JFTDWS
+++ Out of Cheese Error +++
Oh yes... It's Delightful Daemon's Dire Dressage Debut Day 
And in for a penny, in for a pound, Fabulous Fergus's Formidible Flying er... Flamingo?
I'm sorry, I've been out in the sun all day. I think it's getting to me a bit! In English, Daemon did his first dressage today, and I figured Fergus may as well come along and give me an "easy" ride for the day too. Because it's my local, and so very local, I decided to bring them separately and drop D home before F's test - the joys of being 5 minutes from a big competition centre!
So after some agonising, Dae was up in prelim 4 - I did consider playing it safe and doing an intro, but I've never been one to sit on the fence and the intro tests are ghastly. I warned the judge on entry that they may feel the need to curl up in the corner of their hut crying and rocking during the test, and apologised for any loss of sanity that may result from that. But, despite some "interesting" moments in the warm up, we had the bare minimum of sickening violence during the test itself. No bucking. No death by highland. Score!
In fact, the bits that were nice were very nice. The bits that weren't... Well, we exited the arena stage right after the second CL and had to circumnavigate the boards before re-entry, and left canter took half an arena to pick up and only lasted for a 20m circle! Right canter was a little late - he did offer me a cracking medium trot in lieu of missing canter to be fair - but largely present and correct after that point.
('scuse me looking like a right tool here - I think I was aiming for effective at this point!)
Ended with around 59% which I though was very fair and reasonable under the circumstances
Full photoset from test and warm up here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.228370167372037.1073741845.192232040985850&type=1
Ditched Daemon at home, and picked up Mr Fergus for the elementary. Fergus warmed up super - really powerful and full of it - and I was playing with bringing him into a short frame then lengthening again and bringing him back and putting him forwards in trot and canter. He gave me some mega medium canter and felt fabulous. I probably made the mistake of pushing a bit too hard, too long in the warm up, and he did drop me a little in the test itself.
He sat a little on my leg in the collected trot and dropped me a little in the first canter circle. Buoyed up from Daemon taming, I really got after him, and I think made my point - he offered me cracking medium trot (by his standards!) and lovely canter work, so I think it was instructive for both of us. The advantage of today being "only unaffiliated" meant I was confident to risk pushing him and seeing where it left us, which is pretty useful for the next time we go BDing.
More photos here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.228375694038151.1073741846.192232040985850&type=1
We ended up with a really encouraging score of 69.6% - and we've competed under this judge before so have a direct comparison, suggesting it is a real improvement and not just a "nice judge"
So very happy JFTD today, even if we didn't win on either score, on this occasion I'm pretty darn happy with the way things are going. Here's a gratuitous pic of Fergus looking pretty and sparkly just because
(photoshopped to remove background ponies by Equiens
And in for a penny, in for a pound, Fabulous Fergus's Formidible Flying er... Flamingo?I'm sorry, I've been out in the sun all day. I think it's getting to me a bit! In English, Daemon did his first dressage today, and I figured Fergus may as well come along and give me an "easy" ride for the day too. Because it's my local, and so very local, I decided to bring them separately and drop D home before F's test - the joys of being 5 minutes from a big competition centre!
So after some agonising, Dae was up in prelim 4 - I did consider playing it safe and doing an intro, but I've never been one to sit on the fence and the intro tests are ghastly. I warned the judge on entry that they may feel the need to curl up in the corner of their hut crying and rocking during the test, and apologised for any loss of sanity that may result from that. But, despite some "interesting" moments in the warm up, we had the bare minimum of sickening violence during the test itself. No bucking. No death by highland. Score!
In fact, the bits that were nice were very nice. The bits that weren't... Well, we exited the arena stage right after the second CL and had to circumnavigate the boards before re-entry, and left canter took half an arena to pick up and only lasted for a 20m circle! Right canter was a little late - he did offer me a cracking medium trot in lieu of missing canter to be fair - but largely present and correct after that point.
('scuse me looking like a right tool here - I think I was aiming for effective at this point!)
Ended with around 59% which I though was very fair and reasonable under the circumstances
Full photoset from test and warm up here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.228370167372037.1073741845.192232040985850&type=1
Ditched Daemon at home, and picked up Mr Fergus for the elementary. Fergus warmed up super - really powerful and full of it - and I was playing with bringing him into a short frame then lengthening again and bringing him back and putting him forwards in trot and canter. He gave me some mega medium canter and felt fabulous. I probably made the mistake of pushing a bit too hard, too long in the warm up, and he did drop me a little in the test itself.
He sat a little on my leg in the collected trot and dropped me a little in the first canter circle. Buoyed up from Daemon taming, I really got after him, and I think made my point - he offered me cracking medium trot (by his standards!) and lovely canter work, so I think it was instructive for both of us. The advantage of today being "only unaffiliated" meant I was confident to risk pushing him and seeing where it left us, which is pretty useful for the next time we go BDing.
More photos here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.228375694038151.1073741846.192232040985850&type=1
We ended up with a really encouraging score of 69.6% - and we've competed under this judge before so have a direct comparison, suggesting it is a real improvement and not just a "nice judge"
So very happy JFTD today, even if we didn't win on either score, on this occasion I'm pretty darn happy with the way things are going. Here's a gratuitous pic of Fergus looking pretty and sparkly just because
(photoshopped to remove background ponies by Equiens
And you know how much I like Fergs, and he looks so happy and well.
