I am going to condense our las two shows into one post because neither was very eventful (good or bad).
Otis was kind of a brat for our July show. He was just very bracey and on the forehand and wasn't really listening very well. He was just sort of "there". He wasn't bring outright bad, he was just kind of doing the minimum, of what I was asking of him. We got a 64% and a second place in Training 2 and a 65% and a fifth place (out of a big class of 7) in Training 3.
He was better behaved for our August show but we actually scored better in our July show. Part of the reason for this is he decided to spook at something just after a canter transition in our Training 2 test, he went back down to a trot, so we had to regroup and pick up the canter again, resulting in only a 4 for that movement, the rest of our test was mostly 7's so if it hadn't been for that stupid spook we would have done much better. We got a 60% and a second place ribbon.
He was more attentive in our Training 3 test but had become very lazy so our tempo was not so good, as I had to keep urging him on to pick up the pace. He has also been very stiff to the left lately, which resulted in some 5.5 on our loops. We did however get an 8 on our free walk, so that was good! We got a 61.8% and a third place ribbon.
I ended the day feeling kind of discouraged, our scores weren't that great and we seem to be regressing this year as compared to last year. I have to remind myself that we are doing more difficult tests this year, and haven't had the funds to take as many lessons this summer. I have a lesson coming up this weekend, so hopefully that will put things back into perspective. This was my last planned dressage show for the year, and I want focus our time and money on taking lessons for the rest of the summer so we can get back to where we need to be so we can hopefully move up to First Level next year. Depending on things go, I'm thinking we will do Training 3 and First 1 next year.
