Not quite the result we wanted...

So the last time I blogged we had been for our assessment with Jamie Wright. Unfortunately we weren't picked but Jamie said we came a very close second which is nice to hear. He has also offered us half price training throughout the season which will be lovely and is a nice consolation prize!!

Buddy has been doing really well in the meantime, his canter has improved massively - we seemed to have a breakthrough a few weeks ago and we are managing to maintain it consistently now. So, with that in mind we trundled off to our local RC's dressage. I was planning on doing Prelim 1 and 13 but my entry didn't arrive with the secretary and there was no space to squeeze me in. Luckily for me there was a withdrawal so I was able to do the Prelim 1 class. I had high hopes as he has been going so well at home and knew that if we managed to pull it all together we are capable of a 70+% score. 

Centre Line

He was wild in the warm up, it is where we go to jump so I think he was slightly miffed that we were there for stressage, and our canter transitions consisted of leap and bugger off! I was conscious that I didn't want to overcook him, despite his freshness, as we had hacked over to the venue so after a couple of transitions on each rein we were ready to go.

First canter

The judge took ages to ring the bell so we had already done about 4 or 5 laps in trot before we got started and he just switched off a bit on me. However, I was really pleased with him as he stayed with me despite lacking the activity I had in the warm up (!) and get at home. His canter transitions were accurate, although he broke just short of the marker on the left transition but it was such a huge improvement there is no way I could be disappointed with him. Free walk on a long rein is not our strongest pace but I thought he did show some lengthened strides and stretch - although the judge disagreed and gave us a 4 which I thought was very mean. We ended up on 65.5% which is a great score but having watched half of the test on the video I don't totally agree with the judge and thought she marked him quite hard but that's dressage! Unfortunately we were just out of the frillies - they only placed to 6th despite there being 30ish in the class - and there were a couple of stunning horses who won the show on 85.5% and 83.something respectively!!

Link to video - only half the test as phone died

Onwards and upwards from here - I have my first event scheduled in for the end of May - we are going XC schooling this weekend and then I will make my entry based on that. He is turning into such a superstar and I'm chuffed to have him all to myself.