Dressage and stadium rounds

So I guess we'll start off with the show.  I got there Friday night and we had a decent schooling in the grass between the rings.  I didn't realize, but I was to be riding the true dressage Training test.  In the big dressage ring.  And for once, there were quite a few people who elected to just to dressage tests, or to do a test and a stadium round, instead of doing the full 3 phases.  I was August, afterall, and HOT.

Saturday, I had my test fairly early.  Had a bit of trouble getting stiff in the warm up, and I guess it carried through to the test.  I was not unhappy with it, however.  I knew I got crooked in the last canter down the long wall, and I didn't get my reins short enough after the free walk, but I thought our free walk was better than it has been in the past, and I thought we were pretty accurate.

I did not realize I was crooked in the final halt.  That was very disappointing, as we usually halt like a BOSS.

"Steady test.  Now develop a more uphill and free moving horse to a softer hand.  You can do it!"  Love words of encouragement from the judge.

Total score 60

Just to let you know, the judge is a "real judge", and judges accordingly.  While a 60 (40 in eventing speak) doesn't seem like much for what was essentially the BN A test, The best score was only a 62.  Overall, I was happy.  There are things we are working on, and I expect this score to continue to improve.  I know Violet has it in her.  I just need to work on keeping her loose, mostly.  Watch the test below (thanks Ginny for videoing) and let me know what you think.

After that, we moved on to stadium.  We got up there and they were still on the 2', so we figured we still had time.  Trainer ran back to the barn to feed lunch real quick, and then they started calling for me to go in the ring.  I hadn't even cantered yet, nevermind jumped a fence!  That was very distracting for me, and unfortunately, I think I snapped at the volunteer that was calling after the 5th time she called while I was obviously in the process of warming up.  (I did apologize)  Anyway, I headed to the course, thinking, I have to get forward to the first fence.  I did that successfully, but then dribbled to the second one.  After that, 3 was fine, Violet was on the wrong lead from 3 to 4 and I didn't feel like I had enough time to fix it.  We incidentally blew past the line and lost pace due to crappy counter-canter balance, so I basically blew all three tenants for jumping and dinked through 4 to 5 in...I don't know 6?  Maybe 7?  Anyway, it was not pretty.  But I took a deep breath, got my shit together and finished the rest of the course without any issues.  Actually, the last fence was a pretty big oxer, and Violet seemed to be like "Yay, Mom finally figured out that forward is better!  Whee!"  But we were clear, and we recovered from my little mistakes without incident, so that is much improved from where we used to be!

Crappy guess at what the course looked like.  I need to start taking pics of the course board.

So that was it.  It was a good experience, we had fun.  All the Market Street students that were there walked away happy and feeling accomplished.  And we all got satin.  And Violet got a bag of treats as a prize!

Accomplished pony got 3rd in dressage out of 13 and won the 2'7" stadium!