JenniferB
Well-Known Member
Some of you may remember I decided a fortnight ago that Jack and I would go and enter for some stressage - not much jumping on at the moment and felt like a wee change of scenery so got all entered up for P7 and N27 which we did today. (Now please bear in mind this horse has done nothing but showjump since I got him and straight lines are not in his vocabulary unless they are punctuated by fences - my jumping trainer was highly amused but his lovely wife who used to do a lot of dressage kindly loaned me her dressage saddle so off we went). We had an 'interesting' day to say the least!
He worked in well for the prelim and once we got in the ring and he stopped goggling at the judges he went reasonably well - a few tense moments but nothing spectacularly horrible. I came out very pleased with him, and my jumping trainer's wife said she'd never seen me look so elegant in canter - he said that I'd just have to jump in a dressage saddle if it improved my canter so much
Got my sheet back for that, got mostly 6's and a couple of 7's - got 61% and finished 5th out of about 15. I'm told that that's not so bad so was pretty pleased! However, the novice was a slightly different story...
He was tense in the practice ring, there were two rings on today and some of the elementary horses were working in quite extravagantly shall we say! By the time it was my turn I felt he'd switched off a bit, this was definitely the case as he went in and went really backwards and tense on me. There were a couple of good moments, but the tension really spoiled it and I made a few schoolgirl errors. Also my idea (and everyone else on here's kind description) of how to give and retake reins was clearly different from the judges - I couldn't have given much more in my opinion but my sheet said I hadn't done it at all, apparently I'll need to over exaggerate it more next time (maybe use his ears for handlebars?). I'm a bit embarrassed to reveal my score on here as all you dressage people might just die laughing at me but let's just say that it accurately reflected how I felt it had gone, and suffice to say I finished 9th out of...well 9. However, I really took a lot from the day and the score sheets and, wait for it, this showjumper might actually go back and hunt a better score in the near future!
For a Sunday evening large Vodka and Coke/G&T for those who got this far, in fact throw in some Pringles as well lol!
He worked in well for the prelim and once we got in the ring and he stopped goggling at the judges he went reasonably well - a few tense moments but nothing spectacularly horrible. I came out very pleased with him, and my jumping trainer's wife said she'd never seen me look so elegant in canter - he said that I'd just have to jump in a dressage saddle if it improved my canter so much
Got my sheet back for that, got mostly 6's and a couple of 7's - got 61% and finished 5th out of about 15. I'm told that that's not so bad so was pretty pleased! However, the novice was a slightly different story...
He was tense in the practice ring, there were two rings on today and some of the elementary horses were working in quite extravagantly shall we say! By the time it was my turn I felt he'd switched off a bit, this was definitely the case as he went in and went really backwards and tense on me. There were a couple of good moments, but the tension really spoiled it and I made a few schoolgirl errors. Also my idea (and everyone else on here's kind description) of how to give and retake reins was clearly different from the judges - I couldn't have given much more in my opinion but my sheet said I hadn't done it at all, apparently I'll need to over exaggerate it more next time (maybe use his ears for handlebars?). I'm a bit embarrassed to reveal my score on here as all you dressage people might just die laughing at me but let's just say that it accurately reflected how I felt it had gone, and suffice to say I finished 9th out of...well 9. However, I really took a lot from the day and the score sheets and, wait for it, this showjumper might actually go back and hunt a better score in the near future!
For a Sunday evening large Vodka and Coke/G&T for those who got this far, in fact throw in some Pringles as well lol!
