little_flea
Well-Known Member
For those that don't know - Maggie is my 13-year old IDxTB mare, I share her with my sister Nora. I compete in show jumping but recently Maggie has been doing more BD as I have some other show jumping rides and Mags has proven to be quite good at dressage. Here is our report from the Winter Nationals, all pics are taken by me or other family member, so no copyright issues...
Off we went to Hartpury on Tuesday. Feeling a bit apprehensive as Maggie was absolutely horrific most of last week haylage had gone to her head and she was spending most of her time bucking, spinning and practicing caprioles. Mortified she'd be like this at National Champs a 17.2hh fire-breathing dragon in the warm-up would ruin it for everyone (Maggie has previously been asked to leave a warm-up when she was in this mood, as it was unsafe for others the shame & horror.)
Arrived at Hartpury the day before her test and Maggie was assigned a permanent stable the size of a turn-out paddock and true to form, immediately started bossing around the neighbouring horses. Then it was time for a bit of riding in preparation for the following day. The other combinations looked pretty daunting, certainly no cobs or ponies in sight, just serious dressage horses and riders. I haven't seen that much Pikeur and Anky in one place since I was last in Patchetts tack shop. A few pictures of the least dressage-bred horse there:
At least there were no airs above ground. Then time for the arena walk. I have helpfully indicated the location of Mags in these pictures
:
Maggie was not bothered about the trade stands or flowers or the rather daunting big arena, thankfully she usually isn't spooky but she sometimes gets a bee in her bonnet about certain things she got a catastrophic score at Regionals a few years back where she wouldn't go near one corner of the arena, despite having won two classes in the very same place just a week earlier.
Looking particularly shifty in her stable (tongue out):
Morning of the test, Maggie was the third horse to go, so an early start. She warmed up ok, though her medium trot which is normally one of her strongest points wasn't quite there, probably due to tension - she is not a natural dressage horse, so everything has to be manufactured. In she went and I was feeling quite optimistic when she didn't add a reign-back to the first halt (one of her party-tricks, being an old show jumper). But then came the first medium trot across the diagonal and she just went straight into canter! Oops. Nora salvaged it quite well and still managed to show some medium trot strides. The rest was ok, not their best, but all things considered, acceptable. She got a score of 64.60%, which is not as good as what they normally get, but there were plenty worse (some poor person had to have their horse led out of the arena, being eliminated), and the first medium certainly brought the marks down. Some (not great) pics from the test.
Note how quickly Maggie's groom (ie yours truly) is there to offer a polo
Paparazzi (or dad)
Slightly varied marks from the three judges, with one of them giving her two 5s and one 6 for her walk, and another giving one 7 and two 8's for the same which seems quite a big difference but hey ho this is why I show jump - either the poles stay up or they don't!
Won't bore you with the rest, but there were some seriously nice horses in the class, but Maggie ended up coming 9th! Very exciting to be placed at the Nationals, though Maggie looked quite grumpy with her oversized rosette (or perhaps with her rapidly deteriorating plaits). You can clearly see the precision, willing attitude, the acceptance of fine-tuned aids and obedience of the dressage horse demonstrated in this picture:
However she loved the showing-off opportunity of the prize-giving:
Parents who had come over from Sweden for the occasion fed Maggie polo's like a Las Vegas tourist feeds coins into a slot-machine, so everyone was happy. Never been to Hartpury before but seriously impressed with how well organised it was and the staff were all absolutely lovely. Also had the prieveliege of watching Lee Pearsons test which just gave me goosebumps. This was Maggie's last Novice, she has a couple of points left to do for her Elementary summer regionals qualification, and I might take her show jumping as well.
Thank you so much for reading!
Off we went to Hartpury on Tuesday. Feeling a bit apprehensive as Maggie was absolutely horrific most of last week haylage had gone to her head and she was spending most of her time bucking, spinning and practicing caprioles. Mortified she'd be like this at National Champs a 17.2hh fire-breathing dragon in the warm-up would ruin it for everyone (Maggie has previously been asked to leave a warm-up when she was in this mood, as it was unsafe for others the shame & horror.)
Arrived at Hartpury the day before her test and Maggie was assigned a permanent stable the size of a turn-out paddock and true to form, immediately started bossing around the neighbouring horses. Then it was time for a bit of riding in preparation for the following day. The other combinations looked pretty daunting, certainly no cobs or ponies in sight, just serious dressage horses and riders. I haven't seen that much Pikeur and Anky in one place since I was last in Patchetts tack shop. A few pictures of the least dressage-bred horse there:
At least there were no airs above ground. Then time for the arena walk. I have helpfully indicated the location of Mags in these pictures
:
Maggie was not bothered about the trade stands or flowers or the rather daunting big arena, thankfully she usually isn't spooky but she sometimes gets a bee in her bonnet about certain things she got a catastrophic score at Regionals a few years back where she wouldn't go near one corner of the arena, despite having won two classes in the very same place just a week earlier.
Looking particularly shifty in her stable (tongue out):
Morning of the test, Maggie was the third horse to go, so an early start. She warmed up ok, though her medium trot which is normally one of her strongest points wasn't quite there, probably due to tension - she is not a natural dressage horse, so everything has to be manufactured. In she went and I was feeling quite optimistic when she didn't add a reign-back to the first halt (one of her party-tricks, being an old show jumper). But then came the first medium trot across the diagonal and she just went straight into canter! Oops. Nora salvaged it quite well and still managed to show some medium trot strides. The rest was ok, not their best, but all things considered, acceptable. She got a score of 64.60%, which is not as good as what they normally get, but there were plenty worse (some poor person had to have their horse led out of the arena, being eliminated), and the first medium certainly brought the marks down. Some (not great) pics from the test.
Note how quickly Maggie's groom (ie yours truly) is there to offer a polo
Paparazzi (or dad)
Slightly varied marks from the three judges, with one of them giving her two 5s and one 6 for her walk, and another giving one 7 and two 8's for the same which seems quite a big difference but hey ho this is why I show jump - either the poles stay up or they don't!
Won't bore you with the rest, but there were some seriously nice horses in the class, but Maggie ended up coming 9th! Very exciting to be placed at the Nationals, though Maggie looked quite grumpy with her oversized rosette (or perhaps with her rapidly deteriorating plaits). You can clearly see the precision, willing attitude, the acceptance of fine-tuned aids and obedience of the dressage horse demonstrated in this picture:
However she loved the showing-off opportunity of the prize-giving:
Parents who had come over from Sweden for the occasion fed Maggie polo's like a Las Vegas tourist feeds coins into a slot-machine, so everyone was happy. Never been to Hartpury before but seriously impressed with how well organised it was and the staff were all absolutely lovely. Also had the prieveliege of watching Lee Pearsons test which just gave me goosebumps. This was Maggie's last Novice, she has a couple of points left to do for her Elementary summer regionals qualification, and I might take her show jumping as well.
Thank you so much for reading!
so you wernt alone & she looks every inch the dressage horse.
