Ace continued to battle to some extent on Monday and Tuesday so I took him to the competition today with considerable curiosity about what would happen. It threw it down with rain and was extremely windy, which I was pleased about because it was a very good test of whether I can now control him.
He did attempt to spook at the letters, but I found him much easier to control than he has been before. The walk and trot work was good, 6s and 7s in both tests. He did spoil the canter by changing legs and by breaking, but he didn't buck and he didn't rear, which is a big improvement. We scored justifiable 2s and 4s for the bits of canter he messed up, and in the novice we got a score of 61% that I was extremely pleased with. In both tests, had he not spooked, he would have scored in the mid 60s. Since I was not riding him to show off his paces at all, and kept him very slow so that I could make him behave if he was silly, I was well pleased with those results.
He is well on the way back to the kind of form he was showing before all hell broke loose with Jazz and his own stay in hospital.
C
Good beginning to a fresh start. Keep up the homework about that spooking and your determined riding. It seems to be paying off.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear you were pleased about it all.