First Place at Fairoak!

I've kind of given the punchline away with the title of the blog but hey ho - I'm a stupidly proud owner right now!

Buddy has been going really well at home and we have finally got a dressage saddle which has made a difference to my position and I am able to sit more into his canter which is a relief as he is so bouncy when he gets going.

  

Pic courtesy of PoloPhotography

I made a late entry into our local RC after I had totally forgotten to post my entry! I had originally planned to make our novice debut but I couldn't do a prelim as a warm up first so decided to just do the prelim instead. I hadn't realised that it was a new test for 2014 and that it was a long arena test so I'd never ridden it before and I've never ridden a long arena test so was a bit apprehensive -especially as I only have a 40 x 20 school at home so couldn't actually practise either!!

Buddy came off the lorry sightly wild - it was very windy and there were lots of horses having high jinks which Buddy thought was very exciting. Luckily once I was on he was calmer and he worked in really well. It was soon time to go in for our test and as I was walking up I ran over the test in my head and all of a sudden my mind went completely blank! I couldn't remember how to get from my 20m circle down to the other end on the right rein... Of course I didn't have a copy of the test on me but luckily I'd downloaded it from dressage diagrams and there was signal on my phone so it was a frantic minute trying to get to the right page in time! 

Posing in the sunshine after the test

As we worked in the wind really picked up and I wondered if we'd get blown off our centre line as the gusts were pretty strong. But Buddy appeared to be strong enough to hold his own and I was very pleased with the test. The only bit I wasn't as happy with was our right canter as Buddy was very naughty and kept picking up the left lead. It was a real shame as we threw away marks on his best canter and he got a 7.5 when we finally got there!

The class was small - there were only four of us - but there were some very smart horses in the ring warming up and I wasn't expecting to come top but as they put up the scores I saw we were first by a fair way. I had a little cry as its our first red frilly at Prelim and there is still so much to work on so we can improve on what we are getting now. I've got a lesson booked with Sara Jane Lanning at the end of the month so I'm hoping she'll give us some top tips.