Told myself off

Oh I am ashamed of myself. I was such a whinging minny yesterday! I sat all afternoon looking out of the window at the blowy, cool, dull day and I just couldn't raise the gumption to go and ride Ace. I know I would have felt better if I had, but somehow I just couldn't do it. The prospect of having to cook him first is always off-putting in that situation, as is the fear that he may be in a spring mood. I should have done it and I am annoyed with myself big time.

But I have got  out there this morning, and he was a very good boy. I laid out my white guttering to make the arena a 20x40 and practised Novice 34 , which I have just entered for Saturday because the forecast is good.  A tip for anyone who wants to know what a dressage test is like when they don't have a copy of it - search on youtube and you get dozens of videos of people doing the test.

Novice 34 is a nice symmetric and fairly easy test. We are unaffiliated again, because until we are sure that he is not going to be stupid at the letters there is no point in paying the extra money for affiliation. He was good last time out but that was two months ago,  before he started spooking at the blue barrels again, so we'll just have to see what happens this time.

The other thing that I have changed is that we are only going to do one test. He is always tired and shut down on the second test,  so it seems sensible not to do two. I used to feel that there was no point in going all the way there just to do one 5 minute test, but the place has a Gaggia coffee machine now, so that changes things a bit :-)))

I ran through the whole test twice before I realised that I had forgotten the medium trot. So I did that bit on its own, and after trying to canter a couple of times, he suddenly clicked to what I wanted and did the best medium he has ever done, on both diagonals. I hope I can get THAT on Saturday.

Lengthening the trot on the diagonals like that is new for him. So is lengthening the canter down the long side, which the test also contains. It's absolutely amazing to ride a horse who you can send on in canter and then bring back to working canter just by a squeeze down the rein.  Such a contrast to Jazz!

When I looked at my watch I couldn't believe that I had only been riding 35 mnutes. But he'd done everthing I asked, including a rein back, so I've turned them both out.

C