Monty Merrist Wood evening dressage

Afternoon off for me.  Spent it dodging rain showers, pulling ragwort, picking up poo, making haynets and feeds and then finally at 4.45 got on Llewi for half hour.  Took him in the school and he was good boy - we worked on canter gears, simple changes etc.  Right canter was having a real tendency to go 4 time today though - not sure if linked to his stifle or not - he's always had a tendency to go 4 time but it does make me worry about his leg.  Anyway, we managed a fairly calm session with only a very occasional spook which is always nice.  Prob take him to GBEC again next week and try a Novice.  Debating whether to renew BD membership at the moment or just do eventers membership over winter which would save me £37 and mean not having to pay till October, but would mean no area festivals.

Anyway, this evening took Monty to MW for P12.  Somehow only ended up with 30mins to warmup which isnt' quite enough for him, plus he seems to have gone a bit backwards on me recently - he's almost too calm!  He should be on enough food as he's keeping his weight fine, he's on conditioning cubes which have a high DE so should have enough energy.  Wonder if his RelaxMe calmer is just doing a bit too much!  He warmed up nicely enough but took him in and he just wasn't quite up in front of me enough.  It was a sweet controlled test but a bit lacking sparkle - certainly no worse than what he did at the weekend though.  Really pleased with both his canter to trots across the diagonal , stayed nice and round and just popped down into trot.  Not quite as connected as he could have been in the trot work, centre line could have been straighter and he hasn't quite got the idea of stepping into a nice halt yet so def want to work on my centre lines and halts as next big thing to work on at home.  Rather disappointed with 60.8% but only 5marks behind the winner and some poor person only got 41% so think the judge was just a bit hard.  No positive comments whatsoever.  Got a 7 for his trot 20m circle left and change the rein and his medium walk but otherwise all 6's and a 5 for his 20m circle right in canter because he dropped onto the forehand slightly apparantly!  All 6's for collectives.  "Well ridden but needs to be consistent between leg to hand to maintain rythum and balance"  Always be suspicious of a judge who cant spell rhythm!  I know she's not listed whereas Sunday's were so I think I'll just write this one off.  I've learnt from the outing and I know I need to rediscover some impulsion while keeping the calmness and softness but that's the schooling process - before we had too much forwards and lots of resistance.  Now we've got the softness we just need to get him a bit more up and forwards.  Still, plenty of progress has been made and I'm pleased with how he is improving.