Why We Can't Have Nice Things

On Sunday, TC and I attended a schooling show! We've been to this facility once before for a schooling show in May, where we did 1-1 and 1-2. This time, we did 2-1 and 2-2. That's a lot of progress in five months.

TC wasn't quite ready to debut at Second, in my opinion. The counter canter is weak, the simple changes are hit or miss, and his medium trot is way out behind. I want to fix all of those things before we try the rated ring. But it was a schooling show and my trainer rolled her eyes at me when I said I wasn't sure if I was going to do it. So we did it!

Yeah she was right

We got there and TC unloaded well, walked quietly around the facility with only one whinny, and then proceeded to scream and rear and slam himself against my trailer when I tied him back up for 20 minutes to wait for our test. Um, yeah.

Once as I started to tack him up, he was all business though. He walked quietly over to the covered arena and had a great warm up. So great that I got someone asking me when he'd be for sale. He is totally her kind of horse apparently, not spooky, super quiet, totally relaxed. I'm like um... did you see him rearing at the trailer? No?

I love warming up in arenas with mirrors, so I finally got to look at the walk pirouettes (they look amazing) and his canter work (could be better) in person. We did some simple changes, worked on the collected canter, and did some lateral work before heading over to the outdoor arenas.

As I walked outside, I saw E!! Or really, E saw me and said hi! E is a rider at L's old barn and I had met her a few times before L moved. It was so fun to see a familiar face (a few of them) since this was another solo show for me.

Walk to canter, sometimes this is sketchy because he is still
gaining confidence in them, but yay we picked it up

In the outdoor, we continued our warm up with some medium trot and canter to try to get him a bit more forward. See, the whole time we were warming up before our 2-1 test, I was kind of having this dilemma. TC has been so reactive and terrible in new places, even this year. So when he is relaxed and quiet, I want to praise him and not get on his case about it. HOWEVER Second level is a bit beyond our ability right now so he really needs to be "on" for me to not feel like I'm hoisting him through the tests.

The perfect balance eluded me and we went into the show ring a bit behind the leg.

The test felt kind of blah. I felt like I was chasing him through it, the canter wasn't as collected as it has been, and there were some questionable moments, like the rein back where he kind of just gets hollow. BUT this was the first test in a very long time with no major shenanigans. He didn't try to leave the arena (I mean like once he thought about it okay), he didn't launch through the air, he didn't bolt... nothing. He just went in and did the thing. He did the thing behind my leg and made me work a lot harder than I'd like to, but the thing was done without any antics.

10m circle, the fact that he's even capable of doing these is still
kind of amazing to me

Our next test was 2-2 and after I reminded myself what the pattern was, I walked him straight back over to the show ring right before we were due in. My goal was to just jazz him the fuck up. Get the hell in front of my leg. He was not amused. His favorite part of the day was standing and being pet by E and by the person who wanted to buy him. Why not more of this? Why do the dressage?

The 2-2 was much better, sort of (I wish I had video but the videographer was feeling sick so had to go home). Our walk pirouettes were on point, our shoulder-ins felt much more normal, and I actually had enough trot to get a medium out of him. The canter work started out terrible. I went to put him into canter, which is a transition from trot at C. At C there was also a beautiful flower box with the letter C on it.

TC, destroyer of all that is beautiful, decided to kick the SHIT out of the flower box as he took off into canter. The flower box went FLYING and broke apart, flowers everywhere. The letter C was in the arena upside down. The box had a large dent in it.

Second medium trot... er... more of a lengthening, but he will
figure it out!

I was fucking mortified but we didn't get rung so we kept going. He did well in his counter canter, though my geometry was kind of off because I had legitimately practiced this test once. The simple changes both felt like they had one trot step in them (though the judge disagreed and we got 8s on those). Coming around near C again to the other counter canter, TC saw the wreckage of the flower box that he had kicked over and decided to get all sassy about it. Then he slammed to a halt having to pass it again in trot.

At the end, I walked up to the judge and apologized profusely for him. I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to have to purchase another box, but luckily the box was made of plastic and was able to be popped back into place.

The judge had a break and we're friends so we got to chatting after my ride. She and I were at the same barn when I was riding Leo in 2011. She was also the judge at the schooling show we did in May of last year when TC was an absolute dingbat. She reminded me how bad he was there and told me that she was impressed with our progress. I didn't know my scores at this point so thought she was just being nice. I told her that he'd calmed down a lot, too calm at this show. She said he didn't look behind my leg and actually looked really good, and I was like hah I'm glad he looks better than he felt!

Medium canter, and yeah he did kind of try to leave the arena
(and then you see me pull on the left rein since THAT is the cure
for everything, right?) 

And he sure did, we walked away with a 68.788% on the first test and a 72.436% on our second test. The 72 was enough to win the open high point for the show.

I have a lot of respect for this judge, she's a beautiful rider and got her current horse as a yearling and did the breaking/all the training herself. Buuuut I still think she was WAY generous. For example, we got a 7.5 for kicking down the flower box at C and that should have been like a 4. We did get our classic 6 for submission on 2-2 though. Any time he does his bullshit he gets a 6 on submission. I was pleased to see a bunch of 8s (even if they also felt generous), including on the medium trot, a walk to canter transition, our right walk pirouette, shoulder-in right, a medium canter that I actually rode boldly, both of our simple changes out of counter canter, my rider position (yay), and his gaits (yay). Still, most of those were probably more like 7-7.5s at a rated show.

Her comments were fun. On 2-1 she said "Bold horse. Training is headed the right way" and also noted that he was holding up a front foot during one of his halts. Um. Yes he wants to paw and our halts are the fucking worst. On the 2-2, she said " Funny and bold horse! Have fun!" Which is a huge change from "GOOD LUCK" on one of our tests this year...

Despite it feeling very generous, I'm choosing to celebrate anyway because I can get myself all down about the tests feeling a little blah. But we went and debuted at Second level and hey, someone thought we deserved a 72%. There may be an asterisk beside that debut, but I'm happy about it anyway.

We'll keep plugging away to get the tests more rideable. I'm still unsure of whether I want to do the rated show at the end of this month. We'd be doing 1-3 and 2-1, so it's not like we have to do the 2-2, which is definitely a tricky test for us right now. But I have this week to decide!