Lgd
24th Jan 2004, 08:16 PM
The girls had their first outing of the year today, although the competition was at our home base. I don't usually start this early but the Winter Semi-finals are a month early this year (Feb 19th - 22nd) so i wanted a couple of runs before then.
Tavia was first up in the Elementary, we are busy having new boards put in the indoor school and YO decided to put boards over the area they havn't finished yet for safety reasons. Little grey mule took GREAT exception to them so there were a couple of very expensive spooks and a lot of tension in the whole test :rolleyes: Still managed to get just short of 62% and 3rd place. Good judge, tough, but fair so no complaints.
Same judge for the Medium with Peri was next up. She is really out of Mediums but is still eligible point wise to do them. There are no classes at her grade and she is always a bit naughty first time out so I really did it as a schooling exercise. Most of the test was excellent, a lot of 7s, quite a few 6s and a very nice 8 for a canter half pass. Unfortunately there was also a 4 for the big strop she threw about the first simple change (you want me to walk - I'd much rather do Medium canter!) and a 5 for the marginally less stroppy second one. Plus a couple of 5s for strops at the new boards. Despite all that her overall mark was reasonable - just on 64% and 3rd place, although truthfully a bit disgraceful for her as she should be able to clock 70% at Medium. Needless to say we got a 6 for submission (or lack of!). She's obviously a bit fitter than I thought as I worked her in pretty hard for nearly an hour as the class ran late and she was hardly blowing when we finished
Tavia was doing her second Medium test so I was expecting fireworks about the boards and appalling marks. She really gave me a pleasant surprise. Still quite spooky which earned us a few 5s but everything else was 6's and a couple of 7's - one for travers and one for the rein back. Was really pleased about the rein back as we used to have major battles about that up until a few months ago. She finished one mark short of 60% and in 5th place so really quite pleased despite the spooking problems.
Tavia was first up in the Elementary, we are busy having new boards put in the indoor school and YO decided to put boards over the area they havn't finished yet for safety reasons. Little grey mule took GREAT exception to them so there were a couple of very expensive spooks and a lot of tension in the whole test :rolleyes: Still managed to get just short of 62% and 3rd place. Good judge, tough, but fair so no complaints.
Same judge for the Medium with Peri was next up. She is really out of Mediums but is still eligible point wise to do them. There are no classes at her grade and she is always a bit naughty first time out so I really did it as a schooling exercise. Most of the test was excellent, a lot of 7s, quite a few 6s and a very nice 8 for a canter half pass. Unfortunately there was also a 4 for the big strop she threw about the first simple change (you want me to walk - I'd much rather do Medium canter!) and a 5 for the marginally less stroppy second one. Plus a couple of 5s for strops at the new boards. Despite all that her overall mark was reasonable - just on 64% and 3rd place, although truthfully a bit disgraceful for her as she should be able to clock 70% at Medium. Needless to say we got a 6 for submission (or lack of!). She's obviously a bit fitter than I thought as I worked her in pretty hard for nearly an hour as the class ran late and she was hardly blowing when we finished
Tavia was doing her second Medium test so I was expecting fireworks about the boards and appalling marks. She really gave me a pleasant surprise. Still quite spooky which earned us a few 5s but everything else was 6's and a couple of 7's - one for travers and one for the rein back. Was really pleased about the rein back as we used to have major battles about that up until a few months ago. She finished one mark short of 60% and in 5th place so really quite pleased despite the spooking problems.