I have been watching a friend at a horse trials today and am pleased to say that I still don't miss it. In fact today I found myself in the middle of a field at a BE course (though the comp today was unaffiliated) thinking, did I really used to travel all this way and pay all that money just to do this??? I am so relieved to feel this way, it would be awful if I didn't have the guts or skills to do it any more but I still wanted to.
All the boys have had the day off because I didn't get home 'til fairly late, but none of them will find that a problem. I rode Radar yesterday for the first time in a month and as I clambered on board and headed out of the gate and down the road I thought "I wonder how many people would have done this without putting him on the lunge first???" But all my horses are happy to have a few days off and then be ridden again with no fuss. I wonder how much of that is that I am lucky with the horses, and how much that I just expect it to be OK, so it is?
Radar was no different than if I had ridden him the day before - marching out, on a mission to get "there" and then when we had got there, on a mission to get home again! He just loves moving, that horse, the faster the better as far as he is concerned :-)
I am still rather stunned about what has happened with Jazz in the last week, since our medium test. It seems like almost overnight he has developed the ability to canter and to trot in collection with self carriage, light in the hand and beautifully balanced, and that I can slow that right down without him taking too strong a hold, trying to run through the bit, or dropping behind my leg, and I can even increase the bounce on a 10m circle and on the straight. The last time I schooled, on Saturday, it made it very easy to bend him for half pass and correct him when he dropped back and lost the bend, and in consequence the half pass seemed, to me, hugely improved in one enormous step from last time.
I have just entered the Medium 64 for this Wednesday, same test as last week. I will be aiming to increase our score by a couple of percent to above 55%. If I can get half the improvement that I've got at home, we should manage that.
C
I pretty much can just get on all my horses and ride too...although Tucker is not exactly the most trustworthy on hacks...but that's just him. I think part of it is expectations and part, just the fact the your horses are trained to be ridden...not fussed about before you get on. (lunged, etc.)
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear you don't miss the eventing. I know once I stopped, I really didn't miss it myself. Guess my sense of self-preservation was kicking in in my case. And, as you have noted, dressage really does have its own charm and intrigue. It just provides a different kind of "high."
As for Jazz...it is a pretty amazing transformation. But, you'd speculated before that it was just going to take him longer to grow up. Maybe that's finally happened. It's going to be fun hearing how he progresses in competition.
It only took him nine years :-)
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