Fall Fair Hill: Dressage

Let's jump right into the dressage phase from Fair Hill, shall we? I don't always have an awful lot to write about this phase, and have never had much media to inspire pride and excitement either haha. Because let's be real: Charlie is nobody's idea of the ultimate dressage horse.

about to enter at A: braced topline but otherwise moving quite nicely for him! picture would be improved by a more correct rider but c'est la vie!

He's as long as a bus, kinda a stiff and shuffle-y mover, and on top of it all is slightly too big and awkward for the 20x40m sized dressage courts called for in the lower levels of eventing.

gosh i wish i had higher quality media bc this shot pleases me

But we've been chipping away at our flat work for a while now. And for a while now I've been swearing up and down that he's been showing real progress in his work. The only media I've had for the last two months have been screen shots from videos of us jumping -- but there have still been glimmers of positive changes in his balance and carriage to be found there.

again, not perfect but you can see the softness he's developing

Finally tho, I have a video chock-full of minutes on end of Charlie giving everything he's currently got - making it easy to find moment after moment demonstrating where he is in his flat work.

a good example of the judge's note about rider sitting too forward, and trainer C's note about my leg being too far back

None of it is perfect yet (nor likely will it ever be LOL): while riding I had the distinct sense that we were a little flat and wanted more energy. But he was so steady in his paces and rhythm that it didn't seem worth it to push that particular envelope at this moment.

pony is trying so hard tho <3

Mostly tho I spent every second of the ride enjoying the fact that Charlie was trying so hard. He was the steadiest he's ever been. Made reasonably sized circles. Showed off all our hard work on being able to reestablish good balance quickly after a transition (even if many of the transitions themselves, esp downward, still need a lot of work).

see we can actually bend left a little bit! just not... consistently haha

He let me push him a little here and there (like across the trot diagonals) to try to present the best possible picture to the judge. Executed his best canter circles to date in a test (dude, it is HARD for him to find enough balance for a 20m circle immediately after transitioning into canter), and was more or less prompt for every transition.

wooo canter transition sass!

What more could I ask?? To say I was thrilled with him would be an understatement. After our final halt and saluting the judge, I mayyyyy or may not have gotten a little teary eyed :')

ah but look how he cleans up!

I just knew that this would be our best test to date - regardless of score. It was everything I had hoped that Charlie would be able to do for this event, and made me so excited for Charlie's potential to continue developing as we both get better.

this pic reminds me strongly of isabel haha - with the slightly curled neck and little tail flick

Judge's strongest commentary on the horse mostly surrounded his bracing over his topline and lack of suppleness. Both points are absolutely spot on - tho those who've been following along for a while will recognize that the horse is light years ahead of where he started in both aspects.

goooood boy charlie!

The judge also had quite a bit to say about my riding - particularly my too-wide hands and too-forward position. Which, not coincidentally, were both aspects that dressage trainer C went after in our recent lesson. The too-far-back leg thing I think is a combination of my own bad habits and also the fact that I'm showing the effects of not enough saddle time in recent weeks.

right at this moment i started feeling a little misty eyed haha

The wide-hands thing is a function of A) Charlie being so green (tho not as green as he was so I need to update my riding style!); and B) my reins being too long. Even tho I was very firm with myself about holding on to a specific set of notches on my reins for this test, it's still hard to not let my reins slip during a ride. #workinprogress lol

some fairly pointed feedback here. but all right on target. score put us in 2nd after dressage.

Additionally, the judge saw a very distinct difference in Charlie's lateral suppleness from Right to Left. Specifically: we don't gots it going left. This is all 100% a rider crookedness problem. It's been an ongoing issue with me for so so long (I've been writing about it for literal years bleh) but Charlie is finally trained enough to fully reflect my entire riding style, for better or worse.

Ultimately tho I was absolutely thrilled with Charlie's performance with this test. And even more tickled when the judge rewarded us with such nice scores. Charlie isn't always very consistent yet, so I kinda don't expect our scores to always reflect his actual progress. Bc in eventing dressage it always seems like one little bobble is enough to kill the score for a full movement.

That's ok tho - it's gratifying enough to get this one nice score and know that the horse does in fact have it in him. And even better that the judge's remarks were basically all of a piece with what I already know, and what my trainers have already been trying to zero in on. Hopefully we'll be able to keep moving in the right direction!

gosh sometimes i hate youtube's auto-generated video stills haha

Usually in recapping a recent event, I combine dressage and stadium into one post -- mostly bc the jumping seems more interesting to more people. So I feel like I need to include it in order to get ppl to read the dressage stuff too lol. But I'm splitting dressage into it's own post this time -- partly because it was Charlie's best phase at this event.

But also because we can actually use this horse trial as a 'measuring stick' to see where exactly Charlie is in his training after one year with me. A reasonable comparison would be his first ever dressage show with me, recapped here.

up next comes the jumping!! complete with more photos from Megan K!!

I'm honestly pretty pleased with the horse's development over the past year, and feel like this test was truly representative of the best Charlie currently has to offer right now. The same can't quite exactly be said for our jumping efforts at Fair Hill - they weren't his best. But it was at least indicative of his current level of training. More to come on that soon!