Well today I took Dustry for his 3rd ever dressage outing, back to Sparsholt again for their unaffiliated dressage. Yesterday we had an EPIC lesson and it was serious hard work, but he produced some of his best work to date, and so I think he was feeling the impact of this effort today as he was unusually a bit inconsistent in the contact. His first test (Prelim 19) contained some lovely trot work, and a really good ‘stretch on a 20m circle in working trot’ scoring him an 8! but it was miles off the quality of work we get at home.
He scored a respectable 65% and placed 4th so very chuffed with him for that 🙂 Back to the lorry to un-tack and give him a rest for 30mins, then back into the warm up for Prelim 13. I took my long whip and instantly just by carrying it he was ‘perkier’ and more off the leg. Once in the arena though he backed off and wasn’t as forward as I would like. He did do a lovely right canter transition, and I predicted an ok score, but not as good as his first test. He scored 63% and came 7/15 just missing out on 6th place, but in the top half so I’m happy with that.
Good points to take away are that so far all his 2nd tests have been mid 50% scores, but he seems to be producing a more consistent quality of second test now, with his 2 scores so close today. He also qualified in both tests for Sparsholt’s Unaffiliated Championship Show in June 2013, so if we are able to we may well go to that next year.
I didn’t give him a instant calmer today (as I did on his 1st and 2nd outings, not that I think it had much effect given the ‘high jinks’ I had to try and sit on!!!) and he was very well behaved, I think he is settling into his ‘life as a competition horse’ now. Some people however (despite us wearing a red ribbon) seem to like to live dangerously as they rode very close up behind us and I felt a naughty back leg go flying out in their general direction, but other than the 1 indiscretion he was a good boy, so smiles all round 🙂