What a day, what a day, what a day! Ella and Midge, both in my care and training from the beginning of their competitive training, made HUGE career leaps today, and both were superstars!
Midge put in a lovely, fluid, conservative, but very rideable, Developing Horse test—similar to the Prix St. Georges and ridden in a tailcoat. He was a little tight, but mostly he was backed off on the very dead, hard footing, and I should have ridden more forward as a result, but I didn’t until the last few movements.
He had two little boo-boos—stole the very last four-tempi from me, and they were SO GOOD until that point, dangit, and he stole the change at the end of the canter extension—and then I had a brain fart and made one very creative line from centerline back to the corner when I forgot which came first, the extended canter or the half-pass. Duh. But a 65.8 percent on his FEI debut? I’ll take it with glee.
And gleeful I was, but Ella stole the show. She warmed up well but was starting to build a little and had one little leap outside the ring. Then she kept her cool, stayed with me mentally through the whole test (even the walk – the WALK!), and showed some wonderful, wonderful work. It was not mistake-free either—she slammed on the brakes coming into the first piaffe looking at the audience, and I got her back to nice piaffe (7!), but not fast enough for a good transition score; she also had some rhythm and clarity problems in all but the first passage, and she became a bit of a pretzel in the ones. There was some love in some of the scoring but also some well-deserved high marks—both pirouettes, both trot extensions, and my canter half-pass zigzag were really terrific, and I thought she got a little under-loved for her trot zigzag and two-tempis.
The end score was a 66.79 percent with wonderful compliments about her potential. More strength, more confidence, more time. WOW!
I got a little teary, and we drank champagne—something quickly becoming a tradition. Whenever I get a new horse to Grand Prix; I think we should make it an official one. And then I got to coach my student, Mel, to some great riding under harrowing circumstances (wee maresy flipped Mel the bird a few times today, cheeky) and enjoyed the sunshine.
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Of course, Fender had the last ride of the day, and was, to use the vernacular, a rotten &!@#*!, but the judge was a good sport about it (8 on gaits, 3 on submission. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a 3 on a collective mark before!), and I blew off some accuracy points in the test to school his sneaky behind, and then he worked nicely out of the ring and said he was mostly sorry, and that was that.
I was going to be a nice mom and let him scrap his Materiale class tomorrow, but that ship has sailed, buster. The killer is that he spent ALL DAY today sleeping, apparently in preparation to use himself For Evil. Funny stuff. Kids these days; he’ll come around.
Fender’s shenanigans got me thinking back to Ella’s first show, as a 5-year-old. She was pretty psychotic, including busting out of the wash stall crossties and tear-assing across the show grounds at mach 2 with her hair on fire, and yelling all the way through training level, test 1. She didn’t do anything naughty under saddle—she rarely does—but just built and built and built.
Midge, I recall, did a lot of stopping at his first show, but that was pretty normal for him. Midge is rarely any wilder away from home than he is at home.
And truly, Fender’s been really quite good. No bad, I’m-gonna-hurt-you stuff; nothing that won’t be quickly eradicated with consistent forward riding and clear boundaries. Still funny, though.
A few random thoughts about the show. First, a little note on Southern Hospitality: The show staff here are not only SO nice, but they are SO efficient, coordinated and on-the-ball. Martie Healy is the show secretary, and she can really run a horse show (including online entry, which is AWESOME), but wow, whoever trains and coordinates the volunteers here should take a stab at health care. Courteous, efficient and on time.
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Today, I forgot to pick up a trophy wine glass with one of my tests; they had set it aside for me, with my name on it, and were going to make an announcement to call me back to the awards table if I hadn’t come to pick it up. They wanted to make sure I got my wine glass. Classy.
Speaking of awards—instead of ribbons, they give out hand towels in the color of your placing. How clever is that?
Lots of good riding and fit looking horses, even after the winter we all had, which was nice. I saw one Intermediaire I horse in a snaffle yesterday (and it looked like a wise choice, as he looked young and green to the level; I think it got a 65 percent). Lots of helmets, too, including several on riders in shadbellies. Several green ribbons pinned to the lapels of riders in top hats, including one on a young stallion, which doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.
The footing here is less than ideal for dressage, but the stabling is terrific. Hot water in the wash stalls, lovely restrooms in all the barns, great ventilation. They have round pens scattered around the show for longing, which is great—at most of the facilities we show at, the longing area is a good schlep from the show ring, so by the time you bring your naughty young horse back to the show ring from longing he’s regained all the nutty you just longed out of him.
Speaking of nutty, tomorrow is Fender’s Materiale class, before which I think we might make use of those lovely round pens. Ella will do the I2—I wasn’t totally convinced I was going to ride it, but I want to see what happens a) if I show her two days in a row at this level; will she be totally dead?, and b) if I give her next-to-no warm-up, just walk-trot-canter and a little piaffe/passage before we head over. I need to start thinking about how to prepare her for shows where multiple days of competition count. And Midge will do 4-3, which has a very evil centerline of shoulder-in. If my judge could conveniently sneeze or drop a contact or something while I’m over X, that’d help a lot, I’m sure.
