Excited?

Yes, yes I am a bit excited. Although our scores in dressage could have been a bit better, to read higher, they were fairly handed down and a couple of them have me buzzed along with the comments. We recieved six scores of 5, two scores of 6, two scores of 7 and an 8.

Halt at X and salute the judge

 

The two 7's were for our downward transition to the walk, "abrupt downward, nice walk" and our lengthened trot, "good lengthening, horse calling". The score of 8 was for our lengthened walk, "lovely lengthened walk". Of the 11 movements, 6 of the comments have "calling" or "horse calling" because he was screaming his head off the whole time and would. not. shut. up. Gawd it was annoying, but he is an attention hound and he wants everyone focused on him, the little brat.


 


After it was all over, I talked to Gary and got a few pointers. I explained an issue I'm having with the bits and he told me what changes to make. He also offered another suggestion and I had the gut feeling on both of DUH!!! You certainly could have done this or known how or what to do... Instead sometimes we overlook the obvious because we either think we know better, we want to believe some idea we have in our head or we just zone it out because we have come so far, everything has to be complicated now, right? So it takes a gentle reminder of 'back up, hold on, slow down, think about this, you knew that or a polite Hello????' to get us back on track where things click and make perfect, simple sense.








After dressage, we were 3rd of 5. Smack dab in the middle. For not working much before going into this, Kat getting a bit "racy" here and there in the ring and getting goofy on me, I think we did pretty damn well. In the collective remarks at the bottom- 7 for gaits, "Nice pony!", 7 for impulsion, 4 for submission and 5 for driver, "Relax your arms & use your fingers". She noticed we were both bracing on the bit, him for whatever reasons and me to keep him from taking off, all out bolting, off we go and we're outta here. If only the judges knew what was racing through our minds while we are in the ring trying to hold it all together... But then sometimes its not a bad thing that they don't.