I've not blogged for a while now, not because I've not had news to share, quite the opposite actually, but I've really struggled for time! Since mid November I've been away for 2 weeks on honeymoon, got back early December, started a college course, changed roles at work, taken on a new part time business and had Christmas and birthday's to organise so time just seems to have gotten away from me and now here we are 2 months+ since my last blog!
Back in December I blogged about Jack and I's first attempt at Dressage4all online dressage competitions. We had a pleasing start with 2 x 3rd places in the intro and prelim but it was back when Jack wasn't feeling himself and I knew there was a lot of room for improvement.
When I brought him back into work after my honeymoon he was feeling back to his usual self and the break seemed to be all he had needed so we went ahead and entered the December competition too. We only entered the intro this time as Jack wasn't back in full work, the ménage was covered in snow and I only had 1 chance to film 1 test before the light went. Jack was going well and I was really pleased with the test and hopeful we had improved from the previous month. I was even more delighted to find out that we had won with just shy of 69% receiving an 8 for our halt! This also meant that the team I am in had won the team championship so we received some lovely rosettes, sash and trophy and can officially call ourselves Dressage Champions 2017!! Not bad for a horse that's been through major surgery and 3 lots of rehab in 3 years!
We have continuing to enter the Dressage4all competitions this year and have entered the team competition again soon so we can try to defend our title!
For January I decided to liven things up bit and entered the Prix caprilli competition, where you do a dressage test which incorporates some jumps too! The test was accurate and obedient so I was pleased with how it had gone but we had one mistake where we landed on the wrong leg after the 2nd jump which I knew would cost us. We won with 66.52% by default as we were the only ones to enter! As expected the wrong leg cost us a lot of marks but generally the marks and comments were pleasing, for the first 2/3rd of the test we were on target to score over 70% but the mistake in the canter and a bit of lost of balance after the jumps dropped our % down. Not to worry though this gave s us plenty to work on for next time!
On to February and I decided to do the Prix Caprilli again to see if we could improve our score there were 4 entered this time so a bit of competition! Sadly I had noone to film us this time so I had to balance my phone on the fence to film, it was better then I thought it would be but did miss the corners at the C end of the ménage so I expected our marks to be a bit lower as the judge would not be able to see the canter transitions. The results came out on the 18th and we had won! Even better despite the dodgy filming, which did cost us some marks, we had still managed to improve our score.
On the same day I took my best friend Lucy's fab Jay to a combined training competition, we had entered intro C and 70cm as he'd not jumped since our last competition in October! He loves it though so I knew we would be fine! We had a bit of a bad start to the day with road closures making us late but having made it Jay warmed up well and performed a nice accurate test. We then went to change into jumping mode and this was the first time Jay had jumped with his new jumping saddle. I got on him and went into the warm up but as soon as I started to trot it was obvious something was wrong as he started bronking which is so unlike him. We quickly decided the saddle must be the issue as he had been fine in his dressage saddle so we dashed back to the lorry and swapped back into his dressage saddle! I wasn't to sure about jumping in a dressage saddle but didn't have much choice! Jay was instantly back to his usual self and jumped the warm up fences with plenty of enthusiasm! Due to the saddle drama and confusion with the timing I had not even walked the course and just had to learn it by watching the previous competitor! As the bell went for us to start our show jumping round they announced our Dressage score of 78.26%!!!!! Wow no pressure then! Jay jumped superbly just getting slightly flat and quick to the double of uprights for 4 faults but we were so far ahead after the Dressage we still won! :)
The test sheet was lovely to read and so complementary of Jay, he is a cracking little pony!
Jack is continuing to go well and we had a lesson with a new instructor recently which gave us lots to work on, she was quick to identify our issues and very understanding of Jack's problems helping us to improve Jacks frame which is what we need to keep improving our dressage scores - the main comment we get is that Jack gets a bit low in his poll.
So lots to work on but I can already feel an improvement in his schooling.
