Marquire
Well-Known Member
We went out yesterday to do some BD at Faraway near Forgue. We've only been competing at novice for the last few months as we are still struggling a bit with medium trot and it has taken time for his canter to become established.
Anyway thankfully it was a beautiful day, sunny if cold but I was just glad it wasn't raining and blowing a gale like it has been all week. We were on mid afternoon so by the time we got there the sun was quite low and it was really difficult to see in the outside warm up. The Grumpy Boy felt a bit flat but was really obedient and I was pleased with his warm up.
The first test was N26 in the outside arena. Now as luck would have it, just as I was about to go in, the farmers down the road started shooting so GB suddenly grow to 17hh (He's 15.3) and had his eyes on stalks. We got into the arena and the judge then made matters worse by tooting her horn EXACTLY when we where in front of her car making GB grew another 2 inches. He was certainly elevated during the test but felt really tense, broke during the second medium trot and stupid mother was in such a tizz by that point that she went wrong and had to be redirected by the judge. All in all a complete disaster. However, when I got my sheet back I had scored 67% and had won the class despite getting a 4 for the medium trot movement and -2 for going wrong.
I was still in a daze about this when I went in for the second test, N30. This was indoors so he was much more settled but felt a little tired. Thankfully this time I remembered the test correctly but we had a couple of instances during the 'canter across diagonal, simple change at X' movements. In the first one GB thought it'd be great fun to put in a huge buck when I asked him to strike off on the new leg and then try to piss off across the school. In the second one the little sod decided he knew what was coming and dig a lovely flying change when I asked for trot so by the time I got him to trot and picked up canter again it was super late. Somehow we managed to score 64% and won this class too.
The judges seem to like him more when he's being naughty.
Anyway thankfully it was a beautiful day, sunny if cold but I was just glad it wasn't raining and blowing a gale like it has been all week. We were on mid afternoon so by the time we got there the sun was quite low and it was really difficult to see in the outside warm up. The Grumpy Boy felt a bit flat but was really obedient and I was pleased with his warm up.
The first test was N26 in the outside arena. Now as luck would have it, just as I was about to go in, the farmers down the road started shooting so GB suddenly grow to 17hh (He's 15.3) and had his eyes on stalks. We got into the arena and the judge then made matters worse by tooting her horn EXACTLY when we where in front of her car making GB grew another 2 inches. He was certainly elevated during the test but felt really tense, broke during the second medium trot and stupid mother was in such a tizz by that point that she went wrong and had to be redirected by the judge. All in all a complete disaster. However, when I got my sheet back I had scored 67% and had won the class despite getting a 4 for the medium trot movement and -2 for going wrong.
I was still in a daze about this when I went in for the second test, N30. This was indoors so he was much more settled but felt a little tired. Thankfully this time I remembered the test correctly but we had a couple of instances during the 'canter across diagonal, simple change at X' movements. In the first one GB thought it'd be great fun to put in a huge buck when I asked him to strike off on the new leg and then try to piss off across the school. In the second one the little sod decided he knew what was coming and dig a lovely flying change when I asked for trot so by the time I got him to trot and picked up canter again it was super late. Somehow we managed to score 64% and won this class too.
The judges seem to like him more when he's being naughty.
