WNYDA Summer Fest II

I gave us twenty minutes to warm up for our first test on Sunday: 2-3 in the outdoor under a new judge. 

I kept to the same basics as the afternoon before where I got after him over the lateral work in the walk so we didn't have to fight even more at the trot. He did get tapped a few times this time around as he was being so recalcitrant. He was better once I let him move into the trot so I finally let it rest and moved on to the canter. I was battling an FEI rider for space in the ring and I really wanted to run through the counter canter serpentines after he broke/did a flying change the day before. We ended up having a bit of a go-round over that, too, but eventually I got him to hold it both ways.

I let him have a good stretchy walk break. When I picked him back up I could feel his back tighten up, but I kept quietly sending him forward and eventually he loosened up again just in time to go in for our test.

Second Level Test 3

It's a good thing I've ridden this test a million times because I hadn't run through it in my head once, but my body just went ahead and started riding it. Halfway through my lateral work, I was like, "Damn, I sure hope this has all been right up until now because I haven't thought about what the next movement is once."

Unfortunately that lateral work was still shit--too tight and no bend which earned us a score crushing slew of 5 and 5.5s. 

I thought I had the TOH sorted in warm up by getting him super collected and slowed down, and while he did get a 6 for the first one, he whipped the bitch around on the second one and bombed it with a 3.

We finished the test with a loooong line of 6s until--you guesssed it!--the second counter canter serpentine. He broke to the trot for one step, I immediately jumped on it and corrected it and carried on, but that's all it fucking takes for a 5. 

Her overall comments were about bracing and tension which were spot on. The two mistakes and shit lateral work ruined what would have been an otherwise decently scoring test, and by that I mean at least a 60%. Instead it was a 59.4% (2nd) which killed my soul a little bit lol. 

We had another five hour wait until the second test--2-2 in the indoor with the same judge from the morning. 

Warm up was awful. I asked him to do a couple TOHs to start as I had been doing and he kept trying to evade with a half pass so I got after him for that. That upset him greatly to the point where I eventually dropped my whip (which I hadn't even touched him with) and tried just sending him forward in the canter. He was forward alright. Like straight up trying to drop his head and bolt. 

I was like, "Mother fuck I need every second to do a million transitions to see if I can't get him to lighten up and LISTEN." Instead the ring steward told me I was on deck--aka had two more minutes. Okay, fine, I'm going to take every second of those two minutes. Half a lap later they were yelling at me that they were waiting on me in the ring so I yanked Opie out of the shitty runaway tense canter and hustled over to the indoor. 

They were not waiting for me. The inexperienced ring steward there had never seen a dressage equitation class run so she just wanted me to stand there the whole time they ran it instead of calling me over when it was actually my ride time. That kind of pissed me off, and my horse was still pissed off, and when the class did end he went around the ring feeling like a piece of rebar.

Second Level Test 2

To be honest, if I wasn't the only rider in this test and it had been a big class, I would have put my hand up and quit instead of going in the ring. He felt that fucking shitty. 

We actually got a 6.5 for the first travers but everything else in the trot work was a 5 or 5.5 until a 6 for the medium. He got a 7 for his free walk as I scratched his withers and tried to get him to stretch and loosen up any little bit. 

The medium canter barely existed because he was so tight. The simple changes we'd been scoring so well on all weekend were crap, but the counter canter was at least 7s. The final medium trot is up the center line which is just dumb, but especially not a good time in this ring when the footing is so bogged down from too much water. I felt like Opie's legs were flying everywhere and therefore I was flying everywhere and I really just wanted the test to be over asap.

Her final comment was, "Promising horse we needs more confidence in the connection between leg and hand." A-fucking-men because I was pulling for all my worth to match Opie pulling for all his worth. It was just a gross, gross test I felt awful about every step of the way and I was shocked when it scored even a 60.4%. 

I ended up going back to the warm up ring and making him pick up a stretchy trot for several minutes before sinking into the sitting trot and nudging him on until he was super soft with a long neck for that, too. Which then made me annoyed that I couldn't get that in the ring, annoyed I didn't have the extra time in warm up, and mostly annoyed with myself for not riding better to produce this relaxed trot. 

All things considered though at least I had a sane horse for the entire weekend. He was happy to march right onto the trailer both mornings leaving the barn, he hung out at the trailer quietly, he carried tension and had some opinions on my corrections but he never went up or backwards.

 He has eight more days of UlcerGard left, but a lot of shows still to come so I think I'll get a couple more tubes to dose him for the weekends that he's travelling.