Training Journal
Dressage.
Full Circle Horse Park.
Intro Test A.
With Rodney.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know, right?!?!?!?!
Since our canter session at the end of July [They Said It Couldn’t Be Done], we have been quietly planning this show debut. I hope you understand why I haven’t said anything until now. Many a slip twixt cup and lip [God Laughs].
Our ride time is 3:24 pm US central time. Alabama is GMT/UTC – 6h during Standard Time; GMT/UTC – 5h during Daylight Saving Time, per TimeTemperature.com. While the horses’s mouth, GreenwichMeanTime.com, converts the time correctly (-5), the text doesn’t mention daylight savings. But I have fallen down an Internet rabbit hole. Back to the show.
If I never get on, that’s okay. He may get off the trailer, take one look, say “Holy Horse Show, Batman!”, and stage a meltdown.
If I warm up, but don’t show, that’s okay. We have his pre-test routine planned: grazing, watching warm-up, long-lining, a break, rider up, walking, more walking, brief trotting, standing and watching as needed, more walking, enter A working trot rising. We are prepared to take the off-ramp at any point in the process.
If I show, but have to stop halfway through, that’s okay. Although the test is so epically short, if we get in and get started, we *should* be able to scramble to the finish.
I’m saying all of this for myself as much as for you. To remind myself that, regardless of the result, today is a success. As long as everyone comes home ears up and steel down, today is a victory.
To talk about a show. To be able to use the words “show” and “Rodney” in the same sentence. This is more than I thought possible at the beginning of the year.
Sending in the entry. A miracle step right there.
Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott
Virtual Brush Box 
So excited!!! Good luck & sending good thoughts and calm focus!!!!
Will keep you in my prayers. 🤞🍀
Yippee!!! Good luck! Success indeed, whatever happens. I hope what happens is all good 🙂
Good Luck! Rodney will be a star.
Awesome. Don’t give yourself QUITE so many exit strategies. It’s only three minutes of your (and his) life — the actual test, anyway. You can indeed get through it. After all, one of the important skillsets of dressage tests is to pick up the knitting after a flub and continue on with aplomb. One movement that gets a ‘2’ does not mean the entire test has to be a trainwreck (Ask me how I know.) Just sayin’, don’t be so prepared to give up that you have no strategy to succeed.
Yay! Thank you all.
Ah, the dreaded two. I have seen it and continued on. The exit strategies were more about being aware of Rodney’s mental state.Once his brain leaves the building, continuing to press him is a losing strategy. It was also about keeping the pressure off of me. But I’m getting ahead of myself.