Ben and I went to another combined test this past Saturday and competed in the Training division again which went extremely well!
He was fantastic in dressage and ended up scoring a 35.9, his best score at Training level. He got an 8 on both his first centerline and his final halt. He got 7s on one of his trot lengthenings and his stretchy circle which is a big step for us. We actually only had one 5 on the stupid canter diagonal yet again! I hate that movement! Last show at Apple Knoll he broke gait and this show I kept my leg on to prevent that and he sped forward and thought about throwing in a flying change for good measure. So that is one movement in Training A that we just haven't gotten down yet. We've got one more Training level combined test to get that movement right. Third time's a charm?
The canter work got a bit disorganized after the diaganol debacle and pretty much scored 6s until the last turn down centerline but overall the test felt good and I think we are on the right track! I was very pleased with the boy!
Here's our test:
Stadium went pretty well aside from one major miscommunication at fence #6! By some miracle, he still managed to clear the fence so we did have a clean round, but it was definitely my fault. He had been leaving a touch long at all of the previous fences so when we got to #6 on a half stride I put my leg on for the long one but he decided at the last second he needed another stride. It was then supposed to be 5 strides to a one stride but we got all messed up so we put in six and two... Oops! Luckily he's little and handy so he handled it just fine!
Here it is:
There were only two of us in my division but we still won by two points! So the blue ribbon was just a plus on a very successful day! I have good feelings about this season, he's been absolutely awesome with what we've done so far and I can't wait to get to our first full event of the season!
So the plan for the rest of the spring is xc schooling again on Thursday, a combined test at Training on May 5th, King Oak HT at Novice on May 12th (also my 18th birthday!), Kent HT most likely at Novice just to be on the safe side, and the Boyd Martin clinic Memorial Day weekend. A very busy month of May! The move back up to Training will most likely be at Apple Knoll the end of June, and then his first recognized Training will be at Riga Meadow in July. That's about as far as I've gotten so far!
As always thank you so much for reading, I will hopefully have a full report sometime this week about our Thursday xc schooling adventures!
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