*hic*
village idiot :D
Area dressage qualifiers today and I took the big mare along. She's a good old thing and tries hard for me despite my best efforts to mess things up. Today, having actually arrived in good time even though I did oversleep by two hours, I hadn't realised it would be on grass. Being very much a novice at this I had a previous trainer's advice to my daughter ringing in my ears "You cannot do dressage on grass in a 20 x 40 with a horse of that size without studs". We had the studs, just no studholes . . . the history on this horse is that she slipped over on grass just cantering loose round the field when we first got her and snapped her peroneus tertius, which injury doesn't have a great prognosis, so I've always been extra cautious.
She seemed ok as we warmed up but everywhere I looked were horses with studs in. Because I was worrying so much I asked a friend to read the test and even then I managed to get A and C muddled up and went wrong
She was a little more hesitant than usual and somewhat less onward bound on her canter circles which was useful and I was being fairly conservative but she does (nearly) always pull out all the stops and help me out, sadly she was relying on me as pilot and I messed up.
She still expects to go jumping after dressage but as there was a large open field with undulations - something she doesn't get to see often, being a Fen dweller - I let her have a blast round that a few times and she seemed to think that that was a fair exchange for being forced to do dressage with no jumping.
When the scores went up I was pleasantly surprised to find we were fourth in our arena. I know the mare is a real trooper but she hasn't been out and done any dressage for months, she injured her stifle at the beginning of May and just three weeks ago she got into a feed bin and made herself really rather ill, requiring intensive treatment, so she has had little work.
So she did her stuff once again and came home with two frillies as the team was also placed. I'm so very lucky to have "inherited" such a superb horse from my daughter.
She seemed ok as we warmed up but everywhere I looked were horses with studs in. Because I was worrying so much I asked a friend to read the test and even then I managed to get A and C muddled up and went wrong
She was a little more hesitant than usual and somewhat less onward bound on her canter circles which was useful and I was being fairly conservative but she does (nearly) always pull out all the stops and help me out, sadly she was relying on me as pilot and I messed up.She still expects to go jumping after dressage but as there was a large open field with undulations - something she doesn't get to see often, being a Fen dweller - I let her have a blast round that a few times and she seemed to think that that was a fair exchange for being forced to do dressage with no jumping.
When the scores went up I was pleasantly surprised to find we were fourth in our arena. I know the mare is a real trooper but she hasn't been out and done any dressage for months, she injured her stifle at the beginning of May and just three weeks ago she got into a feed bin and made herself really rather ill, requiring intensive treatment, so she has had little work.
So she did her stuff once again and came home with two frillies as the team was also placed. I'm so very lucky to have "inherited" such a superb horse from my daughter.
