Must Come Down

I woke up to my kitty who had gotten into EVERYTHING last night (she is cute but she has moved right in and is clearly redecorating) so I ran out of the house before finishing this blog post. My commute doubles in length if I leave after 7am so when it gets to be 6:50, I just drop everything I'm doing and hit the road. My work computer hates blogger, specifically hates letting me put pictures in posts, so here is a post with no pictures, sorry for the lack of visual entertainment! My writing will have to suffice for now.


Sunday morning I woke up to an awesome kitty and clocks that were all mismatched. Goodbye daylight after work! Really hoping TC adjusts well enough to that (Tuesday edit: it's not looking good!).

I opted to run errands and relax in the morning, not having taken a full weekend off since I got this job. I was also giving TC both Monday and Tuesday off (he got turned out in the dark and the rain yesterday, yuck) so I wanted to ride him as late as I could so that he had less hours between this ride and my Wednesday ride.


I finally got out to the barn around 3. TC was great to tack up as usual. I feel silly saying that at this point, he's always really good. A couple of people were around and asked about him. It's always the same conversations, but I don't mind. He's really big. Yes he is. How old is he? He's four. Wow is he still growing? I fucking hope not. He's so cute. Thanks! What breed is he? He's a registered FSH. He looks spanish/andalusian/friesian/warmblood/fucking enormous. Yep!

I put all of TC's longeing contraptions on him, wondering why I was even doing that because he's been so good recently. I hopped on and as we walked to the arena, TC was shying from everything and it started getting windy. Yep, that's why I put all of our longeing stuff on, because sometimes we REALLY need it.

And Sunday was one of those days.

I chose to ride outside since there were a bunch of girls out there. TC started out okay, a little amped because the pasture horses were walking quietly. How offensive. Then the girls left the arena to go to the covered arena down below. Great. Fucking no.


TC held it together as best he could and I made him trot another circle before giving up and longeing. No point in opening another massive can of worms. I really wish that he handled things like this better, since this is not really conducive to showing. But this is my horse and I have to do what is best for his training. Because I can ride through it, but all it does is freak him out more and get him all in a tither, while getting off and longeing seems to settle him down more.

After a nice long longe, where he got to work on 15 meter canter circles because why the fuck not if we're stuck on the longe line for 25 minutes. May as well inch ever closer to First level despite only functioning with part of a brain at times.

I got on and he was pretty good to ride after his brain was reset with the longeing. We worked primarily on the stretch circle, and did a little leg yield too. He was tired and sweaty so we ended without too much more.


The stretch circle really got me thinking about next year's show season. And I started sounding like a snob so brace yourself. Basically I want to make sure that I'm not just showing for the sake of showing. I actually don't like showing that much. Given the chance to ride in a clinic with someone awesome vs showing and getting a mediocre score at a low level... I'll take the clinic. I love dressage so much more than I love showing, but when I do show, I like to do well.

So I mean I do want to show, but I was thinking about this coming year on my drive home. What score would I have to feel like I was guaranteed in order for me to think that the show was a success? As in, what score would have me coming off of the ride thinking that the money was worth it and that I was glad I went vs skipping the show in favor of a clinic with one of the absolutely amazing dressage trainers in the area? 65% is the answer to that. I would want to basically guarantee myself a 65%.

So what does that mean? Well, our canter work is going to score one point below our trot work, and our walk work will be hit or miss. All those scores will depend on his level of tension. Regardless of what he does, my rider score should be up there, maybe a 6.5-8. His gaits will be a 6.5 or 7 even if he's tense unless the judge is feeling mean. His impulsion and submission will probably reflect our canter score. Our stretch circle at its best (like what we had at our old barn) will be a 6 but at its worst will be a 4. Same with our free walk. He simply does not have those anymore.


After mathing a little bit, I need to get a pretty solid 6.5 on the canter work and 7s and 8s on our trot work to get a 65%. We are not there even if he's perfectly relaxed. Like his canter is just a 5.5 right now when he's being good, he's tense and off the bit a lot of the time OR he's just unsteerable. His trot is okay now but it's nothing to write home about, probably a solid 7 if he's relaxed. But man, looking at these scores, if he's tense, we're looking at a score in the 50s. He's going to be tense. He just doesn't understand his life just yet.

So if we lose about ten percentage points due to tension, which I think is a reasonable thing to think- one full point per movement when he's tense, I need to feel like every single day at home, where he is theoretically comfortable, that we put in a solid 75% test at any level we show at. I mean like...  HAHAHAHA.


We're not showing for a while. I'm thinking that a nice June or July debut when it's super hot out would be good. I mean give me the 100+ degree weather. I will happily sweat to death in my wool coat (I paid money for it and I'm going to wear it, damn it) and hope that my horse will be feeling the same way.

I have some plans this winter to get him to different barns for clinics, as I basically get to throw half my 2016 show budget at them now. I think the more times he goes to a new facility, gets a longe, has to work, and then gets to go home, the more he'll get into that routine without basically just making me feel like shit as I put 55% after 55% onto my record. I'm kind of a snob like that. Schooling shows may be a possibility, but again I've always taken some issue with some of the L graduates in the area, it'd have to be the right person and the right facility and the right date for me to want to go.

I'm also planning a couple of sleepaway camps for TC this winter. I'll be visiting my parents for both holidays and he's going to be shoved at random boarding stables in the area and then trailered fucking everywhere because I'll have easy access to a rig again.

By 2017, this horse is going to be a bomb ass show horse. Just when we get to the interesting levels!