Dressage video & tests

Wow I am super behind in posting. I blame work. Multiple property emergencies = not enough time for blogging + lots of stress.

To catch up briefly, below is the dressage rundown from the Shepherd Ranch horse trials 2 weekends ago. XC video is still not available =(.  Meanwhile we went to a show this past Sunday and it went quite well. We have another one scheduled this coming weekend too. Also my husband and I bought a truck, but I’ll post details on everything just as soon as I can. Meanwhile: dressage.

Thursday’s Pre-Dressage
Considering our warm-up was quite tense, I was happy that we were able to complete the test, and even that we had some good moments. The judge was very pleasant and had excellent feedback. Her scores were quite generous – meant to be an encouragement before our competitions testing the next day, I expect.

Here’s the score sheet

She explained that “more activity” means that I should be scooping with my seat and squeezing the reins every.single.stride.  Which seems noisy to me, but she had me try it and it was effective.

On to Friday’s competition dressage round!  First, the video.

I was actually pretty proud of our first half of the test, including our free walk. We lost it thereafter, but in ways that don’t bother too much me since I know practice and more dressage competitions will help us improve. 

Not that it bothered me in the least, but isn’t the judge’s final comment a bit cheeky?   Well, here’s a copy of the “purpose” of the test. She’s right – we certainly didn’t nail it! Ha!