and will definitely require some practise! So we certainly weren't in the ribbons, but it's all good experience, especially for Sky.
After our rounds we had a little picnic provided by the back up team. Sky was very interested in the sandwiches....
.....then it was time to set off back to the yard before dark. Cue more wind, rain and just for good measure, some hail, which was so bad we just had to stop and let the horses turn their backs to it until it let up! Thanks to the local knowledge of the staff at the riding school, we did find a nice track to go back on to avoid the frog-infested streets of Cam ...
...although what you can't see from the photo is that just to the left behind the hedge is the M5!
So a fun day despite the weather and our poor performance, apparently they're doing a full TREC comp there in the summer, hopefully that will involve less mud and rain....
