I am very ill

I'm ill, I'm definitely ill. I actually enjoyed the ridiculous and utterly pointless task of plaiting Ace up to go to an unaffiliated dressage competition yesterday!

We had a really good day and his behaviour improved by a good margin. The judge like him, commenting "a horse with much ability and quality". Isn't that nice? We scored 61% in the first test and nearly 59% in the second, in spite of severely mucking up one of the canter transitions in the first test and missing most of a movement due to another failure to strike off correctly  (other leg this time!)  in the second one.

The other thing that lowered our marks was that the judge, one I did not know, said our rythmn was too quick, with many comments saying the same. I set the rythmn to please the other judges we normally get, who want to see "forward, forward". I was also having some trouble keeping him in front of me, as he wanted to gawp at the letters and flowers, so I didn't have much choice. Sod's law that this judge has a different point of view.

I am very, very pleased with him. He is warming up much better and not trying to stick to the other horses in the arena. His rythmn through the test was much more consistent. He wasn't thrashing his tail from side to side, more like flicking it aimlessly when he did do it, and a lot of the time it was relaxed and swinging nicely. He threw a complete paddy at the letters around the competition arena while the person in front was doing their test (nowhere near her thankfully), but I managed to stop him spinning and running. Then when he went into the arena proper, he behaved fine. This seems to be a little foible of his, have a quick paddy and then forget it.  His problem in the second test was that I felt him run out of steam a minute from the end. Unlike other times, he didn't try to leave the arena or quarrel about going up the last centre line, he just did his best and finished the test.

Our plan for him now is to go maybe one more time, or as long as the weather holds, and then stop competing for the winter, when the weather will be no fun, and bring him out affiliated at novice, or maybe elementary, next year.  (with a couple of unaffs to ease him back in first of course).

I am getting to like him more and more. He is an unusual horse for me to own, so gentle and quiet. I must get some photos because physically he is changing hugely. His neck is probably 25% deeper than when I bought him. His chest is about a third wider, and doing up his girth is an inch tighter. In another couple of years he is going to look quite meaty, and terribly impressive!

Must go, I have to test whether I can control Radar in that jointed pelham before I use it to hunt on Saturday and find myself overtaking the field master.

C