Nice relaxed start to the day to get down to Merrist Wood for just gone 10am. Somehow that wasn't quite enough time to get as long in the warmup as I wanted as they were running a bit early but probably best not to tire him out too much anyway as he's much less enthusiastic about pure dressage comps.
N35 is a tad more difficult than the last 4mths of eventing dressage we've been doing but it was good to have something more to challenge him with.
He went round the outside of the arena like he owned the place - amazing up and forwards canter followed by a lovely trot then just as we were getting to the top of the long side he had a huge cough and nearly fell over so I just lost the connection a bit. Centre line felt nice and straight, up the long side, round the corner and then he had a massive flid about the sunbeams that had suddenly appeared on the floor next to the arena - they weren't even in the bloody arena - silly donkey. So that ruined the serpentine in trot. Then just about held together the canter circle and the canter-trot-canter ok. 1st medium trot he tried to do something, 2nd one he tried but lost his balance. Ruined the next serpentine with some more spooking. Again, canter work not too bad though. Walk work good. Medium canter circle ok, bit motorbikey but came back to me nicely and changed the rein very nicely. Quite nice back into right canter and another medium canter circle then a nice transition back to trot. Trot stretch didn't really happen as he didn't want to take the rein down and then got a bit spooky round the last half circle but was pleased with final halt as very almost square - didn't quite bring his foreleg forwards enough but bum nicely underneath.
Was expecting a terrible mark as he ruined so many movements with spooking - not just a little spook but then a big tantrum about me actually grabbing hold of him and getting things back together again. However, judge was either blind or on the lenient side. Nearly fell over when I saw our score of 66.92%! He was on same score as leader of the Restricted when I left with only 2 more scores to go up. Time to register him I think - he can start winning some dosh! Judge was Mary Robley who is List 2 and I always remember her being quite fair but not tending towards over-generous when I had Dan. He got 7 for his entry, 6 for the spooky serpentine, 7's for the canter work, 6's for the medium trot, 6 for the next serpentine, 7 for the right canter transition (serious progress!) 6 for the CTC - that's still a bit above us at the moment. 7 and "marching" for his medium walk, 8 for FWLR (damn this one not having double marks!) "good steps and relaxation", then straight 7's for the move up into trot, then canter then medium canter then change the rein across the diagonal and the medium canter on R rein. back down to 6's for the trot stretch and final halt as bit unsteady to contact in final half circle onto centre line.
Collectives: 877 for paces, 67 for impulsion, 66 for submission and 77 for rider. Comments: "Horse nicely balanced between your leg and hand. Could maintain more suppleness and swing over back in med trot work. The odd spook but correctly trained".
How good does it feel to get those comments from a List 2 judge. Silly pony having flids about sunlight though - score could have been amazing rather than quite amazing!
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