{97702}
...
Now nobody get excited lol, this was unaffiliated Prelim dressage at my nearest competition venue.... 
Jensen and I went out for our first competition in a couple of months today - I nearly wimped out as it was a vile grey, cold, rainy day and the mud seemed to be knee deep wherever you went! However it was an afternoon session (really odd, never done that before) so I had a leisurely day of bathing J, cleaning my tack, having some lunch and meandering back to the yard about 2.30pm
J has decided that loading is OK again (massive phew!) so we went off without incident, venue had drizzly persistent horrible rain with warm up outside and tests inside. My trainer had instructed me to plan my warm-up so I had a few plans in my head - naturally the majority of these went out of my head as I went into 'OMG OMG it is a competition - panic!!!!' mode
We warmed up and J did his usual thing of 'shutting down' - luckily there were a few mad explosive types in the warm up
so he did find some 'forwards' in a rather wooden way. Went in for the first test, I was SO pleased with the way it went - this is a horse who couldn't canter a 20m circle in the school in May, today we managed all canter movements with only one break in left canter (his weak rein) 
Managed 64.42% so very chuffed with that
Second test was a long arena one, I really like those but my OH hasn't called one before.... started well, disaster halfway through when he got lost with his calling and all three of us got flustered and upset! End result was 60.89% (yes, the judge was generous today!) and much better comments than I had expected
So overall, really pleased with his progress in little steps - I am so lucky to have a great trainer and a great YO to help me, but it is amazing to see how J is progressing. As Olivia Towers Dressage says - Believe It's Possible. So......Novice next year and Elementary the year after?
Jensen and I went out for our first competition in a couple of months today - I nearly wimped out as it was a vile grey, cold, rainy day and the mud seemed to be knee deep wherever you went! However it was an afternoon session (really odd, never done that before) so I had a leisurely day of bathing J, cleaning my tack, having some lunch and meandering back to the yard about 2.30pm
J has decided that loading is OK again (massive phew!) so we went off without incident, venue had drizzly persistent horrible rain with warm up outside and tests inside. My trainer had instructed me to plan my warm-up so I had a few plans in my head - naturally the majority of these went out of my head as I went into 'OMG OMG it is a competition - panic!!!!' mode
We warmed up and J did his usual thing of 'shutting down' - luckily there were a few mad explosive types in the warm up
so he did find some 'forwards' in a rather wooden way. Went in for the first test, I was SO pleased with the way it went - this is a horse who couldn't canter a 20m circle in the school in May, today we managed all canter movements with only one break in left canter (his weak rein) Managed 64.42% so very chuffed with thatSecond test was a long arena one, I really like those but my OH hasn't called one before.... started well, disaster halfway through when he got lost with his calling and all three of us got flustered and upset! End result was 60.89% (yes, the judge was generous today!) and much better comments than I had expected
So overall, really pleased with his progress in little steps - I am so lucky to have a great trainer and a great YO to help me, but it is amazing to see how J is progressing. As Olivia Towers Dressage says - Believe It's Possible. So......Novice next year and Elementary the year after?
