Four for Four

Yesterday was the last show of our rated show series that TC and I were doing over at my trainer's barn.

My ride times were later in the day again, though not nearly as late as last time. I pulled in and got everything all situated, tacked the horse up, and got into the warm up with 20 minutes or so to warm up.

Good pony

After last show, I decided to try two new things: give myself less time to warm up and give myself more horse in general the day of the show.

Now that we've been to this facility I think six times, I feel pretty confident that TC isn't going to randomly come out like a crazy horse who needs 40-50 minutes of warm up for Training level. I also learned at the last show with two breaks in canter that I probably wanted more horse so TC had more energy to keep cantering in the show ring. The like thirty seconds of canter required at Training level is so hard guys. Even when you're schooling Second at home and canter for 10-12 minutes a day. So hard. Poor TC.

A bit up around the outside

In warm up I felt like I had a ton of horse, but TC held it together really well. The thing I like about this horse is for the most part, when he has energy, he will always chill at the walk. He might prance or swing his neck around, but he's not a ticking time bomb. It's the reason why I can leave him sitting for a week and get on with no longe.

So I felt totally safe as we went into our first test, Training 2. This test always rides well for TC. And yesterday was no exception. We walked away with a few eights (a diagonal, a trot circle, our last centerline, and rider position) and lots of 7s and 7.5s. Unfortunately, while there were no antics in the canter like breaking, TC was really up for the canter work but STILL behind my leg. Something is still going on in the show ring with him in the canter work. The judge marked us down accordingly with some 7s and a couple 6.5s. We also got, for the first time, a comment about how TC was behind the vertical a bit. Definitely due to having more horse in the show ring, good to know.

We still walked away with a 71.3% though! So that felt really good.

SASS

Training 3 didn't go as well. It got a bit cooler so TC was a little more distracted. And we had a few giant bobbles in the test, like when TC tripped into the right lead and then decided to let us all know how he felt about tripping by leaping into the air and kicking at the place he tripped. Cue giant eye roll. You tell 'em, TC.

In Training 2 I had accidentally not handed my phone off and it hadn't budged out of my back brace, so I didn't even think to hand it off in Training 3. Well, unfortunately that bobble started to dislodge it and by the time we were trotting, it was out of my back brace. I somehow caught it with my hand and had a decision to make coming in to the stretch circle: do it with my phone in my hand, try to shove my phone back into my back brace, or toss my phone out of the arena. So I tossed it. TC spooked at it a little but still put in a good stretch trot for him (still a 6.5 in the show ring though, the curse of the friesian, though we're working on it).

After the test, I had to hop off and grab my phone, leading to much laughing from the audience. At least the judge didn't notice!

Unfortunately due to some additional tension in the canter, TC's scores came way down and we ended with a 65.68%. I honestly thought that was a little low, but I also think that I've been being spoiled a bit too with a bunch of high scores on this horse. We got a lot more 6.5s than last test, and nothing over a 7, which hasn't ever happened before. I thought there were some places where he could have given us a 7.5 but I also haven't watched the video yet.

Me saying "oh well" to a bad test and me
having to throw my phone out of the show
ring... at least it didn't happen at the FEI level!

But it wasn't a bad show by any means! I'm really proud of TC these last four shows, he's really figured his shit out, gotten us some good scores (five of eight scores over 70! all over 65!), and given me a lot of confidence about our future.

We still have a long way to go until First level is possible with similar success, but we've got nearly two months before the next set of shows starts. And when I think about where TC and I were at the end of June.... well, I think two months is quite a long time for some good improvement on both of our parts.

I'm not sure if the next step is to grab two more Training level scores to finish out TC's Training level performance certificate thing, or if we'll make the jump to First. I wish this show had made that decision really obvious to me, but we'll be doing a lot more test riding and a few lessons between now and then where I can really make that decision.

But regardless of what might happen in October, we will continue perfecting all that First level stuff and hopefully hit the trail some too!