Last weekend my saintly husband, horse, and pup loaded into the truck and trailer and we headed to the Cleveland area for a schooling show. Kristin Stein, trainer extraordinaire, was coaching other students at the show, so it was perfect. I would have coaching to get me through my first attempt at third level.
We drove through 3 hours of rain and when we unloaded, the temperature had noticably dropped. It was about 45 degrees with intermittent drizzling rain. Horse shows always have miserable weather! This felt like the realy deal.
Gadget warmed up nicely. Kristin was there to help me activate and "fluff" the canter. She had me give him little "love taps" with the whip to remind him to jump in the canter. We got a beautiful left flying change in the warm up as a result of her help with the canter. Trot work felt sticky in the warm-up.
The test went well. His trot work felt really good. Even Kristin said his trot work in the test was much better than the warm up. The same could not be said for the canter work. He needed a couple taps with the whip to get his hind end jumping, but instead I let him get long and flat. The left change was late because of this (with a score of 4). The right change was fine, and we got a 7. The turn on the haunches got sticky, and the rein back was crooked. These are usually consistently good at home. I know how to fix these for next time. Despite our issues, I was really pleased with Gadget. And I felt proud of myself and my little horse to be riding third level for the first time.
I told Hani that I hoped to score above a 55% with all of our mistakes. So I was pleasantly surprised to see that I scored a 59.7% and WON the class of four! I think the score is fairly realistic as it was from a "R" judge, who routinely judges recognized shows.
Oh, and Wilson was huge hit at the horse show! I think we met everybody at the show as they all stopped to pet him and talk to us about him. He may get to attend some of the recognized shows now that he has shown he can mostly be a good boy.
Now Gadget is spending a couple weeks with Auntie Kristin while I try to catch up with work. She always works wonders, so I am hoping I will be able to keep up her good work.
After my confidence boost, I officially signed up for third level at the Grand Haven recognized show. Hopefully we don't embarrass ourselves!
We drove through 3 hours of rain and when we unloaded, the temperature had noticably dropped. It was about 45 degrees with intermittent drizzling rain. Horse shows always have miserable weather! This felt like the realy deal.
Gadget warmed up nicely. Kristin was there to help me activate and "fluff" the canter. She had me give him little "love taps" with the whip to remind him to jump in the canter. We got a beautiful left flying change in the warm up as a result of her help with the canter. Trot work felt sticky in the warm-up.
The test went well. His trot work felt really good. Even Kristin said his trot work in the test was much better than the warm up. The same could not be said for the canter work. He needed a couple taps with the whip to get his hind end jumping, but instead I let him get long and flat. The left change was late because of this (with a score of 4). The right change was fine, and we got a 7. The turn on the haunches got sticky, and the rein back was crooked. These are usually consistently good at home. I know how to fix these for next time. Despite our issues, I was really pleased with Gadget. And I felt proud of myself and my little horse to be riding third level for the first time.
I told Hani that I hoped to score above a 55% with all of our mistakes. So I was pleasantly surprised to see that I scored a 59.7% and WON the class of four! I think the score is fairly realistic as it was from a "R" judge, who routinely judges recognized shows.
Oh, and Wilson was huge hit at the horse show! I think we met everybody at the show as they all stopped to pet him and talk to us about him. He may get to attend some of the recognized shows now that he has shown he can mostly be a good boy.
Now Gadget is spending a couple weeks with Auntie Kristin while I try to catch up with work. She always works wonders, so I am hoping I will be able to keep up her good work.
After my confidence boost, I officially signed up for third level at the Grand Haven recognized show. Hopefully we don't embarrass ourselves!
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