holzrokz
Well-Known Member
Finally had my first comp last wednesday after not doing the first B team comp at imperial (long story lol!) The comp was in kent so had to get up at 5 to be able to get there in time from Essex, the drive seemed to take forever and we arrived 45 minutes late (oops!). We choose the order and horses for the dressage, our team was last in the team order, and i was last on the horse i rode which was good as i had a chance to watch it be ridden by the others. I drew a lovely grey called silver, apparently 16.1 but looked smaller to me, very nice looking horse when we watched the riders warming them up 
. The others were pretty miffed with their draws, G choose number 13 and had bad lucked in both dressage and showjumping with her draws. Not being much of a cob fan draw cobs for both 
. S also didn't want the other cob and C, who prefers cobs, got the snazzy chestnut 'dressagey' horse, lol!
So G was first up, and did a nice test despite her horse being fairly strong. C was next, and did a good test although didn't quite get to grips with riding him in as good an outline as the others riding him. S did a good test (doubt she would ever do a bad one!)
Then finally it was me. I wasn't nearly so nervous as i though it would be! I got on and immediatly could tell this was a lovely horse to ride! Lovely paces, and the kind you don't have to kick every stride to keep them going (still getting used to not riding 'typical' riding school types) The warm up was good, well at least it felt that way, but looking at the pictures he wasn't nearly forwards enough (even though he felt like he was!) He had a lovely soft mouth and actually went into an outline for me (only just getting the hang of doing this properly
) The canter wasn't so great in the warm up but better in the test. He had an odd canter to trot transition where he would stick one leg out going into the trot and do a sort of very extended trot with just the one leg, but apart from that felt lovely.
For anyone who doesn't know this was in fact my first ever dressage test (in a competition). I was very surprisingly calm going in, and didn't forget what i was doing thankfully! Only a couple of obvious mistakes, fell out of canter in the canter-trot-canter half circles (think he had learnt the test by then lol!) and two breaks of cancer in the 20 meter circle, and didn't stop exactly at G at the end of the test. All my fault of course but you gotta make some mistakes i guess. Overall commets mainly said things like 'needs to be more forwards' and 'not in front of the leg' totally my fault and thinking about it now i barely used any leg at all so shall be improving on that next time. Got 138 out of 240 which i think was about 57% (don't use precentages in these comps) so pretty chuffed, and even got 3 7's 
Despite being placed near the bottem of the table i was very happy, considering i've never owned/loaned/shared a horse before asnd only ever ridden one a week or less and everyone else has horses and compete, many of them affiliated level .
Next was the jumping, i drew Billy, a little 15h bay gelding, who looked quite similar to the little horse i jump at a riding school at home. Watched them all being warmed up. I was first on my horse this time. The RI at the yard came and told us that he thought we ought to know roughly what they are like to jump, so he said 'well they all jump', at which point we thinking well i hope so as there wouldn't be much point in doing a comp if they idn't, lol!
Warmed Billy up, wasn't a good warm up, he was extremely dead to the leg, refused to stay on the outsdie track and kept napping towards other horses and the gate! However he jumped the practice jumps fine, and as soon as we started the round he was fine Managed a clear although it felt hideously unstylish, but the scorings were better than i thought! Scored 64 out of 120, with a couple of 7's thrown in, and was surpised with a 6 for 'position and seat of the rider' as i though i must have looked aweful! Comments said 'keep your lower leg on to help you on a turn', 'look up earlier from the jump' and 'knee very high so lower leg loose' so definatly needs some work (although i knew this already ) but not as bad as it could have been. Also i didn't come last on Billy (woooop!)
S had the snazzy looking grey irish mare, but unfortunatly had a pole down which she was very annoyed about (shes very competetive and didn't have much luck in the last comp jumping). G got one of the little cobs (much to her annoyance) but got a good clear and C had the other cob so she was happy and also went clear
Overall we came tired (out of 4 teams) no not great but we beat imperial so were happy with that and scores were close, Brunel won with kent second. G came 8th and S came 3rd so that was pretty awesome, if S carries on she could possibly get to nationals
Well done for getting this far! and now for the fun part with the pics i took 800 all together! CC welcome, i know i have loads to work on 
Warming up for dressage
Down the centre line
Medium trot
3 loop seprentine
20m circle in canter
Canter right
Medium walk
Free walk on a long rein
Halt and salute
The only jumping pic as C forgot to take pics terrible position!
. The others were pretty miffed with their draws, G choose number 13 and had bad lucked in both dressage and showjumping with her draws. Not being much of a cob fan draw cobs for both . S also didn't want the other cob and C, who prefers cobs, got the snazzy chestnut 'dressagey' horse, lol! So G was first up, and did a nice test despite her horse being fairly strong. C was next, and did a good test although didn't quite get to grips with riding him in as good an outline as the others riding him. S did a good test (doubt she would ever do a bad one!)
Then finally it was me. I wasn't nearly so nervous as i though it would be! I got on and immediatly could tell this was a lovely horse to ride! Lovely paces, and the kind you don't have to kick every stride to keep them going (still getting used to not riding 'typical' riding school types) The warm up was good, well at least it felt that way, but looking at the pictures he wasn't nearly forwards enough (even though he felt like he was!) He had a lovely soft mouth and actually went into an outline for me (only just getting the hang of doing this properly
) The canter wasn't so great in the warm up but better in the test. He had an odd canter to trot transition where he would stick one leg out going into the trot and do a sort of very extended trot with just the one leg, but apart from that felt lovely.For anyone who doesn't know this was in fact my first ever dressage test (in a competition). I was very surprisingly calm going in, and didn't forget what i was doing thankfully! Only a couple of obvious mistakes, fell out of canter in the canter-trot-canter half circles (think he had learnt the test by then lol!) and two breaks of cancer in the 20 meter circle, and didn't stop exactly at G at the end of the test. All my fault of course
but you gotta make some mistakes i guess. Overall commets mainly said things like 'needs to be more forwards' and 'not in front of the leg' totally my fault and thinking about it now i barely used any leg at all so shall be improving on that next time. Got 138 out of 240 which i think was about 57% (don't use precentages in these comps) so pretty chuffed, and even got 3 7's Despite being placed near the bottem of the table i was very happy, considering i've never owned/loaned/shared a horse before asnd only ever ridden one a week or less and everyone else has horses and compete, many of them affiliated level . Next was the jumping, i drew Billy, a little 15h bay gelding, who looked quite similar to the little horse i jump at a riding school at home. Watched them all being warmed up. I was first on my horse this time. The RI at the yard came and told us that he thought we ought to know roughly what they are like to jump, so he said 'well they all jump', at which point we thinking well i hope so as there wouldn't be much point in doing a comp if they idn't, lol!
Warmed Billy up, wasn't a good warm up, he was extremely dead to the leg, refused to stay on the outsdie track and kept napping towards other horses and the gate! However he jumped the practice jumps fine, and as soon as we started the round he was fine
Managed a clear although it felt hideously unstylish, but the scorings were better than i thought! Scored 64 out of 120, with a couple of 7's thrown in, and was surpised with a 6 for 'position and seat of the rider' as i though i must have looked aweful! Comments said 'keep your lower leg on to help you on a turn', 'look up earlier from the jump' and 'knee very high so lower leg loose' so definatly needs some work (although i knew this already ) but not as bad as it could have been. Also i didn't come last on Billy (woooop!) S had the snazzy looking grey irish mare, but unfortunatly had a pole down which she was very annoyed about (shes very competetive and didn't have much luck in the last comp jumping). G got one of the little cobs (much to her annoyance
) but got a good clear and C had the other cob so she was happy and also went clear Overall we came tired (out of 4 teams) no not great but we beat imperial so were happy with that
and scores were close, Brunel won with kent second. G came 8th and S came 3rd so that was pretty awesome, if S carries on she could possibly get to nationals Well done for getting this far!
and now for the fun part with the pics i took 800 all together! CC welcome, i know i have loads to work on Warming up for dressage
Down the centre line
Medium trot
3 loop seprentine
20m circle in canter
Canter right
Medium walk
Free walk on a long rein
Halt and salute
The only jumping pic as C forgot to take pics
terrible position!
