Today I am not competing myself (which is very strange!) as I am trying to watch the pennies and only compete in really necessary events. But I have instead gone along anyway to cheer Ann on with Socks and to backstep for Vicky in the obstacles (see pictures).
I always find it a weird experience being at a competition with the atmosphere that I associate with having myself in a particular mental state in order to maximize my performance (see all this sports psychology is paying off!), which i...
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Today we headed back to Sparsholt to compete at in the Wessex Regions January event.
After being in second place after dressage, we then had a clear round in the cones with several time penalties to be 2nd place in the phase and then remain in second place after dressage and cones. Knowing we had to make up ten penalties to win (and the person in front of us is renowned for being speedy) we were hoping to hang onto our second place. However, Jasper thought otherwise and we had the fastest obst...
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It only seems like a few minutes ago we were last at Berkshire College of Agriculture but we are back again today to defend our win in Novice Pony with our usual team firmly back in place. After a dressage of 30 we were in joint 4th but then had the worlds luckiest clear in the cones to move us up to 2nd place. My Mum confessed as she thought Jasper was looking a bit 'lethargic' she had been oating him up all week. Yes I know, clearly Jasper thought this was brilliant and decided to do an alm...
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YAY!!!! Jasper and I won our first indoors of the season! We also had the best score of the whole event and he was an absolute star all day (none of his usual nonsense about loading either). We were joint 3rd after dressage with 24 (leader on 23) and it was all pretty close fought. After a clear in the cones and just a few time penalties we moved up to second. Today we also had a switch around in Team O'Neill with my Mum being in Crete to see my Grandad with my other two sisters my Dad was ch...
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January 21st was our first Indoor event of 2012 and we were back to being the first competitor in the arena and scored a respectable 36.0 in the dressage, followed by a clear round in a very tricky cones course. Despite picking up on some time penalties we were lying in third place after the first two phases. We then did our obstacles, which were great fun and had much faster times than we have had previously to hold onto our third place and Best Junior.

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