Violet's Debut part 1: Dressage and Stadium

Let me start by saying I have fantastic video taken by Ginny, but have no idea how to get it loaded here. Thought I had it, but no.  So you get stills.

Let's get to the fun part, right?  It is often joked that I am supposed to be a horse show mom.  I get giddy as a schoolgirl to watch someone else ride my horse.  I'm supposed to be an owner.  I'm supposed to be able to walk around and tell everyone how that star horse over there is mine.  I unfortunately do not have the funds to do that. Instead, I get to be all excited that Marcy is having fun riding my pony in Beginner Novice. She says she had a great time and the pony is fun, so we will just go with that!

After my drippy day in the car jump judging, I headed over to the barn to find the whole crew hanging out eating a late lunch.  Ginny and Pearl and Jean and JR had done their rides for the day, and Marcy and Riley were done (finishing 6th behind Buck Davidson and in front of Jennie Brannigan in a big division, natch).  

Since I am skipping in order and doing Violet before I get to the judging part, let's just say that the day got shuffled a bit.  Saturday was rough.  In so many ways.  Marcy was under the impression that dressage was running about an hour behind, but I had stopped Jeanne, the show manager, on my way off the cross country field and asked.  Through dressage judges eating lunch in the car with no break, they were almost caught up. So I let her know and she headed to change.  Jane pulled V out to get her ready and Ginny and I headed up to the dressage area in the golf cart with the wieners to verify they were not behind.  They weren't.

na na na na na na BAT PONY

Violet looked fantastic in her braids, and was super shiny. 

The weather was starting to break up, but we had a sudden bit of rain just when we headed up to warm-up.  And the wind started to blow.  With four or five active rings, the warm-up area was rather congested.  Marcy found a spot and started to warm up.  There were several other riders of course.  And one horse with a saddle and halter being held that was obviously young and missing it's buddy, who I just assume was using its bridle at that time.

Heading to the warm-up.

As we sat there watching warm-up, I saw it start to happen.  The tent where bit-check was started to blow. They had called at one point to pull the tent down at the start of cross country before I left because the wind was threatening to take it.  This one stayed.  Until Violet was warming up.  At which point it blew over into all the horses warming up around it, taking a trashcan with it.  Horses spooked, at least one reared, although no one in dressage was unseated.  The young one with a halter?  Yeah, buh-bye.  And of course it had to pelt past Violet to get back to the ship-in area.  Violet, my sane, sweet, although definitely red-headed, girl was the one horse in the area that didn't really do anything.  Marcy stopped her and said she twitched like "OK, should I get upset about this?" but then didn't do anything and settled back in to work.  I did feel pretty bad for the girl in the ring who had to stop her test while the horses all scattered about.  No one was hurt, although there is unsubstantiated rumor that a horse in the jumping warm-up went over backwards.  Jane and I darted over to the tent and helped them get it picked up and folded up and out of the way.  Then I looked up and realized my pony was already in the ring!

Warming up.  The tent was just slightly to the left of this shot.

Marcy says when she went by the judge, the judge said she didn't want to use her horn to give the time to enter the ring because she didn't want to further startle the horses, so Marcy just went without one.  

I thought she looked great.  There were a couple of times she threw her head up, and she will never be a big mover.  She is definitely a quarter-horse type.  But a nice test.  Afterward, Marcy was happy with her, especially with everything going on.  And you can definitely put pressure on her in the ring now, which at one point was an issue.  She said the head thing was because Violet was contemplating being upset about the rain hitting her ears.  She really hates that, and was better behaved than I expected, actually.  Anyway, Marcy was happy and we headed back to the barn to rinse her off and let her rest before stadium.  And of course the rain stopped as she stepped out of the ring.

A happy pair after dressage.

So let's talk about dressage scores.  The best dressage score in her division was a 27.  Violet got a 36, which put her in 13th place.  Out of 15.  Um yeah.  The judge did not like the pony's walk.  The walk, guys. She scored GREAT on her trot.  She got an 8 on the first change on rein, 7 and 7.5 on her circles and 7.5 on her second change of rein.  She was so-so on the canter, getting 6's and 7's.  She got a flipping 4 on the free walk.  A FOUR!  Something about lateral movement at the walk.  Marcy explained that some horses move their back feet out to go forward when trying to add impulsion and that is considered moving laterally. Which makes no sense to me.  If she is tracking straight forward and conformationally, her back feet paddle out, that is considered moving laterally.  Apparently that is not allowed with the back feet, although there is some allowance for the front.  Some horses do it at the canter as well, but that is a strength thing that can be corrected.  At the walk, though?  Yeah, not so much.  I know her walk is always a challenge, but we've never gotten a 4 on it before.  Marcy says unfortunately, this judge put a lot of emphasis on it, and while the movement is supposed to be judged on both the walk and the transition to and from, she did not appear to have paid any attention to the transitions, which were great.

There was also another slight issue in that Marcy technically went off course.  Who knows, memorizing multiple tests for herself and her students, added to crappy weather and tent blowing issues made her blank out and she did the canter circles on the long sides instead of the short.  Shit happens.  Lost 2 points there which really should have been more, but the judge was afraid to blow the horn so she couldn't let her know she went off course.  So there you go.  At the bottom of the pack.

Show life is hard for a wiener.

Stadium WAS running an hour behind, so we had a little bit to relax and clean up the barn and do barn chores.  Ginny ran off to watch a friend run Prelim cross country.  Before we knew it, it was time to tack back up.  And I had to be told to go sit down and leave Jane be while she was getting Violet ready.  I am just not used to not doing my own grooming, regardless of who is riding my horse.

Marcy headed up to the warm-up.  I stood there and watched while Buck walked the course with a couple of his riders.  We watched the first few go, because Marcy has a set timing for her warm-up which involves cantering at 6 rides out or something like that.  She was currently 14 rides out, so she and Violet stood and watched.  Lauren Kieffer had a challenging ride, obviously very young and maybe unsettled by all the goings on.  The horse stopped and ducked at one fence, and I swear she went over the fence standing on the side of the horse and then got popped back on afterward.  It was impressive to watch her handle it.  They did indeed get over all the fences, and ended up considerably more confident than when they started.  It would be interesting to watch that one go cross country...

Um, Mom.  Do you see who that is in the ring behind me? 

Then it was time for Marcy and V to warm up.  I got out of the golf cart to do fences and was told to sit back down, the girls were jump crew.  Dammit, that's MY job!  OK, I'll sit and play proud owner with my camera.  Next thing you know, there they go!

In we go.

Yay, jumping!

I could see at one point in the beginning Violet said "half-halt my HOOF", but all in all, it was great.  She was a little...unimpressed...by the fences.  Apparently they have been jumping much bigger on a regular basis in training.  They were clear, and she picked up ALL OF HER RIGHT LEADS (except the first which was a bending line so it didn't count)!  This has not happened in the history of ever in the 7 years I have owned this horse.  And Marcy says she's never even gotten that from her while schooling.  So yay for the pony! Violet finished the day on her dressage score and moved up 3 spots to sit 10th at the end of day 1.  She got taken back to the barn, got a bath, had a treat, ate her dinner and was all tucked in.  So we headed off for some adult libation, pizza, rummy, loud music and laughter.