Jingleballs
Well-Known Member
I know that generally dressage reports are a bit dull and boring compared to the the excitment of SJ/eventing reports but since many events were cancelled this weekend I may as well fill the gaps with a wee dressage report!
After a successful start to the year (6th & 1st in our first dressage outing in 2012) our results had been a bit meh
Pony can get very, very strong sometimes and I get into a fight with him, I get tense, he gets tense and the test looks horrible.
Our last pure dressage outing was a while ago - we got 2 6th's that day in prelim and novice and one of the main comments from the judge was that perhaps a flash was needed to stop him opening his gob and running off with me (teeth, back, saddle all fine btw - he's just a bit of a toad sometimes)
So I've invested in a new bridle complete with crank noseband and flash and started flatwork lessons with a different instructor who I have had a lesson with before.
She's got me thinking about using my weight and seat to steady and slow him - not my hand - this means there is nothing for him to fight with and it keeps my arms/shoulders relaxed.
So with all that in mind we pootled off to do P15 and N34 (most advanced Novice yet)
I kept things relaxed and calm in the warm up and as a result I got a nice, smooth, calm test with some really nice work out of him. One issue at our first canter as he sort of tripped, stood on his own foot and sort of stumbled into the transition but otherwise he felt nice and it felt calm and I was able to concentrate on riding the test and keeping him soft rather than fighting for control.
We had much of the same in N34 - minor exception was during the medium canter when pony went weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and I had a bit of a struggle to steady him. We also had the usual spooking & looking at the top end of the arena where the cafe is which felt awful but apparently didn't look to bad.
I was having to rush off afterwards but did manage to get my first test sheet and was happy with a pretty respectable 64.78% which earned us 1st place in my section
Didn't get my novice sheet but scores went up on Saturday night and I was delighted to get 59.17% putting us in 2nd place - our highest placing at Novice!! I'm hoping that the competition centre will post out my rosette and most importantly my test sheet as I'm keen to see where we picked up and where we lost marks.
Really, really pleased with pony and how things are going and hoping that they continue to improve and we can start to compete solely at Novice by the end of the year and maybe even tackle a wee elementary if we're feeling brave.
No action photo's I'm afraid but here's one of grumpy pony sporting his red frilly - you can see he's very excited about his win!
By babybear81 at 2012-06-11
After a successful start to the year (6th & 1st in our first dressage outing in 2012) our results had been a bit meh
Pony can get very, very strong sometimes and I get into a fight with him, I get tense, he gets tense and the test looks horrible.Our last pure dressage outing was a while ago - we got 2 6th's that day in prelim and novice and one of the main comments from the judge was that perhaps a flash was needed to stop him opening his gob and running off with me (teeth, back, saddle all fine btw - he's just a bit of a toad sometimes)
So I've invested in a new bridle complete with crank noseband and flash and started flatwork lessons with a different instructor who I have had a lesson with before.
She's got me thinking about using my weight and seat to steady and slow him - not my hand - this means there is nothing for him to fight with and it keeps my arms/shoulders relaxed.
So with all that in mind we pootled off to do P15 and N34 (most advanced Novice yet)
I kept things relaxed and calm in the warm up and as a result I got a nice, smooth, calm test with some really nice work out of him. One issue at our first canter as he sort of tripped, stood on his own foot and sort of stumbled into the transition but otherwise he felt nice and it felt calm and I was able to concentrate on riding the test and keeping him soft rather than fighting for control.
We had much of the same in N34 - minor exception was during the medium canter when pony went weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and I had a bit of a struggle to steady him. We also had the usual spooking & looking at the top end of the arena where the cafe is which felt awful but apparently didn't look to bad.
I was having to rush off afterwards but did manage to get my first test sheet and was happy with a pretty respectable 64.78% which earned us 1st place in my section
Didn't get my novice sheet but scores went up on Saturday night and I was delighted to get 59.17% putting us in 2nd place - our highest placing at Novice!! I'm hoping that the competition centre will post out my rosette and most importantly my test sheet as I'm keen to see where we picked up and where we lost marks.
Really, really pleased with pony and how things are going and hoping that they continue to improve and we can start to compete solely at Novice by the end of the year and maybe even tackle a wee elementary if we're feeling brave.
No action photo's I'm afraid but here's one of grumpy pony sporting his red frilly - you can see he's very excited about his win!
By babybear81 at 2012-06-11
