MDHT Dressage

I'm still holding out for photos from the jumping phases, so let's dig into the lead up to our return to actual eventing, yes? For starters, we are having a lovely fall so far. Still occasionally a little warm and humid -- but generally getting crisp and cool in the mornings and evenings. I like it!!

bathed for his first clip of the season

But.... you know who does NOT like it?? Charles lol. He's almost a proper teenager, and each year seems to get fuzzier earlier haha. I'm honestly amazed at how quickly he fluffed up. Knowing how flimsy my will to push on can be, and knowing that Charlie himself can be a little bit of a quitter... Well, eh, I figured we'd go ahead and get in an early first clip. 

The way scheduling worked out, the person available to do this is one who often doesn't really clip as close to the skin as others. Like, in this case, you can't even really tell the horse is clipped from a distance -- there isn't much of a change in hair color etc. 

lol hardcore #training happening here, folks

That's not great if your hope is to get away with a single clip for the whole season. But... It's actually perfect when you want to clip hella early but maybe not fuss with blankets yet either. 

So Charlie got enough hair taken off last week to help him feel a difference and stay cooler, but without needing a blanket. And I'll just plan on clipping again later. Works for me, and is $75 well spent for one less thing to worry about LOL. Tho, jokes on me, since show day was rainy and cool lol. Eh, it worked out tho!

honestly pretty proud of charlie's hooves this year. this one little overreach has been growing out forever, and we touched up the manicure just in case it wanted to start cracking out more

Other than the clip, there wasn't much else to do in the way of serious "preparation." We managed to sneak in a super short impromptu jump lesson with Trainer P, a rare treat these days! It was just a private, and she quickly got us coursing through a fun set of combinations including a double, triple, and various striding configurations. 

Charlie felt great, was on point, and I got to practice working on being more smooth on both the step and the add stride. Sad there isn't video, but eh, we can guess how it went, right? Like Charlie is already trained to this level. We're mostly just making sure everything felt fresh and ready to go. 

gray jacket doesn't exactly "pop" when the entire friggin world is gray. charles looks handsome tho <3

Our "dressage schools," if you can call them that, have been smooth too. And I worked hard at just maintaining that same feeling once we actually got on the grounds at Loch Moy. Charlie wanted to be a little tense and tight in the warm up -- but I tried to just reassure him that we'd be doing the same things we always do.

Lots of steady relaxed trotting on giant sweeping figures across the enormous warm up ring, smooth changes of direction. Hints of counter flexion and leg yield here or there. Reminders to hold up both shoulders evenly since he kinda wanted to drop and lean left. Ya know. The usual. 

ok so i still have work to do with getting my right leg off the horse haha

The dearth of volunteers meant there were no stewards in the warm up area, so riders were expected to find their own way into their rings promptly on time. I worried that this would create instances of opportunists grabbing an open ring or cutting ahead etc. But luckily (at least for this phase) ended up being the first rider into my own ring. 

So I kept an eye on the clock, moved out of the warm up and into the area surrounding the courts themselves to do our final canters, and then was circling the ring ready to go at 7:59.

kinda knew our test wasn't gonna be a great score. but, eh. so what?

And ya know. Our test was fine. I actually did ask for more roundness from Charlie than I normally do, just because.... Obvi that's part of the test lol. Judges wanna see it. And close watchers might be able to notice the change in Charlie's frame in some places of the video (video is much nicer than the stills, I promise). 

But even so, this judge wanted more. Forever and ever, more. "Hollow" was our red thread comment throughout the entire test, showing up in 8 of 17 comments, with other variations like "reach to bit" and "above bit" peppering the rest. 

finally, tho, a good halt!! well done, sir <3

The score was a bit below average for us, at 35.5%. Felt on point tho for what we presented, so I wasn't really surprised by it. Was, actually, a little miffed at the distance between our score and class leaders tho, and wondered whether we suffered from stiffer scores by being first in the ring. Ooh, and also from apparently being in the open class, as most of the pros in the Novice division were in my split, womp.

(Tho, actually, it's an improvement in score from the last time this judge saw us at Thornridge last July so... Yea. Probably on point.) 

link to dressage video, annotated with comments + scores, here

It's ok tho. I had actually really tried to prepare myself not to get caught up in the scoring side of things. It legitimately 100% did not matter -- all I wanted to focus on was keeping an ok head space so that I'd actually DO the cross country. I even sorta kinda hoped to maybe prevent myself from even checking scores until it was all over. 

Which....  half worked and half didn't. It didn't work bc the test was emailed directly to me almost immediately after the ride, so I saw the comments and scores right away. But -- it did work bc I only saw *my* score, not the whole class. 

test scoring and comments are all done through an app now, and emailed to the rider within minutes. kinda a nice system!! tho the scribbles are hard to read unless really zoomed in, sorry. they're in the video tho! i'll give you a hint: basically every comment is "Hollow."

Loch Moy is using the Compete Easy app now for most of their live scoring, and my app was down. I didn't realize at the time that there's also a Compete Easy website too. So basically, I knew my score was below average, but couldn't check to see where it landed me in the class. But ya know, probably low, right? 

Which was kinda perfect, right? Like, not a great score in a split full of pros. Probably didn't really have anything on the line. In other words, basically zero pressure. Just had to go out there, and start jumping some jumps. 

I'd already walked the course the day prior after jump judging so.... the break in between rides was spent kinda quietly chillin, and trying to stay warm haha. Trying to convince myself that this was a good idea, and that this was fun, and that I'd be happy when it was over -- and to just put one foot in front of the other until we got there.