Schooling Dressage Shows... Where mistakes are made!



So Sunday (6/1/2014) I got up at the nice hour of 4:00am to pick up my mom and then my horse and trek out to our local schooling dressage show location. As in, we have one farm in the area that hosts schooling dressage shows (or any dressage shows for that matter, schooling or recognized).

Mikey handled being in his stall overnight really well (he hadn't handled it well in the past when all his buddies have been outside and he's been in), so I fed him and we were off!

I've never had such a short show day- my ride times were at 8:10 and 8:49, but due to a number of scratches, I rode at 8:10, another rider rode a test, then I was back in the arena for my second ride. So I was done with my horse show at 8:40am. Now that's a quick show!

Mikey was very sticky off my leg and slow to respond. He also wasn't relaxing like he should of and we got a lot of comments of need more impulsion, engagement, and more in general. We also got nice comments like obedient horse, nice rider, nice horse, nice turnout. I was also told to post the trot for the next 2 months at home and then go back to sitting and see if he is more willing to be soft and round. Not that that isn't a good idea, I'm sure it is, but we've been posting the trot for 8 years. I need to really learn to sit his jack hammer trot and he needs to accept the sitting trot. I've struggled with sitting his trot for the last 9 years, I'm finally getting it down. I'm not posting.

Anyway, the final breakdown comes out like this: in my second level test 2 we scored a 62.895% and in second level test 3 we scored a 64.048%. The scores look good, but I don't think they accurately reflect how I rode and how he felt. We were nailed where we should have been, but I feel like it was a very average day to have such nice scores. I'm sure at a recognized show they would have been less than 60%.

So here are some pics, and the thing I'm most proud of is my horse's condition and turnout. He's braided neatly, shiny, clean tack, white sock, and his hooves were polished but they got dirty.

A lacking medium trot. It needed "more".

This shoulder-in was a 7, then deteriorated into a 5 for the renvers as we didn't get a complete change of bend.



This got a 4.5 and the comment: "horse not correct, but obedient!"

Finding his engagement again from a very poor turn on the haunches.

Rocking the counter canter that got a 7 (the other direction was a 7.5)!