Little horse's first "big boy" dressage comp tomorrow

alwaysfallingof

alwaysfallingof

Active Member
Jul 17, 2004
1,666
0
36
37
London
Visit site
Baby horse and I are going to do our first proper dressage competition tomorrow :unsure:
He's a 7 year old section D that had done very very little training before I started reschooling him at the start of this year. He's now working nicely at home, more than capable of riding a very very nice prelim test so we're off to Patchetts tomorrow to do Intro A and Prelim 18.

It could all go very very wrong though...it's the first time he's been trailered anywhere since he arrived at the yard as a 3 year old, first time at a proper show and he's a clumsy, spooky drama queen of a stereotypical section D.

Argh....:cry:

Oh, and the one thing his owner won't let me do is pull his mane but he's rubbed it so the bottom half is more or less non-existent, the top half is REALLY long. And his legs are stained yellow and silver. And I can't bring him in for the night and we're forecasted heavy rain. Hmmm.
 
Best of luck! I really look forward to hearing how you both get on - he sounds just like my welsh D, same age, level of experience, drama queen moments - even down to the wonky mane - except I havent been brave enough to take mine out anywhere yet.

Hope your boy is wearing a rug tonight! As long as you look like you have made an effort I am sure you'll make a good impression - could you stuff his mane into a plausible spanish/arab plait?

Hope you can get some pics too!
 
Good luck and hope you manage to get him looking vaguely presentable! - I'm sure you will!

Looking forward to hearing how you get on :biggrin:
 
Thank you both, well first drama has happened already when my friend's tow car developed an alarming rattle.
Hopefully her car-savvy son has managed to sort it but there was a period this evening when I thought we wouldn't even get as far as loading.
 
best of luck for tomorrow

all I can suggest is getting some chalk, making it into a paste and rubbing in well before you set off and then brushing out before you go in - it does do a fair bit towards whitening (we have a gray aka white pony and daughter likes to do showing as well as dressage - oh joy LOL)

can you plait the mane????

have a fab time xxxx
 
:bounce::cloud9::dance:

What a fantastic day!
Arrived at the yard at 7 this morning, caught him and started operation leg wash before deciding that in the unlikely event that the judge cannot find anything more critical to say than 'get yellow stains off legs' I would be so overjoyed I won't care.

Started plaiting...1 1/2 hours later Rosco has 9 fairly decent plaits and 10 golf balls. Decided again that sporting slightly strange plaits was probably going to be the least of my worries.

Loaded well enough, and off we went. Arrived with only 40 minutes until my prelim test time, had a bit of a :help: moment but was mounted and warming up with 25 minutes to spare. He spent 15 minutes being a spooky nuisance, settled down nicely for the last 10, but then I discovered I couldn't actually leave the warmup because he was spooking so much at the gate :rolleyes:. An increasingly annoyed voice was coming over the tannoy so I managed to find someone to give me a lead out across the car park and into the main arena.


Entered main arena...walked up to our ring, nodded and said hi to the judge. So far so good. Horse then went OMG THERE IS A CAR IN THE SCHOOL OMG THAT ISN'T RIGHT I CAN'T WALK PAST IT OMG I CAN ONLY GO BACKWARDS AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!! Judges were very understanding, told me to take as much time as I needed to get past the car and do whatever I liked before entering. He then also decided to have 'drama queen' moments at the markers, white boards and advertising boards round the outside of the arena...cue much snorting and jumping sideways. Decided that I might as well enter, and off we went.

Overall the test wasn't too bad, everytime we went past the judges car or a marker he got a bit tense and I had to ride a bit 'louder' than I like to but he didn't feel awful. Hit both canter leads which I was pleased about because he's been struggling with those. All was going fairly well until the last centre line...when he suddenly clocked the car again, slammed the brakes on 4 strides before X and did a little dance :redface: :rolleyes:

We ended up with 56% for that test which I was pleased with and some lovely comments.

We had about an hour's break before I had to start working him in for the intro, he was FAR calmer this time round, still a bit tense and spooking at markers but not as bad as earlier. I wasn't quite as pleased with the general quality of the work he did in most of this test, but the judge seemed to disagree because we won the class with 65% :bounce:

Very very proud of the pony today, so many things were new for him today but his attitude got better and better as the day went on, and winning a class (of 20) is just the icing on the cake. I'm absolutely thrilled with him and his owner was very pleased :smile:

My friend took some pics and videos, will need to check its ok with his owner but can hopefully post some tomorrow :biggrin:
 
Last edited:
Thanks everyone :wub:

Here is the video of our Intro test:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pXdHwZtHZY

The prelim is just uploading, I'll post the link later for anyone who wants a giggle :tongue:

I'm my own worst critic, so anyone who wants a critique practice feel free to post - you won't say anything more hurtful than I've already told myself. There are a few things 'wrong' with it that I can explain if anyone picks up on them (but I won't bore everyone any more with a breakdown of exactly how I rode the test otherwise lol)
 
Well done. That's fantastic news!

I have watched both vidoes and you look great. Thanks for sharing :biggrin:
 
newrider.com
Top Bottom
Back