Back in the Court

Saturday was TC's third show, and first outing all by himself. It was also one of my first shows in a while where I hauled all by myself. Something about doing Intro B on a four year old at a schooling show doesn't entice friends and family to want to get up at 6am to accompany me like doing a Grand Prix does. Weird. But I am appreciative that my parents were driving right by the show facility that morning to go to Costco, so they stopped in to take pictures.

Probably one of my favorite pictures of us, even though I don't
usually like posting trot pictures or my hands

Warming up while being charged away with, charging does do
wonders for his inside hind leg though

In the morning, I got to the barn with just enough time to gather stuff and load. Now I say I had time to load and I mean that I had just enough time to walk a willing horse into the trailer, not enough time just in case TC didn't want to get into a strange trailer by himself. I realized this stupid mistake AFTER I woke up and had no time to push my schedule earlier.

Luckily, I may be stupid, but TC is a saint so he hopped right in.

I left him in the trailer while I grabbed my number. The judge was running late so I took my time getting ready, walking TC all around the facility.

He was actually okay. He was a bit spooky and screamed in my face a bunch, but he stayed with me the whole time and improved when I put him to work walking and halting and reining back.

In the round pen, he was AWESOME. A little scared of one place where some flappy stuff was outside of the pen, but other than that, totally relaxed and willing. After he walked, trotted, and cantered with and without the chambon, it was about twenty minutes before my ride time so I led him over to the warm up.

I wish his chambon wasn't squishing his neck to make the dip
in front of his withers so pronounced... 

Return of the rogue left hand

He... was fine. I got on and he was just like at the neighbor's arena. He's literally never stepped in this arena in his life. And it was fine. We walked, trotted, and cantered. He was looking curiously around, so wasn't as through as he usually is, but there was very little tension and he felt as rideable as he had ever felt at a show.

Unfortunately the show was so small that our only other companion in the warm up, who TC had decided was his new best friend, left and disappeared around the corner for their test. TC was getting a little upset and I didn't want to push it, so we left and finished our warm up at the walk near the show ring. He was fine with that.

Lots of waiting

His color is doing weird shit

The first test was kinda meh. One thing I will say is there was NO spooking at the judges booth. He walked right up and then ignored it the whole time. Unfortunately, though, our new BFF was the ride before us. In a hope of being intelligent, we went in right as the horse halted to try to get around the arena a few times. Nope. Judge rang us in the second that horse was out of the court. So poor TC is trotting up centerline and juuuust noticing that new BFF is leaving the arena. THE HORROR.

All in all, it wasn't a bad test, but it was nothing to write home about. He stayed with me, but he was rigid in the neck at times and that made me rigid in my hand, which I fought to quell. I felt constricted by the test movements because I really wanted to spiral him in or do a transition or whatever to break up the tension in his back, but we were stuck on these huge circles so it was hard to get him back to me when he got distracted. Definitely something to work on at home- he needs to be ever more moveable on a straight line (like being able to push his ribcage out independently of an exercise, being able to bring him a bit overbent on a straight line, etc)

The free walk was basically just me leaning forward in hopes that I would weigh his front end down a bit to get him to stretch down. This is my fault as I really haven't focused much on it at home. Big wake up call for me since it's not like he's going to magically practice it on his own.

But we stayed in the court and he was much better than he had been at the last two shows.

If he'd just go like this all the time, no more dip in front of the
withers! I love how round he is here

He is so fun

There was no one in warm up (which was not visible from the show ring) and I didn't want him to get upset, so I opted to just hang out on him for the four rides between my two rides (both Intro B). He was fine with that, he stood quietly and watched new BFF the whole time, who was also waiting around. We did some leg yields and shoulder-in along the side of the arena, as well as worked on the free walk, since what better time to reinstall a movement than when wandering around the showgrounds between tests.

By the time we went back in, he felt pretty good. I picked up the trot and he had a coughing fit. The judge rang the bell. During our coughing fit. So I had to decide between going in or trying to do a weird loop around A to give him more time to stop coughing. I just went in because fuck it, I'm not going for scores here.

His tail is something else

Medium walk

This test was MUCH better, no regrets doing two tests. He was a lot more rideable and I felt like there were moments that mimicked what we get at home. There were also some moments where he didn't steer, got distracted by new BFF and other new BFF who he latched onto in the show ring itself when the horse walked by.

I was really pleased by our circles in that test, they were super soft and round. For the first time, our left circle actually contained the once illusive bend. Other than a moment of wanting to canter in the trot transition to the right, he was so great in the second half.

I feel like it's too bad that the Intro/Training tests are so simple and short, because I would have really liked to have another few circles in that test for him. Obviously that's not the point of dressage, but he really started to settle in the second half. I just need to hope for judges and scribes that take forever to write up the person before me so we get a solid couple of times around the ring.

CANTERING WOULD BE MORE FUN HERE

Super round in walk

The judging seemed odd to me. The scores weren't terribly off, although lower than I had expected, a 60% for our first test and a 62% for our second. After watching the videos, I probably would have gone 62/65 (and actually I "judged" it myself from the videos and calculated it and that was exactly what came out- although I am hardly an unbiased party).

The comments were weird though. There were no comments about how retracted he was in the first test, only comments about how I was riding too rigid in the hand, which is true, but hardly a theme. I was only rigid when he got away from me. But I agree that I should control that better.

Rigid right hand due to transition being
kind of expressive

Around the outside

The second test had a comment in the collectives about how he needs to be more uphill and a comment on a downward transition that he wasn't on his haunches. Nowhere in the purpose of the levels at Introductory level, or for that matter, Training or First level either, does it say that a horse needs to be uphill or be taking more weight behind. That starts at Second. I was surprised by those comments. I'd been pretty impressed with the other judges' comments at our other shows so this made me think a bit more.

I'm not claiming that an uphill balance won't help me out at Introductory level- TC is not a particularly downhill horse, but he does get rigid in the neck and drops his withers and we are working on that. But the uphill comment was equivalent to a comment at Training/First level saying "needs more collection," I mean yeah that'd be nice. If TC was more uphill and better balanced, maybe we'd be doing Second, but it isn't required at the level we're at so find another way of insinuating it if you really want to nail me for his balance. Something like "horse gets retracted in the neck and drops withers, loses balance" would be better. I feel like uphill should not be a word used at Introductory level unless it's a compliment. And the transition where he "wasn't on his haunches" was one where he tripped behind because he got distracted. "Needs better balance in downward transition" would be a much better comment than "not on his haunches."

He now has brown eyeliner, which is weird

Our halts aren't the best

It's a schooling show, I won't focus on the judging or the scores, since that is not why we are doing these anyway. But the odd comments and how quiet he was about showing did get me thinking about doing more clinics and less schooling shows for the rest of the year though. I mean, to really break it down, a schooling show is where I pay about a hundred dollars to go to a new place, ride in a new arena, and get feedback from an L judge. A clinic is where I pay about a hundred dollars to go to a new place, ride in a new arena, and get feedback from an S judge or an international competitor. Seems kind of stupid to do the former. But I do appreciate getting him in the routine of showing, but he seems to be embracing it now a bit more.

I'm even thinking of putting off our first rated show until the spring to possibly ride him in the Mary Wanless clinic this winter if I get my counter offer on this job. It's always been a goal of mine to ride with her, and what better way to torture myself with biomechanics than on a four year old, right? But I can't sit the trot on him (Carl Hester says that they don't ever sit on a young horse's back) so maybe it'd be better to wait until next year when I can get more out of it.

Despite the judging issues, I was so so pleased with him. My dad has never met him and was super impressed, which I was happy about because my dad always compares horses to Rico and TC is nothing much in comparison to Rico. TC loves everyone so I think my dad's impression of him was helped by TC's tendency to cuddle with everyone he meets.

TC loves attention