Dressage to music RC qualifier. Sands Farm 29-06-13

Warmed up well for first test.  Went into the arena and had a meltdown at the man sitting at the side of the arena with a CD player on a table rigged up to a load of speakers round the arena with cables everywhere.  Cue a lot of rearing and spinning and general refusal to go anywhere near anything.  Couple that with sunbeams all over the floor and we had a very tense orange horse who felt like he just went flat as a pancake when we came down the centre line.  He tripped several times which I'm convinced is down to the surface as others commented the same and he definitely felt noddy on the right rein which is interesting given it's the left fore he's been lame on recently and the right rein nodding is his age old thing that he tends to show when he's not going forwards and I partly wonder whether it's due to him not stepping through properly from his ongoing dodgy right hind.  Will talk to the vet about this when next see him - might do some experimental hock injections and see if it improves him.

His canter work felt lovely - the music really helped me relax into a rhythm with him and apart from a tense spooky medium canter it felt really nice.  Whole thing left me feeling a bit deflated though.  Ended up on 68.88% and 5th overall out of 12 which is disappointing as I know he can do better than that.  Although judge admitted afterwards she is stone deaf so god knows why she was judging a music class - I have no idea!  We got straight 7's for our artistic marks despite her saying it was nice music and good transitions shown to match the music.   She did comment on the right rein and said "not always through to contact on right rein in trot work" - again makes me think about his back end more than his feet.  Technical he got about 67% - got 8 for medium walk and for his 5m canter loop on the right rein and also in his fluency of transitions he got 67788 so nice to see the 8's creeping in and proved he can produce them but only a 5 for his medium trot and 6 for his trot right.  7's for everything else.

Got back on him to warmup for the Elem and he just felt flat - had huge argument in the corner because I wanted him to bend right to do a leg yield and he said no and stood on his back legs big style.  He felt sound still but just not wanting to do the changes of bend for the leg yield, getting his knickers in a big knot.  Did some lovely simple changes but not really off my leg in the upwards transitions.  I just felt like he wasn't on side and ummed and aahed for ages but decided to withdraw from the Elem.  It was the same judge, same arena and the others in my class were much better than us so didn't feel like had anything to gain from doing it and was worried he might trip and hurt himself in the arena.  I suspect he was probably a bit tired as we did a lot of work the previous day working out the floorplans which ideally would not have been done the day before the show but was left with no choice after only getting shoes back on him that morning.

Been for a hack today round Puttenham and he still feels a bit lacklustre and was chipping in some short ones at the little jumps we did although seemed perfectly happy to go for a hoon around even though it was ridiculously hot.  Hope it cools down a bit this week.  Have got Parwood booked on Wed afternoon for some jumping and will otherwise give him a quiet week.  Emailed Tweseldown to see if I can swap to the 90 as just dont feel we've had ideal prep for the 100.  Really hope they can accomodate us.