Twilight Dressage

Twilight Dressage is a "show" put on by the local eventing group held on a Tuesday once a month during the summer. There are three rings running simultaneously at the farm where dressage is held for horse trials with L judges. You go in, ride, the judge may or may not give you feedback, and then they give you your test. There's a scribe so you get scores and comments, but it's not given a final score and it doesn't count for anything. 

BM had space on her trailer so she invited me along and I figured for $30 it was a cheap and easy way to run through our dressage test (BN A) for this weekend at the venue it's being held at.

Of course, since it's run by this particular eventing crowd, they were calling for storms all afternoon into the evening when this was going on, but there was no word on whether they were going to cancel it or what was going on down there. BM and I religiously kept and eye on the radar and on the facebook page, and in the end decided, fuck it. Let's just go. 

the storm starting to blow in as we waited for bm
to ride her final test

I was the first ride of the three of us at 5:52. I gave myself fifteen minutes to get warmed up and it was still more than I really needed. Opie wanted to look around and take everything in, but as soon as I asked him to go to work he went right into it. 

Of course then I asked him to walk away from his friends to go around the ring by himself and that made him Angry and Tense. Fortunately the judge was taking awhile writing down comments on the test before me so I had enough time to ease his rage a little and get him softer. 

I thought the test itself went fine. He had moments where he softened up for me even though I could tell he was still tense/angry. His free walk was nonexistent which was a bummer because his walk can score so super high when he's loose. Overall though we did the things in the places and ended with a square halt. 

Our judge is actually the director of the equine program at Houghton so I knew she was going to give it to me straight. Which she did LOL. She asked, "What happens if you soften your hand and let him reach his neck out for the contact more?" To which I said, "He softens too and the contact becomes steadier. AND YET HERE WE ARE."

So we had a little chat about how maybe I should actually try to work on the same comment I keep getting from everyone on the planet so my horse's neck doesn't get so short. I am trying, it's just so harrddddd. BM did agree that--knowing Opie--it was a good test for him and the lack of drama was the real win there. 

I went back to the trailer to grab myself a gatorade and the other two waters so I didn't grab my test right away. That was a mistake because they then lost it and it was never recovered which means I have no idea how I scored or what any of the comments were. Fuckers. 

A bunch of people bailed (probably because they had no faith in it being held) so BM and V were able to get their rides in way ahead of time, and we had the horses on the trailer and back on the road just in front of the storm. 

In true fashion, they were tearing down rings and tents as people were showing up to ride at their scheduled times because they decided that they were going to quit judging at the time the radar said the storm was going to come in, but they didn't bother announcing this in any way shape or form. 

It's looking sketch on the weather front for the rest of the week so who knows if this horse trial will happen.