Festival of dressage Hartpury Gal evening

[oldie48]

So pleased to have gone to the above last night, I saw some stunning horses, ridden very well and in some cases very tactfully and came away feeling excited. I am so lucky to live close to Hartpury and to have the opportunity to see these gorgeous horses going up through the levels!. The winner of the PSG young horse class Penhaligon's Jupiter, ridden beautifully by Jane Turney did a super test, horse looked relaxed and they look to have a great partnership. He lit up in the prize giving and wow, there's a lot more expression to come! I also loved MSJ Top Secret by Totilas. TBH I'm a bit iffy about his offspring but although the test was marred by tension (so well ridden by Sam Dukworth) the movement is just fab, not spidery, just so expressive and elastic and full of energy.
CJD, riding MSJ Freestyle was 10% ahead of the rest of the field and the test was superb. Personally I didn't fall in love with the music and it was too loud but she had a lovely frame throughout and the quality of everything was outstanding. This horse has it all! Hayley W-G's was second on Rubin's Nite and her test was also really lovely. I've seen this horse do GP Freestyle a couple of times before and I thought she had increased the technical difficulty it all came off, with great music and choreography. Super harmonious ride and IMvHO I thought it was closer to the winning test than 10%.
Loved the master class with Anna Ross too, made me laugh and I bet I wasn't the only one who took something away from it to use with my own horse! I'd love to hear what others thought of the evening.

 

[Malibu_Stacy]

CJD, riding MSJ Freestyle was 10% ahead of the rest of the field and the test was superb. Personally I didn't fall in love with the music and it was too loud but she had a lovely frame throughout and the quality of everything was outstanding. This horse has it all!

Overall sounds fab, wish I was closer to Hartpury! Interesting that you say that about CDJs music. Having watched the test online, I thought it looked lovely and obviously was ridden brilliantly, but the music really didn’t sparkle and wondered if that was an artefact of the recording or how it had actually sounded. It’s almost impressive how they took such a memorable soundtrack and made it so anodyne!

 

[milliepops]

I didn't love Charlotte's music, I quite enjoyed the canter bits but compared to her other freestyles it didn't do it for me, musically. The performance of horse and rider was clearly incredible tho

I have always loved Hayley's freestyles and to see how she and Squeaks have matured and developed as a partnership over the years is just fab, I thought she pulled off an excellent routine last night

I also really enjoyed the young horse PSGs, as a numpty trying to ride at that level those are the tests I find inspirational and motivating because I can compare it to my own efforts in a meaningful way some super talented combinations that are surely going to be huge successes in years to come.

Anna was great fun and nice to have a humorous demo that was really engaging but still very informative, she really got the tone right IMO.

I thought Lucy Pincus had a very interesting floorplan and her music suited the horse brilliantly, just a shame about the 1s.

Just have to pick up on Gareth Hughes too, his horse lacked the wow factor of the top 2 but was the epitome of a happy athlete. It seems fashionable these days to say modern dressage has gone wrong. But I would say that he is just one example of an excellent rider who produces harmonious and correct performances that show all the good that is going on out there. Everything just looked easy, there was nothing that looked forced or artificial, he sat so quietly and just let the horse do the dancing and he was the one that gave me goosebumps for that reason.

 

[BOWS28]

I'm so pleased it's not just me that felt abit underwhelmed with Charlotte's music.. Test was incredible, as always, but compared to her previous pieces this one was abit meh..