For This I Cleaned My Tack? Show Report, Dressage at Full Circle Horse Park, October 2018

Home Team

 

Dressage, CT, 3-Phase
Full Circle Horse Park
Pell City AL, USA
October 13, 2018

With Milton, aka Moonlight Rainbow
Class 3 – 2015 USDF Intro Test A (Walk-Trot) – Adult, 2nd of 2, 60%
Class 4 – 2015 USDF Intro Test B (Walk-Trot) – Adult, 5th of 5, 58.875%

Highest score: 7.5, halt
Lowest score: 5, circle & two collective marks

Results will be available at FCHP > Shows

Yes, I am riding and showing my own horse. That is good. I also feel as if I have been granted the barest possible minimum performance level that fulfills the criteria. When I said I wanted to show, I did not expect the culmination of my year to be pair of mangled walk-trot tests. Perhaps I should have been more specific.

First Test
Milton came out more settled than our last dressage show [Show Report], although he still likes to fool everyone. The ring steward complimented him on looking chill. Yeah, he looks chill. He is chill. Right up until he isn’t.

This time, he wasn’t a hissy fit looking for place to happen. OTOH, if a reason presented itself, he wasn’t ruling out going sideways. We walked this way and that. We trotted this way and that. Eventually, we achieved an acceptable approximation of our work at home. I figured he would be better in the ring with possibly firmer footing and without other horses to snarl at.

Then we went in the ring …

… and I had a totally different horse.

Milton spooked when we went past the new judge’s hut. Normal. Once in the ring, he decided the entire sandbox was an unsafe space. He wasn’t bad. He wasn’t good. He just endured until he could escape. We scored 5 points higher than last time. Go figure.

Second Test
As the first to go after lunch, I had time to trot back & forth past the judge’s hut and to trot several times around the outside of the ring. Milton got over himself. Horse, groundcrew, and rider all felt it was a better test. More forward. More rideable. Not good, but better. It scored 2 points less. Go figure.

By The Numbers
Judge: Pam Kimble

Note the impassioned plea in the comments of our second test to please, for the love of all that is sacred in dressage, please pick up the front end of my horse. At least, she seems to think the hind end was going somewhere. Progress.

Update
This Is Why You Can’t Do It All
So It Continues, Show Photos, Dressage at Full Circle Horse Park, October 2018
This Is Why I Don’t Set Goals

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott