14th April
More dancing this weekend with Fred Ginger. Having qualified for Hartpury in the Elementary, I wanted to keep up with the practice. We haven't done E44 for a while. It was our first ever Ele test and I've done it twice early on and got 61.6% or similar. He had struggled previously with suppleness in the canter loops and perhaps I had struggled too to communicate what I needed, but he'd done a few more now in Ele 49 so I wanted to try it again.
There were a couple of bloopers. (You can probably see the 4! The walk to canter in scary corner (top right where people can come in) through the walk walk on the diagonal I could feel Fred looking and I was thinking Don't you Dare spook! As we got into the corner I tried to subtly flex left, but his eye caught outside world, he shifted his balance to the left shoulder just as I asked for canter and we got the wrong lead. ARGHH. Thankfully, he reacts quickly to aids these days, so I quickly stopped and changed leads before hitting our circle at 'A'
Spooky corners has been a bit of a recurrence for Fred when we've been schooling - sigh.
Then I hadn't read my test properly, (obviously) assumed the halt was at 'X' and so halted in the wrong place, losing another mark or so. Well done trigger.
With all that, I was delighted to finish on 67% and there were actually only 3 points between me and the winner, so without the couple of oopsies - wow that is something! The winner finished on 170.5 (68%), second 67.5% and me 67%.
Most of my top scores now have been with Fred and to get one at Ele level is pretty fooking amazing for me and to have gained 6% higher mark than the first 2 times I rode it......
- so good to see progress 😍
Mostly I was happy that:
✅ My test was accurate (after losing marks last time for my accuracy) this was like my main priority for the test
🧐 I remembered the test (well mostly apart from where to do the final halt (d'oh),
🤪 I remembered to breathe & stay relaxed (as far as I can) and
😝didn't panic when Fred got distracted and stuck off on the wrong leg. 🙈
So we're still dancing mum 🤗🤗 I think you'd approve of this new direction. Less danger, and a lot less mud than eventing - it's much more glamorous, 😂😂 much more you. I wish you could have been there to see. I expect you were xx
My next mission is that I want the canter work to be both active & forward AND consistently maintain the frame. It's my bug bear that he gets fussy in the contact.