SnowGoose
Well-Known Member
Well, weve had a quiet couple of weeks since Stafford BE100, pony had slightly puffy front leg day after his fantastic double clear and although it deflated fairly quickly decided to err on the side of caution and withdraw from Carlton. Gave him a mini-break in the field for a week then started back in gentle work week after. With Shelford Manor BE looming, decided it was about time to step the work back up and entered him for a couple of dressage tests at vale view today. It was only our 3rd BD outing but discovered earlier this week that we had qualified for a petplan area festival at prelim and novice 
and with 2 festivals within reasonable distance, thought I would try to get another couple of qualifying sheets and have a play at both 
First up was prelim 19 at 8.50am
I thought it was only BE who ran their tests at ridiculous oclock. Had bathed and plaited the pony last night (who promptly had a good roll as soon as I put him in the stable 
) so just had to pick the straw out of his plaits and throw him on the lorry this morning. Decided to allow half an hour to warm up as he can take a while to settle, but he was strangely angelic 
fortunately it was very quiet and someone had pulled out so went in for test a bit early.
Test felt nice and soft couple of little mistakes when he went a bit too deep in his medium walk and my attempt to correct resulted in trot a slightly unbalanced and late canter transition and my forgetting to look where I was going on the stretchy trot circle but overall very pleased with him.
Vid here: http://www.youtube.com/user/hettie181#p/a/u/0/ePhANl2Bocc
Judge gave 65.45% which felt about right and commented working along the right lines which was really pleasing as we hit a brick wall with our dressage over the winter and have had to go right back to basics hopefully weve got it right this time
Long wait for 2nd test, novice 27, during which time it poured with rain. KatB (star cameraperson) and I sheltered in the lorry for a cup of tea as it was almost breakfast time
then as our dressage time approached the sun came out again. Went into warm up and tried to pick him up a bit more for the novice. Struggling a bit at the moment to engage the back end more while staying soft through the back and neck so outline can be a bit up and down, but was same judge as prelim who had underscored engagement of the hindquarters on his collectives and commented be careful to keep poll the highest point so softly stretchy clearly wasnt going to work at novice level This time the test was outdoors and apparently the arena was full of hedge monsters down one side and very interesting people and horses who must be looked at down the other. At one point as we were waiting for the bell, he was doing a very passable impression of a giraffe 
Kind of got him together and felt he was working more from behind in this test though was a bit tense in first half. Settled more as he went on, few bits that felt really nice and few bits that felt horrid! (sorry video doesnt want to upload, will try again later)
Wasnt too hopeful for score so slightly shocked to see 66.79% (especially as it was the same judge who I felt had given me a pretty accurate score in the first test). Watched a few nice horses go and pootled round for bit (for pootling read spending money I dont have in the very nice tack shop) and went back to the scoreboard to discover WED WON 1st in the restricted out of 9 and 2nd overall (only one score better than ours in the open). Intrigued to see what the judge had seen that I couldnt, I went to collect my scoresheet. Heard a few people discussing that they had got three or four 8s on their sheets where as we only managed one. However it seems we are very consistently average 
all other marks 6s and 7s and comments reflected what I had felt so it seems that although we didnt do anything spectacular, we also didnt do anything really awful and it was sufficient to get us a winning score. Judges comments not always drawing forward to contact, marks there when more supple and balanced throughout.
So overall a very good day, it seems we are making progress and if I can combine the consistency of the first test with the engagement of the second we are off and running
Thanks for reading, jammie dodgers if you got this far.
and with 2 festivals within reasonable distance, thought I would try to get another couple of qualifying sheets and have a play at both First up was prelim 19 at 8.50am
I thought it was only BE who ran their tests at ridiculous oclock. Had bathed and plaited the pony last night (who promptly had a good roll as soon as I put him in the stable ) so just had to pick the straw out of his plaits and throw him on the lorry this morning. Decided to allow half an hour to warm up as he can take a while to settle, but he was strangely angelic fortunately it was very quiet and someone had pulled out so went in for test a bit early. Test felt nice and soft couple of little mistakes when he went a bit too deep in his medium walk and my attempt to correct resulted in trot
a slightly unbalanced and late canter transition and my forgetting to look where I was going on the stretchy trot circle but overall very pleased with him.Vid here: http://www.youtube.com/user/hettie181#p/a/u/0/ePhANl2Bocc
Judge gave 65.45% which felt about right and commented working along the right lines which was really pleasing as we hit a brick wall with our dressage over the winter and have had to go right back to basics hopefully weve got it right this time
Long wait for 2nd test, novice 27, during which time it poured with rain. KatB (star cameraperson) and I sheltered in the lorry for a cup of tea as it was almost breakfast time
then as our dressage time approached the sun came out again. Went into warm up and tried to pick him up a bit more for the novice. Struggling a bit at the moment to engage the back end more while staying soft through the back and neck so outline can be a bit up and down, but was same judge as prelim who had underscored engagement of the hindquarters on his collectives and commented be careful to keep poll the highest point so softly stretchy clearly wasnt going to work at novice level This time the test was outdoors and apparently the arena was full of hedge monsters down one side and very interesting people and horses who must be looked at down the other. At one point as we were waiting for the bell, he was doing a very passable impression of a giraffe Kind of got him together and felt he was working more from behind in this test though was a bit tense in first half. Settled more as he went on, few bits that felt really nice and few bits that felt horrid! (sorry video doesnt want to upload, will try again later)Wasnt too hopeful for score so slightly shocked to see 66.79% (especially as it was the same judge who I felt had given me a pretty accurate score in the first test). Watched a few nice horses go and pootled round for bit (for pootling read spending money I dont have in the very nice tack shop
) and went back to the scoreboard to discover WED WON 1st in the restricted out of 9 and 2nd overall (only one score better than ours in the open). Intrigued to see what the judge had seen that I couldnt, I went to collect my scoresheet. Heard a few people discussing that they had got three or four 8s on their sheets where as we only managed one. However it seems we are very consistently average all other marks 6s and 7s and comments reflected what I had felt so it seems that although we didnt do anything spectacular, we also didnt do anything really awful and it was sufficient to get us a winning score. Judges comments not always drawing forward to contact, marks there when more supple and balanced throughout. So overall a very good day, it seems we are making progress and if I can combine the consistency of the first test with the engagement of the second we are off and running
Thanks for reading, jammie dodgers if you got this far.
