JennBags
HHOSS Wonder Woman
Despite the previous week's humiliation, I decided to go out to do some more dressage yesterday. Indoors, in the middle of a heatwave, with times just after lunch, what's not to love about that :eek3: :biggrin3: Was very relieved when the forecast was for rain in the morning, & a cooler cloudy afternoon.
Had a friend on standby to help me load, and was very grateful for it as George decided there was no way he was getting on the lorry. After much shenanigans, we had the idea of moving each foot, one at a time, and once he was halfway up the ramp, he just walked in on his own accord :rolleyes3: Luckily I'd left plenty of time, so no added stress, and we were on our way. The traffic was also kind to me, so I arrived feeling nicely chilled out - the sun made it's first appearance, so the chilled feeling turned into a sweltering one pretty quickly. As soon as I took him off the lorry, I squirted the whole tube of NAF Magik down his throat, got changed, tacked up and headed off to the warm-up.
In we go for the prelim (P7), walked up to the judges box and he had a huge spook - not quite as impressive as last week's pirouettes though :wink3: then he settled down quite nicely. He still felt tense, his head carriage was rather high, but all in all I came out feeling it was a really nice test. I did initially feel rather disappointed with our score of 60.75% - but most of the comments were regarding a lack of impulsion and not going forward into the contact - maybe I used just a little too much calmer and rode just a little too quietly! We were 15th out of a class of 25, so back to being just under the half-way mark, which is a good thing.
Next up was the Novice (N28), we didn't warm up too much as it was very hot at this point, and he felt a bit dopey (I hadn't picked up my marks or sheet for the prelim at this point or I might have tried to wake him up a bit). Everything went really smoothly, and I came out with a big grin on my face - it felt like one of the best tests we'd ever done
However, I think I may need to work on my feel a little more, as we ended up with a score of 57.08% but did get 6th place (out of 9), and a lovely frillie 
It's our first "proper" rosette so really meant a lot.
Bit annoyed with myself in the Novice as we dropped lots of marks due to rider error (I went wrong in the last centre line/halt) and also the sizes of our circles and serpentines; again the comments were mainly with regards to a lack of impulsion. Also, I really didn't ride very well in the Novice - I was looking through the phtoographs taken, and can see quite clearly that my riding in the Prelim was far better.
Oh, loading on the way home? Took me about a minute! I'm hoping that my friend & I cracked it with the work we did on the way out, but only time will tell.
Unfortunately as I was on my own, no photos or video to share, and the photographers haven't uploaded their images yet, so I can't even give you a link to them.
Thank you for reading, and I'm sorry there isn't more excitement for you all :biggrin3:
Had a friend on standby to help me load, and was very grateful for it as George decided there was no way he was getting on the lorry. After much shenanigans, we had the idea of moving each foot, one at a time, and once he was halfway up the ramp, he just walked in on his own accord :rolleyes3: Luckily I'd left plenty of time, so no added stress, and we were on our way. The traffic was also kind to me, so I arrived feeling nicely chilled out - the sun made it's first appearance, so the chilled feeling turned into a sweltering one pretty quickly. As soon as I took him off the lorry, I squirted the whole tube of NAF Magik down his throat, got changed, tacked up and headed off to the warm-up.
In we go for the prelim (P7), walked up to the judges box and he had a huge spook - not quite as impressive as last week's pirouettes though :wink3: then he settled down quite nicely. He still felt tense, his head carriage was rather high, but all in all I came out feeling it was a really nice test. I did initially feel rather disappointed with our score of 60.75% - but most of the comments were regarding a lack of impulsion and not going forward into the contact - maybe I used just a little too much calmer and rode just a little too quietly! We were 15th out of a class of 25, so back to being just under the half-way mark, which is a good thing.
Next up was the Novice (N28), we didn't warm up too much as it was very hot at this point, and he felt a bit dopey (I hadn't picked up my marks or sheet for the prelim at this point or I might have tried to wake him up a bit). Everything went really smoothly, and I came out with a big grin on my face - it felt like one of the best tests we'd ever done
However, I think I may need to work on my feel a little more, as we ended up with a score of 57.08% but did get 6th place (out of 9), and a lovely frillie It's our first "proper" rosette so really meant a lot.Bit annoyed with myself in the Novice as we dropped lots of marks due to rider error (I went wrong in the last centre line/halt) and also the sizes of our circles and serpentines; again the comments were mainly with regards to a lack of impulsion. Also, I really didn't ride very well in the Novice - I was looking through the phtoographs taken, and can see quite clearly that my riding in the Prelim was far better.
Oh, loading on the way home? Took me about a minute! I'm hoping that my friend & I cracked it with the work we did on the way out, but only time will tell.
Unfortunately as I was on my own, no photos or video to share, and the photographers haven't uploaded their images yet, so I can't even give you a link to them.
Thank you for reading, and I'm sorry there isn't more excitement for you all :biggrin3:
but I'd give them a big 'reminder' 
for error of course :biggrin3: However, am sure they must have been so gobsmacked at G behaving, that directions went out of their mind?
