Got there, unloaded, brushed and got on!
Crazyness and antics walking up to warm up, but once there, he was great and settled. No scary warm up antics.
Good for dressage just a little distracted and paying attention to his outside surroundings instead of the task at hand. But good. Scored 38.3, but not too bad. 7 on gaits and impulsion. 6 on submission. ;) Judges comment was something along the lines of "lovely pair, will get better as he is more consistent and you are stronger and better able to control his exuberance". hee hee.
Dressage
Stadium was fun. Warm up was interesting. He jumped a cross rail great and politely. Then the XC to a vertical politely. Then we did the vertical and headed to the other side of warm up and were going to do the vertical but it was flagged the other way. So I continued to the scary barrels. I felt him suck back and I didn't help him out and close my leg. So... I thought he was going to stop, but he deer jumped at the last second. I ended up whip lashing onto his neck, smooshing my lips. Ouch. So lots and lots of praise and then we came back to it at the trot. He picked up the canter a few strides out and jumped it like a boss! Then we did the vertical and he landed, put his head down, and let out a few bucks, as we careened towards the busy part of warm up. Ooops. I got him under control easily. Kelli said a woman was like "that girl is crazy... her horse is trying to kill her and she's just up there smiling away".hee hee.
So then we did one or two more polite fences and went in for our stadium round. He was awesome!!
Stadium Round
Then on to XC. He was pretty darn great. We started off over the first tadpole fence and then headed to BN fence 2, which was pretty big. Dan jumped it well and then sort of took off. I ended up having to circle and bring him to a trot. I tried to keep him to a trot, but he cantered and then took a flyer to BN fence 3. hee hee. We galloped off but I got him back before we crossed the road. He trotted politely over BN fence 4 and then we had a most delicious canter through the woods. Then he got a little distracted with the open field and jump judges and we had a stop at the ditch. He just didn't see it. It' the teeniest of ditches, but he was still a bit taken aback. I'm not sure technically how many "stops" it was, but we got over it after a little looking and snorting, then he sorta of shied at the next log after but went politely when I closed my leg. Then we cantered up to the water and I could tell he was a bit taken aback again so I pulled him to a trot. Unfortunately he was really freaked out at the water. I couldn't get him in it. I'm not sure if it was the excitement, the water, the reflection, or what. I honestly thought it wouldn't be a problem. He was dancing at the edge a good bit and really kind of freaked. The jump judge said I only had 30 more seconds (til what I didn't figure out) so I went over the log next to the water instead and we carried on. He was brave over the big cabin and then very brave over the last 5 fences on course, which were all BN including the last final tadpole fence which was shared with BN.
XC run!
More XC
So yep.. Quite proud of the squirt!! It was so much fun too! We finished 4th out of 10! Although I'm pretty sure technically we should have been eliminated, or at least given two refusals. Well, maybe at least one...
