Dressage Show: April 21st, 2012

After being yelled at multiple times for not doing it sooner, I'm finally blogging about the dressage show! It was a beautiful day - sunny and warm, although it was a bit too hot in the direct sun. I basically wore the same outfit that I did last year: my tan riding pants, white shirt, and jean blazer. My family and I got to the barn a half an hour before my scheduled time like I was supposed to, but when we got there we learned that the whole show was about an hour behind.  It was kind of a pain, but it was actually kind of nice to just watch everyone else ride first. I also learned that I wouldn't even be riding Cartwheel for the equitation, which was nice, although I wish I had known that beforehand.

When it was almost time for my first test, I started to get super nervous. I got on Kilo and he seemed pretty fidgety. I'd also seen him in the ring before though on other riders and he looked very slow and tired, so I knew I'd have to work to get him to pick up the pace a little bit. When it was finally my turn (I was the fifth to go), the bell rang and I did my test. Right from the start my center lines weren't straight, which I knew and tried to fix later. I was mostly worried about getting him to move forward, which he actually didn't seem to have much of a problem with. I was happy with the roundness of my circles and Kilo's overall pace, so that was good. I did have some problems with the transitions though. I almost didn't make my mark for a trot to walk transition, and I went into a trot too early for another. Overall though, I was happy with my performance. After you finish your test pattern you walk up to the judges stand on your way out so they can give you some comments. The judge told me that I had a nice consistent pace throughout the test which was good, but that after my free walk I had not tightened my reins enough so they were too loose the rest of the time. I took note of that because obviously it would be helpful to remember for my next test. After that I walked out of the ring and another rider started her test.  Once all the other riders went, it was time for the next class.

This time I was seventh in line to go, so I had to wait a while in the ring. I just sat on Kilo and let him drink water while I talked to my family. Then, finally, it was my turn again. This time I walked up on the outside of the ring so I would be closer to the entrance when I started, and Kilo would not stay still. Luckily, the bell rang pretty fast and I started my next test. Again, my center line was crooked. For some reason Kilo kept wiggling off to the side. Other than that and the fact that I cut some corners a little, I thought this test had gone a little better than the last one. Which actually makes sense, because now I was a little more used to Kilo and could control him better. My final trot down center line was really straight, and when I walked up to the judge again she complimented me on it which was nice. Again, she said that my overall pace was consistent but that my reins needed to be shorter even though they were better than in the previous test. Obviously I know how important that is now!

I exited the ring again and waited for  the other riders to do their tests. Then it was time for the equitation class. They split up our division into two groups, so that each group had about five riders in it. Basically, the judge would tell a guy standing next to her what she wanted us all to do, and he would call it out. It was really difficult to be in the ring with four other people. Even in my lessons it's hard. I kept getting really close to the back of someone's horse so I would turn around to avoid that and end up right behind another person's horse. I definitely didn't take as much care to those turns as I should have. Anyway, some of the commands were simple things like "walk" and "posting trot" and "change direction", but then the judge through in "two point", which was a little harder, but then she threw out "sitting trot" which completely caught me off guard. I've never even practiced that in a lesson before. Basically I sat down and tried my best not to bounce up and down too hard. And let me tell you, it takes a lot of thigh muscles to stay in a relatively stable position in a sitting trot. I was very happy when that was over, needless to say.

After a couple more commands we were told to line up, and then it was the next group's turn to go. Someone else was riding Kilo so I just stood off to the side while the went. When they were done, those of us who hadn't just ridden were told to go line up with the others, even if we didn't have a horse, so I walked to the center and awkwardly stood between two horses. Then it was time for ribbons to be given out. I tied with another girl for fourth place in the first class, which I was okay with, although I'm not going to say I wasn't a little disappointed. For the second class, I got a second place which I was very happy with. Then for the equitation I got another fourth place, which I wasn't too surprised about. At least I got a variety of colors to go with my blue ribbons at home. :) Overall, even though I didn't place as high as I would have liked, I was really happy with my performance on Kilo. Considering the fact that I hadn't ridden him in a while and how little practice time I got, I think we did pretty well. :)

Overall it was a good day, and I'm thankful to all my family members that came out to support me. I hope they enjoyed coming and I'm definitely hoping to participate again next year, hopefully with a little more practice beforehand.

Dressage Show Info and Preparation

Again, sorry for skipping the last couple of weeks. I honestly can't keep up with these posts, so I apologize for any future skips.

So the dressage show is this Saturday! I know, I haven't said anything about it this year... That's because a lot of things have changed this year. For one, I have a different instructor. I've also been having lessons with a lot of other people, as opposed to the private lessons I had last year. So this year I am way less prepared. I'm going to be riding Kilo for two of my classes, and a new horse named Cartwheel for one of them. I have literally ran through my tests three times each. Not a lot, I know. It's kind of stressing me out a little how unprepared I am... But like I said, things are a lot different this year. I haven't had the time to practice that much, and I don't get the same attention from my instructor any more. In the lesson I just came back from half an hour ago, there were five other people riding. So obviously, the instructor can't give all of us her attention, and she can't really let people run through their individual classes because then no one else would be able to practice.

The whole situation's a little chaotic in my opinion, and unfortunately I'm just going to have to do the best that I can on Saturday and hope for the best. I'm not trying to sound pessimistic, but because I'm pretty unprepared and haven't practiced that much, I don't expect to do as well as I did last year. Last year I had months of practice and a solid horse that I had been riding for a long time. This year, I've only been riding Kilo for a couple months, and I'm not completely comfortable with him yet. On top of that, I have to ride that new horse Cartwheel (who I've only ridden twice!) in my equitation class because Kilo's being ridden by somebody else. An equitation class is when all the people who rode their individual tests ride in the same ring while the judge calls out commands, such as "walk" or "trot". Anyway, like I said, I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much this year. At this point, I'd like to try and concentrate on just learning from this experience (as crazy as it's been) and having fun, rather than worrying about what ribbons I'm going to get. So I'm trying to turn this not-so-convenient situation into one I can learn from. I mean, it's no one's fault that it's turned out this way, it's just that so many people are participating this year and there's only so much the barn owner can do.

With all of that said, I really am grateful to the barn owner. She's helped me get two practice rides in this week (Sunday and Monday - I'm exhausted at this point!), and she's just been really understanding with me and I know she's trying her best to get everyone's situation worked out as best as she can.

Now I just kind of want to give you all some information about what I'll actually be doing at the show. I've signed up for one walk/trot division (it has three classes in it), and it starts at 2:15. I won't be cantering this year since I haven't really cantered on Kilo that much. But the first two tests are basically a pattern with some 20-meter circles and standard things like that. I actually haven't memorized them yet... I'm working on it though (not that it even matters since I'll have a reader to read the steps out loud). The third class, like I said, is the equitation class. That I'm a little nervous for, since I've never done one before and it'll be on the horse I've only ridden twice. Again, I'm trying to stay positive... Sorry if I seem a little down. I'm really tired from my lesson tonight, riding the past two days, and from school too. I might do a post later this week on the actual test patterns, but if not I'll definitely write about how the show goes (fingers crossed!). Wish me luck!

Lesson 2/27/12

Sorry for missing last week's post. I just never really got around to it.

Anyway, my lesson on Monday was really good, and really bad at the same time. As I've said before, Kilo has been very grumpy down in the barn, and lately he's gotten worse. Apparently he had Lyme disease, not rain rot, which has made him really sensitive. This week, Kilo was trying to bite me before I even got him out of his stall. I hooked him up to the cross ties, and even at this point I was really cautious and nervous that I was going to get bitten. I guess I kind of worked myself up a lot into getting so nervous that I couldn't really do anything near Kilo. Horses sense that kind of thing, so Kilo probably knew I was scared and used that as an opportunity to try and intimidate me more. After waiting for someone to come down and help me, the barn owner came down. She tacked him up herself, which really makes me feel useless. I feel like it's my fault that I was too scared to do it myself, which it partially was, but I just hate the feeling of being incapable of doing something as simple as that.

The owner told me that horses in the wild will come forward to another horse that is threatening them in order to try and make them take a step back. She said that when Kilo tries to bite me, he wants me to get intimidated and step back, which of course I do because I'm so nervous. I really need to just toughen up and not allow him to do that and let him know it won't work. Next time I will do that!

After that whole ordeal that I'm trying not to dwell on too much, I headed up to the ring with a somewhat happier Kilo. For some reason that I don't understand, he seems to get over his grumpiness as soon as we're out of the barn. He still tries to bite me occasionally but not as much. Up in the ring (I was about ten minutes behind everyone else because of the waiting) I got on Kilo as soon as I could and joined the warm up.

Before I continue I just wanted to let you all know that the dressage show is on April 21st. I'm still planning on participating, I just want to get to a place where I am comfortable with my horse first, which right now I'm not really feeling that way yet. Where I was headed with that announcement is that the dressage ring is now set up in the big ring (which is now back in the place it used to be, on the far side of the riding ring), so the area that we ride in is a bit smaller.

Because the dressage ring was set up and most of us said we were planning on being in the show, our instructor had us practice walking down the center line from letter A to C. It was hard because if you didn't have your horse going fast enough, he wouldn't stay straight. We did this for a while and then we practiced some 20-meter circles. If you don't know what those are, you can look back at my posts from last year on the dressage show and get updated on all this stuff. After that we trotted. Since there were so many of us in a relatively small area, we mostly took turns trotting until we caught up to the horse in front of us.

Tonight I got to canter for the first time in months which I was so excited about! Also, I've never cantered on Kilo so that was exciting too. We again took turns going, so each of us could have plenty of room to canter a couple steps before catching up to the next person. The first couple of times I went, I didn't canter because my reins were too long. Also, I had to get Kilo into a really energetic trot before he would go. The third time or so I went, Kilo started to canter. His canter felt kind of lumbering almost, but unfortunately I don't really remember exactly how it felt. The next time I went, I got to canter down the long side and it felt really awesome. My instructor and the barn owner, who was watching, both said that it was a very nice stretch of canter. The owner said the Kilo actually looked like a normal horse too for once (he has large shoulders and usually looks kind of clumsy). After that, I was pretty satisfied with my lesson. Obviously not with the previous issues in the barn, but for the moment I could forget all of that and just enjoy the night.

After the Dressage Show and Lesson 5/2/11

Well, Saturday turned out great, even though I had some concerns. I got a first place blue ribbon (much to my surprise and satisfaction) and earned a total of 152 points (about 66%) out of 230. After my test I found myself thinking that I could have done more tests, but I think the one was stressful enough, so next year I'll probably do all the tests in one division.

My worries were pretty much not needed at all (and I knew they wouldn't be). Captain was perfect, giving me a good canter and trot the whole time, even though he was a little grumpy about getting his girth tightened. I was surprised and grateful to him that he wasn't sluggish, because I had figured he would be since so many kids had ridden him earlier that day.

There was a downside to that though. My lesson tonight was good and fun as usual, but tonight was fairly challenging after Saturday, because I think all that work Captain did for the show finally caught up to him. It was really difficult and frustrating sometimes to get him to trot fast, very hard to get him to canter, and even harder to keep him in that canter. Even his walk was really slow. But I don't blame him. He's old, and it was pretty warm out tonight. Also he spooked at something twice, so I guess his mind wasn't really focused. But I still love him all the same, of course.

So tonight my instructor had me work a lot on turning, which sounds simple, but it's really not. You can't just pull on the reins and get him to turn correctly. I mean, I guess you could, but without a proper turn from your 'center,' you won't have a good connection with your horse that will be beneficial later on. So a lot of the time I spent working on turning from my center without any reins at all - I had to drop them around Captain's neck and completely rely on my seat and legs to turn him, which could be difficult and frustrating at times. But I think I'm getting better (well, I hope I am) and I'll continue to work on that.

Dressage Show

Hey everyone! Today is a big day for me, as I am going to be in my first horse show ever! It's a dressage show held for everyone who wants to participate at the barn I ride at, so it's not very official or formal or anything, but it's still a real horse show!

I will be riding at 2:40 in the afternoon. My dressage level is Training Level 1, which is basically a walk/trot/canter test. Here are the basic test movements I have to do:
1. Trot in to center of ring
2. Halt and salute
3. Trot out and turn left
4. 20 meter circle left at trot (basically a medium-sized circle around the whole ring)
5. Pick up left lead canter in the corner
6. 20 meter circle left at center
7. Slow to trot and walk in front of judge's stand
8. Walk to corner and walk diagonally across the ring
9. Turn right and pick up a trot
10. 20 meter circle right at trot
11. Pick up right lead canter in corner
12. 20 meter circle right at canter
13. Slow to trot and trot down center line
14. Halt and salute

I'm so nervous, I can't even tell you! I'm confident about memorizing the test (I did that a while ago!) and the simple stuff like walking and trotting, but it's the canter part that really makes me nervous. I just started learning the canter (3 beat gait, faster than trot) this winter, so I'm not that great at it yet, so I'm worried that my horse (I'll talk more about him later) won't pick up the canter when I ask him. Or that when I do get him to canter, he'll slow down into a trot in my 20 meter circles like he did at my last lesson.

But mainly I'm nervous about myself, not that Captain, the horse I ride, will have any problems. If we mess up, it will mosy likely be my fault, but that's okay. Captian is an old Arabian horse (I'm not sure how old). He's really cute and is a bay (brown coat, black mane and tail). Since he's so old, he knows what to do in the riding ring, which is very helpful to me when I'm trying to learn something myself without wanting to worry about his movements. He's usually willing to go forward at a good pace, but he get's very upset if he's alone in the riding ring, which we are at every lesson. He starts to neigh pathetically to his horsey friends down the hill, which is really funny because when he does that, his whole body shakes and therefore shakes me all over the place. Either way though, I love Captain! :)

So I'll write another post at some point today or tomorrow and let you know how my dressage show went, and maybe I'll even win an award! :P