Before running through it, I worked on the pirouettes for the first time! Woo! The left one is perfect as always, he stayed way up into the contact and only sucked back a little bit. Tracey, I'm sure, would disagree with this, but I totally felt like we could get through PSG or even I1 if the only pirouettes we were required to do were to the left. Not to discount how much his right pirouette has improved! To the right I was pleasantly surprised by his ability to turn. I always felt like we could get the level of collection required to the right, but the moment we started turning, we fell apart. Today he certainly wasn't as rideable in the pirouettes to the right as he was to the left, but he definitely did something that resembled a pirouette and that is improvement!!
Onto the test! The trot work in the test is quite fun and is as if it was made for Rico. Instead of starting out with a big medium across a long diagonal (which is a great way to get Rico running on his face and me paranoid about his front legs), the test starts with shoulder-in down half the long side, then a medium trot on a short diagonal. I understand that this is a hard movement because it really tests that your shoulder-in is correct, a shitty shoulder-in won't straighten out into a good medium... but for Rico, this is great! Less medium trots and it forces me to be present in the shoulder-in.
After the first one of those shoulder-in to mediums, the test has you do a trot half pass zig zag. Rico and I used to struggle through those but after Tracey's half pass boot camp, they're SO easy! Before tonight, I was going to see if we could address this movement in my lesson on Tuesday but I honestly don't think we need to. After another one of the shoulder-in to mediums, we do the walk work. I like that because it allows me to take a breather and collect my thoughts before cantering.
The canter work starts with a medium canter down the long side, then you go across the diagonal and pirouette near X. I love that it starts with a medium canter, I'll go more in depth later, but energetic winter-Rico is turning into lethargic summer-Rico and the medium canter is a good test to see if he's in front of my leg before we have to pirouette. The downside of this test is that it starts with a right pirouette... shmeh. Oh well. Another medium (or extended, whatever) canter and then another across the diagonal, pirouette near X. After returning to the rail, we go across the diagonal with three lead changes near quarterline, centerline, and quarterline again. Then another trot extension and up centerline.
The test tonight rode quite well. The first centerline was good but my halt was off center, ugh, what a ridiculous reason to lose points. The trot work rode quite easily, as did the walk work. I got really anxious coming into the pirouettes since I know they aren't strong, but both were actually okay in the test. No breaking and, although the right one was big and the left one behind my leg, I felt more confident in them than I ever have. The tempis were surprisingly good, he was on the aids and only kicked out once! Final centerline was better since it's in trot :)
I was quite pleased that our first test ride in a while was so successful, but I was not pleased at Rico's attitude toward the test. It's getting hot (90s today) and he's a bit out of shape, so he hasn't had the greatest work ethic in the last week. It's good to know that he needs to be very fit for him to actually focus and work hard, but that doesn't take away how frustrating he was today. I felt like I was lugging him through the entire test. He didn't do any one thing wrong, but nothing was very spectacular and I flapped all over the place to keep him going.
After the test, I went back to the walk to work on the walk pirouettes, since both were a tiny bit big, and found that he was even more behind my leg. That was when I really got frustrated, how hard is it to walk forward? The horse just did a fourth level test! That's hard work! I expect him to be lethargic during his canter work, that's difficult, but the walk? Come on you silly horse! It didn't help that during our walk break after our test, he ran off with me because he saw a pitchfork. Clearly he had energy...
So I put him in canter and we worked on being energetic. It was a tough ride, but in the end he was beautifully in front of my leg, even in the pirouette canter and in the trot half pass! As he became more energetic, he became happier to do his work too, so I think that we need to address the energy from the get go rather than waiting until part way through our ride. Neither of us are happy when he's lazy, and he's certainly not going to be the one to fix it!
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| The laziest of horses |
So I'm for sure showing at either Dressage at the Gaits (June 1/2) or SFP Chapter (June 8/9). I'm just going to keep doing 4-1 to improve on my ability to ride all the other movements in the show ring, and when Tracey says "sign up for 4-2 instead," I will do just that. It's time to stop being such chicken shit about bad scores and just SHOW without putting up all these goddamn roadblocks about what tests I need to be riding.
I just went through some pictures and look how different this horse goes now! I need current pictures... these are a bit old:
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| Look at his neck shape and how high my hands are, yikes |
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| At our first lesson with Tracey, short in the neck |
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| A month after our first lesson, hands lowered and HOLY NECK MUSCLE |
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