blood_magik
Well-Known Member
It's been a while so I thought I'd do a quick report/update. 
After almost a year of blood, sweat and tears (mostly of frustration), Beau finally made his dressage debut. It didn't start off too well as we arrived very late and subsequently only had 20 minutes to let him see the arena and warm up. He's usually a bit of a drama llama as he finds warm ups *very* exciting so I was expecting him to have a bit of a meltdown, but he was surprisingly chilled and thankfully just put his head down and cracked on with things.
He was a little tense going in as I hadn't had enough time to really get him soft (he's generally pretty stiff in himself, plus he has arthritic hocks) but he did a sweet enough test considering. We had two mistakes - he overreacted to my aid when I asked for canter and picked up the wrong leg and later did walk to canter instead of walk to trot - but overall I was really pleased with his attitude. We ended up 4th in our section with 63.83%.
We had another go at the same test a few weeks later at a different venue. I hate the warm up there as it's quite small and Beau hates having his personal space invaded but, again, he warmed up really well without any drama. I made sure I had 45 minutes to get him really working this time and allow for a bit of chill-out time to let him settle before we went in. He was a little bit look-y to start with but I felt that our test was definitely more relaxed this time around. Again, there were a few minor bobbles on my part where I let my accuracy slip (going too far into the corners on circles, second half of the circles slightly too big) but overall I was really pleased with how our test went.
Again, we ended up 4th in our section but this time with 67.12%.
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After that we did a bit of jumping. Brave pants on, I entered the 1.10m open and was pleasantly surprised when my nerve held up. Beau finds jumping *very* exciting, especially at home, so I stuck to my tried-and-tested warm up routine of taking him outside and waiting in the holding area until it was his turn. Once in the ring, he settled and although he was a little look-y coming round to the first fence, he did listen when I asked him to wait.
I was a little worried about the second fence but we got a good shot to it and also to the one-stride one-stride triple along the back wall. Things went a little wrong at fence 8 though - I held instead of pushing and as the distance to 8 was on a forward stride, we were slightly off it and had the back rail of the first part of the double. I slipped my reins over the second part and just wasn't quick enough to get them back so circled and pulled up to sort out my knitting before continuing to the last two fences.
So not quite the result I'd been hoping for but we did manage to tick getting round a Newcomers/1.10m open off of our bucket list after pulling up halfway round during our last attempt over a year ago.
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I cut the circle out as the time I spent collecting myself afterwards made the video rather long.
[video=youtube;h4A6GddiyQo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4A6GddiyQo[/video]
Since then we've hit a few stumbling blocks. Beau was jumping fab and we were all set to go to another show but then he started stopping, as he tends to do when his hocks are hurting. We got them sorted but then he became really uneven in the contact so he had to have his teeth done and his diastema taken care of. Then he ended up with these weird lesions on his one white leg and the vet decided they warranted being biopsied, which lead to another week off work while the biopsy site healed.
He's had the best part of a month off now so hopefully that will be it for a little while and we can crack on with getting him fit again ready for the summer.
While Beau's been off, I've been plugging away with getting Raz ready for our elementary debut. We've decided to put jumping on the back burner for now and concentrate on dressage with the odd bit of showing as he's just so tricky to jump (he's super careful and has a tendency to get cocky but then isn't very brave when it goes wrong).
I had a fab lesson with Andrew Gould, who gave me some really good tips on how to make spookiness work to our advantage before working on exercises getting Raz to take more weight behind. With our regular trainer, we've been working on the quality of the paces (they can be a little underpowered), making sure we're even on both reins (right rein paces tend to be slightly bigger naturally) and my accuracy. By the last lesson, I was relatively confident that we would get through E57 without embarrassing ourselves, although the left leg yield wasn't quite as sharp as I'd hoped it would be.
We'd decided to do N37 as our warm up to let Raz get used to arena as it was right next to the lorry park and he'd been spooked by someone unloading right next to the ring mid-way through our test. He's been much better since starting on Magic so I was quietly hopeful that we'd manage to get through both tests without him refusing to go near the judge's table/banners/flowers etc...
We had an early start on Saturday as I'd offered to take a fellow livery's horse in the lorry with us. Raz was a little unsettled when his new best friend was taken off the lorry but he soon quietened down enough for me to plait him while his pal - also R - went off to do his two tests. By the time it was Raz's turn, he was lovely and chilled and we had the easiest warm up we've had so far - he was soft and supple, and we quickly ran through the check list our trainer had given us the day before.
Going in, he had a quick look at the judge's table but a few circles up that end seemed to settle him. N37 was the first time we'd had to halt upon entry so I was relieved when we got a good first halt.
He was relatively obedient during the rest of the test - I think he could have crossed a little more behind and our rein back at C was a tiny bit squint, plus the initial half wasn't quite long enough but the mediums felt fantastic and he ended up getting 8s for them across the board.
We ended up in the middle of the pack, with 67.38% and 4th (out of 7) in our section.
Next up was E57. We had an hour between tests so I hopped off and took Raz to get a drink before heading back round to the warm up. He felt a little tired so I only did 20 minutes - lots of transitions between the paces and within the canter, and a little leg yield. Someone loading their horse spooked him while we were walking past the judge's table (typical) so we did a quick circle on both reins up that end before starting our test.
He was a little tense due to the spook so our first halt wasn't great and he was a little reluctant to turn when he reached C but he did a nice rein back and the medium trot was fab (if I do say so myself
). I actually remembered to ride my medium canters and we actually got an 8 (!) for our collected canter-trot-collected canter transition from E-X-B.
Next up was the simple changes through walk on a serpentine. My trainer had actually measured/counted them out for us during training so I was so busy trying to remember where I had to hit the track while counting strides that my transitions were quite as clean as they'd been at home. They weren't terrible, but they could have been better, and then our final halt was a little bit squint.
So we ended up 3rd (out of 3
) with 66.96%, which I was delighted with for our first attempt.
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I've since registered Raz with BD so once we get his points back, we can make a decision as what to aim for this year. I'd love to do areas but I'm not sure how he'd cope with a really busy show - he was rather a handful the time we took him to Blair and I ended up pulling him from his class - and I don't want to knock his confidence when he's finally starting to trust me.
Until the next outing...
Thanks for reading.
After almost a year of blood, sweat and tears (mostly of frustration), Beau finally made his dressage debut. It didn't start off too well as we arrived very late and subsequently only had 20 minutes to let him see the arena and warm up. He's usually a bit of a drama llama as he finds warm ups *very* exciting so I was expecting him to have a bit of a meltdown, but he was surprisingly chilled and thankfully just put his head down and cracked on with things.
He was a little tense going in as I hadn't had enough time to really get him soft (he's generally pretty stiff in himself, plus he has arthritic hocks) but he did a sweet enough test considering. We had two mistakes - he overreacted to my aid when I asked for canter and picked up the wrong leg and later did walk to canter instead of walk to trot - but overall I was really pleased with his attitude. We ended up 4th in our section with 63.83%.
We had another go at the same test a few weeks later at a different venue. I hate the warm up there as it's quite small and Beau hates having his personal space invaded but, again, he warmed up really well without any drama. I made sure I had 45 minutes to get him really working this time and allow for a bit of chill-out time to let him settle before we went in. He was a little bit look-y to start with but I felt that our test was definitely more relaxed this time around. Again, there were a few minor bobbles on my part where I let my accuracy slip (going too far into the corners on circles, second half of the circles slightly too big) but overall I was really pleased with how our test went.
Again, we ended up 4th in our section but this time with 67.12%.
After that we did a bit of jumping. Brave pants on, I entered the 1.10m open and was pleasantly surprised when my nerve held up. Beau finds jumping *very* exciting, especially at home, so I stuck to my tried-and-tested warm up routine of taking him outside and waiting in the holding area until it was his turn. Once in the ring, he settled and although he was a little look-y coming round to the first fence, he did listen when I asked him to wait.
I was a little worried about the second fence but we got a good shot to it and also to the one-stride one-stride triple along the back wall. Things went a little wrong at fence 8 though - I held instead of pushing and as the distance to 8 was on a forward stride, we were slightly off it and had the back rail of the first part of the double. I slipped my reins over the second part and just wasn't quick enough to get them back so circled and pulled up to sort out my knitting before continuing to the last two fences.
So not quite the result I'd been hoping for but we did manage to tick getting round a Newcomers/1.10m open off of our bucket list after pulling up halfway round during our last attempt over a year ago.
I cut the circle out as the time I spent collecting myself afterwards made the video rather long.
[video=youtube;h4A6GddiyQo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4A6GddiyQo[/video]
Since then we've hit a few stumbling blocks. Beau was jumping fab and we were all set to go to another show but then he started stopping, as he tends to do when his hocks are hurting. We got them sorted but then he became really uneven in the contact so he had to have his teeth done and his diastema taken care of. Then he ended up with these weird lesions on his one white leg and the vet decided they warranted being biopsied, which lead to another week off work while the biopsy site healed.
He's had the best part of a month off now so hopefully that will be it for a little while and we can crack on with getting him fit again ready for the summer.
While Beau's been off, I've been plugging away with getting Raz ready for our elementary debut. We've decided to put jumping on the back burner for now and concentrate on dressage with the odd bit of showing as he's just so tricky to jump (he's super careful and has a tendency to get cocky but then isn't very brave when it goes wrong).
I had a fab lesson with Andrew Gould, who gave me some really good tips on how to make spookiness work to our advantage before working on exercises getting Raz to take more weight behind. With our regular trainer, we've been working on the quality of the paces (they can be a little underpowered), making sure we're even on both reins (right rein paces tend to be slightly bigger naturally) and my accuracy. By the last lesson, I was relatively confident that we would get through E57 without embarrassing ourselves, although the left leg yield wasn't quite as sharp as I'd hoped it would be.
We'd decided to do N37 as our warm up to let Raz get used to arena as it was right next to the lorry park and he'd been spooked by someone unloading right next to the ring mid-way through our test. He's been much better since starting on Magic so I was quietly hopeful that we'd manage to get through both tests without him refusing to go near the judge's table/banners/flowers etc...
We had an early start on Saturday as I'd offered to take a fellow livery's horse in the lorry with us. Raz was a little unsettled when his new best friend was taken off the lorry but he soon quietened down enough for me to plait him while his pal - also R - went off to do his two tests. By the time it was Raz's turn, he was lovely and chilled and we had the easiest warm up we've had so far - he was soft and supple, and we quickly ran through the check list our trainer had given us the day before.
Going in, he had a quick look at the judge's table but a few circles up that end seemed to settle him. N37 was the first time we'd had to halt upon entry so I was relieved when we got a good first halt.
He was relatively obedient during the rest of the test - I think he could have crossed a little more behind and our rein back at C was a tiny bit squint, plus the initial half wasn't quite long enough but the mediums felt fantastic and he ended up getting 8s for them across the board.
We ended up in the middle of the pack, with 67.38% and 4th (out of 7) in our section.
Next up was E57. We had an hour between tests so I hopped off and took Raz to get a drink before heading back round to the warm up. He felt a little tired so I only did 20 minutes - lots of transitions between the paces and within the canter, and a little leg yield. Someone loading their horse spooked him while we were walking past the judge's table (typical
) so we did a quick circle on both reins up that end before starting our test. He was a little tense due to the spook so our first halt wasn't great and he was a little reluctant to turn when he reached C but he did a nice rein back and the medium trot was fab (if I do say so myself
). I actually remembered to ride my medium canters and we actually got an 8 (!) for our collected canter-trot-collected canter transition from E-X-B. Next up was the simple changes through walk on a serpentine. My trainer had actually measured/counted them out for us during training so I was so busy trying to remember where I had to hit the track while counting strides that my transitions were quite as clean as they'd been at home. They weren't terrible, but they could have been better, and then our final halt was a little bit squint.
So we ended up 3rd (out of 3
) with 66.96%, which I was delighted with for our first attempt.
I've since registered Raz with BD so once we get his points back, we can make a decision as what to aim for this year. I'd love to do areas but I'm not sure how he'd cope with a really busy show - he was rather a handful the time we took him to Blair and I ended up pulling him from his class - and I don't want to knock his confidence when he's finally starting to trust me.
Until the next outing...
Thanks for reading.
.