So today I took Dustry for his 2nd BD competition although we are still competing unregistered, but after today’s result maybe it’s time to get a BD membership?…
We had prelim 15 and prelim 19 tests, the same as our last dressage outing. After a few ‘whizzy’ moments in the warm up (forgot red tail ribbon and Dustry does not appreciate people entering his personal space!) we went to do our first test. He was so much calmer and attentive in the area away from the other horses and hustle and bustle of the warm up, and produced a lovely test. No green baby wobbliness like last time, no drying up, just calm obedient and accurate. I was really pleased with how he went, and predicted a 63-65% score. Low and behold we actually got 67.39% and 2nd in our section!!!!! (1st place was on 67.83) If we had been in the mix with all the competitors for prelim 15 (reg and unreg) we would have been 5th so very pleased with him, and lots of pats and polos ensued!
I was really chuffed to get an 8 for his free walk on a long rein and the comment “good stretch” and a lovely overall comment from the judge “horse showing lots of promise, well ridden”
We then warmed up for our 2nd test, and he was a bit flat. I haven’t quite got the gauge for how long his warm ups need to be just yet, and I think I overdid the first test’s warm up, and just as I was about to ask him for some quick transitions to try and sharpen him up we got called into our second test. I knew we would struggle with the canter transitions because the trot wasn’t good enough, and as predicted we got the wrong leg for both. I also put too much leg on to try and get him to march in his medium walk and got 2 strides of jog in both movements. This combined with a wonky halt really ate into our marks (getting a 2 and two 4’s!!!) and we ended up with 54%. I’m not disappointed with this because it’s obvious to me where we can easily pick up the marks, and it’s all still a learning curve for both of us atm having to date only managed a total of 4 prelim tests in competition. So all in all a mega day, lots to like and lots to work on before our next outing!