khalswitz
Well-Known Member
So, we seem to be in a parallel universe were Geoff has become awesome. Either that or he has a better looking 'good twin' that's taken over recently. I mean, I've even been offered actual money for him, and not for glue/tesco burgers/ pedigree chum either... It's bizarre. So, afraid of the bad luck we are surely overdue for, we decided to play it safe when we went to our local rc sj evening.
Since we have not yet made it round an 80cm without me going splat ( nothing to do with the height, more my general stupidity), we decided to do the 65 and 75 rather than risking the 85.
In we pootled to the 65, jumps looking very midgety. Felt very weird to think jumps looked small. Nonetheless, Geoff jumped a clear, if a bit hurried. J/o however saw us heading directly into the setting sun at number 1, and Geoffs feet stood off against a pole, the sharp crack thankfully being the pole giving in ungracefully. 4 faults due to jump destruction, and third place.
The 75 saw me riding a hurricane, going flat out and causing destruction wherever he went. Came out frustrated, for a SJer friend of mine to catch me.
'These are way to small for him, K. Enter him in the 85, and concentrate on shortening the canter and getting more bounce.'
So we did.
85 looked... Totally doable. What?? The jump-phobic Khalswitz thinking 85 looked doable is another parallel universe sign - definitely getting a Matrix vibe now.
In we went. Gallop! Said Geoff. No, said me. Anger!! Said Geoff, now I will BOUNCE. Bounce we did, and I ended up doing a Few sections of the course stirrup less thanks to that. However, we had a lovely round, with one pole at a fence I timed the argument a little late at.
He jumped several fillers without looking, and generally felt so keen and forward and dragging me into jumps that I wasn't sure the alternate reality was such a stupid hypothesis...
We ended up placing 4th, and left feeling very chuffed with ourselves.
Two days later, we had a lesson with our regular dressage trainer. She took one look at him warming up.
'He looks really good. What do *you* want to work on?'
You mean... No obvious horrendous problems? I was ecstatic. We ended up spending the lesson working on bend, doing serpentines, and doing two 10m circles (one each way) every time we crossed the centre line. Boy, was Geoff paying attention to where my weight was!!
We also worked on the medium trot, this being one of our difficulties in the novice tests. She had me using my seat far more, and leg far less, doing a half halt every two strides or so to balance him. And it worked! We got a lengthen rather than a rush! He still finds it tricky, and has a tendency to go unlevel behind if I'm not balanced enough and supporting him, but were starting to talk to each other about it now
So, feeling pretty chuffed with that, we entered our first BD since May. After having a slightly poor start to BD with some disappointing scores, my local venue then cancelled two months running, so we have had an unplanned but positive break from BD, concentrating on our schooling and on unaff comps. So, with our AF in October, I wanted to get my third sheet for Area Festival qualification, and we also decided to take the plunge and enter our first BD novice test, resulting in us entering three tests. I knew he could cope with that physically, but we planned our warmups carefully to keep his brain engaged.
First test was p15, an old fave of ours. We won this test with a 72.4 at our last unaff outing, so was feeling positive, until we went in. It just felt... Meh. He was a bit wobbly when usually he is poker straight, was losing impulsion on the circles and turns, and just not really off my leg enough (but I have ditched the spurs for the last few weeks to let me use my leg more, so maybe I just need to put them back on again) and whilst it was OKAY, it didn't feel great. Last time we felt like that at BD, we had a 59 and a 60, so I wasn't feeling too optimistic.
We ended up on 67.6, and fourth place (first to third being within one mark, winner on 73.2), and I had slightly mixed feelings. Yay to best ever BD result, yay to Area qual, but having watched some of the other higher scored restricted tests, I really did struggle to see that we were 5-6% behind. But oh well. Comments about lack of suppleness (but we had the same comments when we were getting 6's instead of 7's so it must be improving) and lack of jump in left canter, and collectives worse than test score, but not too horrific overall.
Second test, kept the warmup brief, just did some flexion/varying sizes of circles and some s/I to get him thinking and softening.
Test felt LOVELY. He felt soft, powerful, and very obedient, and canter felt the most powerful it ever has whilst being short enough to work with. Came out to be approached by a guy who is pretty well known up here in dressage. He told me we looked great, a really nice partnership, and said there was nothing to dislike. Made me smile!
We scored a 68.08, which I was slightly disappointed with as I felt we did significantly better the second test, and those scores were very close. However not going to be upset with a 68 at BD! Especially as scores were much closer this time, with 1st on 71, 2nd on 70 and third on 69, with us in fourth.
Then came the novice, N22. All I wanted was a baseline BD score at this level, ideally to get a few grownup points, just so I felt we'd achieved something.
Geoff felt good - nailed the size of the 15m circles, and the 10m 1/2 circles, and got an actual difference in both medium trots with no breaking (if slightly unlevel moments), and managed the longe side medium canter without leaving the arena. Go us!!
We were very pleasantly surprised to get 66.6%, and 1st place in the restricted! We were also only 2% behind the open winner, and would have been third in the open section! And add to that four shiny points... comments again about lack of impulsion at times, and lack of suppleness, but judge did say we had 'very pleasing moments'.
So whilst I still feel the pinch on percentages when at BD as opposed to unaff, I was very chuffed with his results. And over three tests and two levels to be so consistent, with such similar comments, is really nice.
We now have some time off from competing whilst I have some busy time at work. End of the month we have an arena event, and then early September we are heading to our first BE 80, and one more BD outing before AF! So all excitement for us for the next wee while.
Polos and sticky toffee pudding on offer!!
Since we have not yet made it round an 80cm without me going splat ( nothing to do with the height, more my general stupidity), we decided to do the 65 and 75 rather than risking the 85.
In we pootled to the 65, jumps looking very midgety. Felt very weird to think jumps looked small. Nonetheless, Geoff jumped a clear, if a bit hurried. J/o however saw us heading directly into the setting sun at number 1, and Geoffs feet stood off against a pole, the sharp crack thankfully being the pole giving in ungracefully. 4 faults due to jump destruction, and third place.
The 75 saw me riding a hurricane, going flat out and causing destruction wherever he went. Came out frustrated, for a SJer friend of mine to catch me.
'These are way to small for him, K. Enter him in the 85, and concentrate on shortening the canter and getting more bounce.'
So we did.
85 looked... Totally doable. What?? The jump-phobic Khalswitz thinking 85 looked doable is another parallel universe sign - definitely getting a Matrix vibe now.
In we went. Gallop! Said Geoff. No, said me. Anger!! Said Geoff, now I will BOUNCE. Bounce we did, and I ended up doing a Few sections of the course stirrup less thanks to that. However, we had a lovely round, with one pole at a fence I timed the argument a little late at.
He jumped several fillers without looking, and generally felt so keen and forward and dragging me into jumps that I wasn't sure the alternate reality was such a stupid hypothesis...
We ended up placing 4th, and left feeling very chuffed with ourselves.
Two days later, we had a lesson with our regular dressage trainer. She took one look at him warming up.
'He looks really good. What do *you* want to work on?'
You mean... No obvious horrendous problems? I was ecstatic. We ended up spending the lesson working on bend, doing serpentines, and doing two 10m circles (one each way) every time we crossed the centre line. Boy, was Geoff paying attention to where my weight was!!
We also worked on the medium trot, this being one of our difficulties in the novice tests. She had me using my seat far more, and leg far less, doing a half halt every two strides or so to balance him. And it worked! We got a lengthen rather than a rush! He still finds it tricky, and has a tendency to go unlevel behind if I'm not balanced enough and supporting him, but were starting to talk to each other about it now
So, feeling pretty chuffed with that, we entered our first BD since May. After having a slightly poor start to BD with some disappointing scores, my local venue then cancelled two months running, so we have had an unplanned but positive break from BD, concentrating on our schooling and on unaff comps. So, with our AF in October, I wanted to get my third sheet for Area Festival qualification, and we also decided to take the plunge and enter our first BD novice test, resulting in us entering three tests. I knew he could cope with that physically, but we planned our warmups carefully to keep his brain engaged.
First test was p15, an old fave of ours. We won this test with a 72.4 at our last unaff outing, so was feeling positive, until we went in. It just felt... Meh. He was a bit wobbly when usually he is poker straight, was losing impulsion on the circles and turns, and just not really off my leg enough (but I have ditched the spurs for the last few weeks to let me use my leg more, so maybe I just need to put them back on again) and whilst it was OKAY, it didn't feel great. Last time we felt like that at BD, we had a 59 and a 60, so I wasn't feeling too optimistic.
We ended up on 67.6, and fourth place (first to third being within one mark, winner on 73.2), and I had slightly mixed feelings. Yay to best ever BD result, yay to Area qual, but having watched some of the other higher scored restricted tests, I really did struggle to see that we were 5-6% behind. But oh well. Comments about lack of suppleness (but we had the same comments when we were getting 6's instead of 7's so it must be improving) and lack of jump in left canter, and collectives worse than test score, but not too horrific overall
.Second test, kept the warmup brief, just did some flexion/varying sizes of circles and some s/I to get him thinking and softening.
Test felt LOVELY. He felt soft, powerful, and very obedient, and canter felt the most powerful it ever has whilst being short enough to work with. Came out to be approached by a guy who is pretty well known up here in dressage. He told me we looked great, a really nice partnership, and said there was nothing to dislike. Made me smile!
We scored a 68.08, which I was slightly disappointed with as I felt we did significantly better the second test, and those scores were very close. However not going to be upset with a 68 at BD! Especially as scores were much closer this time, with 1st on 71, 2nd on 70 and third on 69, with us in fourth.
Then came the novice, N22. All I wanted was a baseline BD score at this level, ideally to get a few grownup points, just so I felt we'd achieved something.
Geoff felt good - nailed the size of the 15m circles, and the 10m 1/2 circles, and got an actual difference in both medium trots with no breaking (if slightly unlevel moments), and managed the longe side medium canter without leaving the arena. Go us!!
We were very pleasantly surprised to get 66.6%, and 1st place in the restricted! We were also only 2% behind the open winner, and would have been third in the open section! And add to that four shiny points...
comments again about lack of impulsion at times, and lack of suppleness, but judge did say we had 'very pleasing moments'.So whilst I still feel the pinch on percentages when at BD as opposed to unaff, I was very chuffed with his results. And over three tests and two levels to be so consistent, with such similar comments, is really nice.
We now have some time off from competing whilst I have some busy time at work. End of the month we have an arena event, and then early September we are heading to our first BE 80, and one more BD outing before AF! So all excitement for us for the next wee while.
Polos and sticky toffee pudding on offer!!
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