Pressure was off for this competition. Got my points needed for Regionals at Novice now. I know N30 isn't really one of my preferred tests for Monty. G&R in trot is really not good and our canter-trot-canters across the diagonal aren't amazing either. The judge makes me nervous as I've written for her and she is not the most generous and also can be quite harsh with her comments she doesn't write down. So, we went in and I overshot the centre line and could feel her despair through the glass - two 1/2 10m circles went well and I felt I kept the power through the 2nd half circle to the right which is good progress. Then follows 2 G&R and medium trots so tried our best. 4sec halt was fine, walk work ok until he jogged just before C. Canter work was nice though - really thought about lifting him up through his shoulders and his CTC's went well. Medium canter not his strong point again though so really didn't feel it was a high scoring test.
Back out to the warmup for a bit, wandered round then practised the walk to rein back to trot to canter right a few times. Into the arena for E49 and had same judge who scored our Novice highly 2wks ago (Mary Robley) - she'd made comments about his canter needing to be more uphill so made sure to try and ride him uphill. It didn't start great as he was behind my leg and I didn't feel the figure of 8 around X was very nice. He really tried in the medium trots and the leg yields though. Halt to rein back to trot went quite smoothly then into the canter work and he was lovely. Really kept him up and forwards and he did the G&R, loops and changes of leg through trot on two half 10m circles really well. Medium canter on a circle felt a bit motorbikey and stretch circle in canter didn't feel like he stretched much but generally pleased with his efforts as not an easy Elem and first time we've done that one.
As I came out was told we'd won the first test on 66.92%. First out of 22 in the Restricted, =3rd overall. Gobsmacked to be honest. Shows how much better he is these days as even in a test that doesn't play to his strengths he can still pull off a win on a good score in a big class. Went round to untack him and message pops up on phone - in the lead on 68% in the Elementary!!!! Jaw hit the ground again. 68%!!! Ended up winning by 3.5% in a class of 10 Restricteds (no Open riders). Really couldn't believe it. He got straight 7's for his canter work and an 8 for his free walk. No mention of being on the forehand in the canter work so big progress made there. Really have to not let him lull me into giving him a longer length of rein and letting him fall on his forehand. He is strong enough now to sit behind and carry himself and straight 7's is awesome! Both tests commented that he needs to be able to take more weight behind to be able to produce good mediums so that is our big thing to work on still as other than that he's creeping ever closed to the magic 70%. So pleased with him. He's won 5 out of his last 6 BD outings - that's a pretty good record! He'll have December off dressage then we'll get a bit more match practice in before Regionals end of Feb.
