Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Southern Maine Dressage Association August Show

What a beautiful day for a show! Sunday August 4th was the third Southern Maine Dressage Association show that Otis and I have attended this season. It was an absolutely gorgeous Summer day with sunshine and very little humidity.

After I had gotten Otis and I ready, I got on and started to walk around the grounds before we went into the warm up arena. Not a few steps past the trailer, and we run into our awesome instructor Judy! I was excited to see her since a flat tire ruined my plans to take a lesson with her the Friday before the show. She had trailered a horse in for somebody, and was going to be there long enough to see my Intro C test. I had a fleeting moment of feeling the extra pressure to do well for Judy, but that quickly went away. I thought it would be great to see all of our hard work put to use, and also give us some things to work on when we finally can make it back to her farm for a lesson.

Otis was great for Intro C. Our trot to walk transition wasn't the greatest partly because I didn't properly prepare him, and the other part is Otis is lazy and can't wait to walk, so he is very abrupt in is transitions. He has also started doing his "nose wag" thing again, which Judy said we could work on in our lessons. Overall he was very good, with great canter transions, and a very willing attitutde. We ended up placing first with a score of 68.75%!

We had almost two hours in between Intro C and Training 1 so I tied Otis back to the trailer and loosend his girth so he could have some hay and water.

I was hoping Otis would still be nice and calm after his long break, and when I got on him to warm up for Training 1, I was happy to find that he was. He was just as good for Training 1 as he was for Intro C. He got a bit strong in one of our transitions from canter down to trot, but his trot to walk transition was much better this time. We were the last to go in the Training 1 division before lunch break, so we didn't have to wait long to find out that we had won with a score of 67.71%.

We ended up improving on our scores in both tests as compared to the June show, and that is always my main goal, to improve my scores. Otis and I are really getting into a partnership at shows and it feels really good to have all of our hard work, sweat, and tears pay off! We only have two more shows in our calendar for this year, a horse trial in a couple of weeks, and the last SMDA of the season on September 15th. I am kind of sad about that... I may have to find more ;-)


2 comments:

  1. YAY! I lam so proud of you both and I am sad that I did not get to see you ride that day. So cool that Judy was there though! FIRST LEVEL IS WAITING! ;-) ;-) Hahahaha!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! I think maybe we will start with Training 2 and 3 next year.... ;-)

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