After having 2weeks off work as his annual holiday and having only been ridden a handful of times since, I wasn't expecting great things from Rocky today as he is incredibly unfit. However, I still decided to enter the competition as it may be the last one we can do before I go back to Oxford in October. In the end Rocky did a reasonable test (he was very spooky and distracted today) and only managed to get 51.72% which I was disappointed with, particularly as he got quite a lot of 6's.....unfortunately we also got quite a few 4s! Nevertheless, we still came 2nd (the winner only got 59%) and got a nice comment from the judge:
Judge's comment - "Try to gain his attention and submission before you enter the arena. Valuable marks are lost due to non-acceptance of the bridle. Take care to ride correct size circles and loops. You gained marks on movements 4 and 14 as they are movements between only two markers. Well done!"
Took Rocky in another dressage class today, despite the fact that it was only my fourth time riding him since I've been back. Today's competition was a dressage training show where after the test you meet the judge, discuss a few things and then have a short time training with her. I decided to enter Rocky in the Prelim class rather than the Novice, since although we can do fairly well at Prelim, we're still missing out on a fair few marks due to little problems; so the aim of today was to address them.
Rocky didn't perform today as well as he did last week and felt sluggish when we actually did the test - I felt like he was going to 'drop me' at any moment and I was worried I wouldn't actually get a canter out of him. However, despite this, he did a reasonable test (certainly not as good as last week) although I don't think it was good enough to get placed. We had a good session with the judge afterwards, but we left before the results are out, so I'll update this as soon as I find out our score.
UPDATE: Came back off holiday and found the results had been posted to us. We only got 51.67% (which I'm not surprised by, particularly as this judge always marks harshly) but still managed to come 5th. Am pleased with our placing as in the dressage training show rosettes are only awarded to the top6 %s across ALL the classes (you chose which test you want to do from a selection, but it's like one big class) and I know there were a lot of entrants as the show went on for several hours (9am-1pm). We got the following judge's comment:
Judge's comment - "Good paces shown but higher marks to be gained when ridden more between hand and leg which will improve engagement of the hind quarters and submission. Be careful to keep quarters in on long sides. Well done."
Having got back from University only yesterday afternoon and thus not having ridden Rocky for over 9.5weeks, it may have seemed foolish that I was taking Rocky in a dressage competition this morning. However, once Rocky realised that I was back (and wouldn't be letting him get away with anything!!!) he worked fantastically and did a lovely Prelim 17 test which in my opinion was certainly one of the best ones he has ever done. We obtained 55.83% and managed to beat many seasoned competitors (some from my old yard who ride horses certainly better built for dressage) coming 2nd, missing out on first place by only one mark (probably due to my inability to notice I was on the wrong diagonal!).
Judge's comment - "Pleasing test, with some good accuracy shown. Good transition in movement 13. Well ridden!"
We had a very short break, before we entered as the first competitors for the Novice class. Rocky started the test extremely nicely (best he's ever gone in a Novice test) but halfway through he started to get distracted and began to rush the movements slightly, including jogging in the walk. However, he finished doing a reasonable test and in the end we still got 53.79% which was good enough for 2nd (out of about 8 people) with the following comment:
Judge's comment - "Try to ride him more between leg and hand to improve submission. Some pleasing steps shown. Well Done!"
So today's outing was incredibly satisfying and hopefully considering Rocky did so well when I haven't ridden him for 9.5weeks, we have good things ahead of us. Am now looking forward to the dressage training show next Sunday...just need to chose which test we're going to do now!
