Well what can I say!! What an amazing weekend at a the AIRC Festival!!

Sceilig Jedi had a big plan to execute and he that he did!

First up was the Young Horse Dressage. Ludo had never been in a dressage arena before…….. that wasn’t an issue though!! The issue was the ten minute ride to the dressage field!! Stradbally hall is also the venue for the Electric Picnic Festival and a lot of the stages and huts stay up all year round, so Ludo had to put his big boy pants on and walk by medieval statues and objects that were up to 10 metres high!! Bare in mind Ludo is four…… but there was also a sheep……. and a puddle!! There was actually so much to look at he didn’t know what to look at!! 🙂

When we finally got to the dressage field he was happy to prance around like a dressage king. We were scoring in the high 70%’s until the rider not once but twice forgot her test!!! He couldn’t understand why the lady in the jeep was beeping the horn at him!! We scored at 69% which was good enough for 4th place but it had potential to of been a winning test!! face palm!!

We moved on to the showing classes and warmed up for the riding horse class which was had a huge entry list. We were a little disappointed to be pulled in 17th of 18 on the first line up but after the 2 judges rode him and his show in hand he moved up a massive 10 places to 8th place! He got a few dirty looks as he was pulled in in front of quite a number of higher ranked horses!! One of the judges had ridden him previously at Midleton Agri Show and commented about how much better he was riding and was able to give us some super constructive criticism which we gladly took on board!!

That was it for day one at the riding club festival and Ludo was very happy to go back to his stable. For a 4 year old horse that has never been away from home and being stabled in temporary canvas stables he didn’t get bother or stressed about being away from home and had a great nights sleep!

Young Horse Working Hunter was up first on Sunday morning which we had high hopes for!! We didn’t to worry about Ludo being tried from his exserts from the day before, we had a job getting up on him and past the scary tents!! He warmed up great and as we walked into the ring…… the heavens opened!! The gods did not want Ludo to do this!! The porta loos in the ring beside the WH ring blew over!!! He jumped super but got a little stuck in the ground coming up hill to fence no. 5 and had it down! 🙁 So that was the end of that!! We were very happy with him as many of the other young horses had a lot of trouble paying attention to what they had to do and the arena signs flapping in the wind etc.

All came down to the Young Horse Show Jumping Championships. The course was a nice height but was long, spooky and it was in the main ring so there was a lot going on around it with a packed busy, noisy trade village right beside the influential double. The class was for 4 and 5 year old horses with no handicap, ie no height difference for the 4 and 5 year olds. To say there was a lot of trouble was an under statement!! No one went clear…….. expect Sceilig Jedi!!! The best little 4 year old went off and bet all the other 5 year olds to win the Young Horse Show Jumping class representing Highland Lodge Riding Club! He was an absolute star, he wasn’t happy about knocking the pole in the WH class and I could feel it when he jumped!! He was on a mission to beat all the other horses!! At the double where a lot of the young horses were having trouble he flew through it and finished the course with a shake of his head as if to say “that’s what i meant to do in the working hunter class!”

We were smiling the whole way home while he caught some well deserved zzzzz’s in the back! He comes home from the riding club festival with bags of experence! Life experience and competition experence!! We are very proud by how he dealt with everything thrown at him all weekend! He has a well deserved break for a few days!