Dressage Video - CC?

Ok so its a little bit fuzzy and hard to see but started off nicely, the canter transition was the first thing that I thought needed a bit of work. You seemed to launch into it a bit (half halt may be required before the transition) then you seemed to have a little spook at the car and lost the inside bend so he was looking at the car rather than bending inwards.

Could be a bit rounder in the canter, he looks a bit tight. You then had a break in the canter when you went large down the long side so this is another area you could work on, maintaining canter down long sides. this took me and my horse a while to master, our canter circles were quite nice but then going down the long side he would either break or rush off. Its just lots of practice basically, cantering large around the arena, lots of give and retakes of the reins to help keep the horse in self-balance and to learn not to lean on your hands in canter.

Transition down to walk was lacking in impulsion, you were sitting for a while and it was more like trot-joggy trot-walk rather than straight into a nice walk.I'd work on getting your downwards transitions more active (still need to have your leg on in downwards transitions!). A good exercise my trainer has given me for this (my horse loves to jog!) is to do semi-transitions (not the technical term but cant remember the name he gave them!). This is where you stop all the movement in your body when preparing for the downwards transition so the horse learns to stop from your body not your hands, and then slow the trot right down to the point where he is almost about to walk, then push on into an active trot again. Same can be done in walk (almost halt then walk on again) and canter (almost trot and push on again). After a few sessions of doing this you will really feel the difference in your downwards transitions, they should feel active, full of energy but controlled and there should be a clear difference between the paces, without the joggy/jerky bit in between.

You also lost some roundness through the transition and his head bobbed up and down a bit, but going back into the trot was quite nice and responsive.

Canter on the right rein was looking better until you had that little moment halfway down the long side, not sure what happened there?! Looks like it could just have been a bit of a spook but you lost straightness and the bend went the wrong way.

You fell into the trot transition a little so again I'd do lots of work on those downward transitions - so many people focus on the upward transitions they forget to work on downwards which are just as important! Same with the trot to walk, looked like he stumbled a bit and his hind leg slipped under him.

Cant entirely tell because of the fuzzy video if the walk across the diagonal is supposed to be free walk on a long rein but most tests have this in so I'll presume it was - he needs to stretch down more and take his nose out. Whenever I've written for dressage judges stretching alone is not enough, he needs to be pushing his nose out as well as stretching down into the contact.

Halt looked ok but again couldnt really tell if it was square from the video, his head was a little high so try and work on keeping him round and soft into the halt so his head doesnt come up.

Otherwise it was a nice little test, other than those 2 spooks/wobbles it looked good! What were the judges comments? What was your score?
 
You are a lovely quiet rider OP. I agree with KC100's comments. I would just add that you could likely earn more points for accuracy - at 2.07 your transition to trot looks too early to me. Outdoor arena dressage is always harder imo - more distractions for everyone. Well done a good test :)
 
Thanks Ladies.

we got 43.5!! (Eventing, so 56.5 on dressage terms). I think that was a bit harse. He's done worse tests affiliated and got better marks.

Generally, got good marks for canter apart from where we cocked up. 6,6,4 for the first and 7,7,6 for the second (don't think she noticed he went dis-united and almost left the arena!) All trot work got poor marks, mainly 5's. Long walk got 5 and halt got 5, she said it wasn't square but on the proper vid it's perfectly square! :-/

She said his trot wasn't forward enough and he didn't over track enough in his long walk.

I'm confused by dressage!
 
Don't be disheartened - different judges different results sadly. At Prelim level the judge should be encouraging in their critique and adding additional marks for rhythm and consistency. Prelim is entry level and some judges seem to forget that and mark too harshly.
 
Don't have time to watch the whole vid but just wanted to say don't worry about harsh judges; I just took our ex-racer to her first Prelim Unaff and although I was only looking to do an accurate test and her be well behaved (I know we are still unbalanced and can't keep a consistent outline yet so this was for the experience) she actually did a fairly ok test with regular paces and was forward going and I only fluffed 2 bits (late to canter by one stride past marker and went from wrong marker across diagonal). I only got 54% and was a bit disappointed (although the judge's comments were positive) until a guy on my yard who rides to Medium and has a very well bred dressage youngster (which is vastly better prepared than mine) told me he was very happy with how the horse had gone and still only got 60%.

My instructor also said the same thing that her horse (ridden by her rider) had done exactly the same test at that and another venue, both ridden accurately and no discernable difference and scored about 10% differently! She said it is a shame as it puts people off trying again and if they were to Affiliate then the judging standards would be more standardised but it makes people think they are no good and thus not to bother Affiliating. In her opinion the horse that scored 60% should be a late 60's or early 70's scorer at that level of competition if the test was accurate/horse behaved etc. I have to say it has put me off going to the same venue again in favour of somewhere a little more geared to entry level/novices.
 
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