TWH can trot - show recap Pt 2

Sunday morning came much too early and in a surprising turn of events, I was nervous.  I don't often get "show nerves" anymore, and when they do they are fairly mild.  I was a practical wreck despite some breathing and relaxing exercises.  We got to the show a little later than hoped but got saddled up and we started warming up right away.  Unfortunately my show nerves stuck with me through the ride and TWH reacted off of them.  He was nervous, fast and randomly spooky.  I wasn't getting very good transitions and the canter/trot transitions that we had been working so hard on were gone.  Luckily I had a good 30 minutes to warm up before the class!

About a quarter of the way through the warm up, a couple of people I know showed up to watch me ride (Love an audience!!!!!) and after calling them over, talking to them helped me relax.  I finally started getting the transitions back and the canter/trot transitions started coming together again.  Finally it was time to ride the dressage test.

The dressage test didn't go as I hoped.  We entered at A and suddenly TWH was heavy in my hands.  He was rushing and was tense.  We had a nice trot/canter transition however and was successful in getting a canter/trot transition with 2 strides (!!!!).  We turned for our freewalk, which should be his strongest gait, and it bombed.  He was anticipating and didn't stretch out or forward, very short steps with some head jerks, ugh!  Too bad because the freewalk score is doubled, not a piece you want to bomb.  That was one of the things we didn't practice this morning, grrr.  After our trot transition he finally settled down and got a nice canter transition and a honestly good canter/trot transition, there was almost no pacing.  We went down the centerline and saluted and I was so glad it was over.

They wouldn't post the dressage scores until everyone jumped xc so after quick break at the trailer we tacked up for cross country.  Since it is over a true cross country course, unfortunately I don't have much in the way of pictures but the ride went extremely well.  TWH needed a kiss over the first (scary red) crossrail but didn't look at anything twice over the rest of the course.  We had so much fun galloping through the fields and over the hills!

We LOVE galloping!

Over jump nbr 5, from a long, long way away

We had a clear round so we had nothing to do but wait until everyone finished.  I had 10 people in our division and I was pretty nervous when they finally started announcing the placings over the loudspeaker.  I was happy to not have gotten 8th or 7th.  When I didn't get 6th I started getting nervous, nor did I get 5th.  Did I really have that bad of a dressage ride that I couldn't have even have gotten 4th?!?!  After 3rd place was read I gave up and figured we'd have to work harder on dressage and then they read the top two places.  My mouth hung open as I heard my name in 2nd place, I really can't believe it even now!  I can't believe my horse, that had to learn to trot, got 2nd out of 10 horses.

My dressage test was scored much better than I expected, I should have been docked much harder based on his bracing and being tense but we got 5 7's and 6 6's.  We got a couple of deserved 5's and a pitiful 4 for our freewalk.  I am beyond tickled that our canter/trot transitions both got 6's with a note that it needs better balance.  HAHAHA that makes me laugh, the lack of balance is actually his pacing before he picks up a trot but I will take it!  The last piece that made me smile was the judge's notes.  Her comment?  "Cute horse - beautiful and CLEAN!"  With capitalizing, 4 underline marks and an exclamation point.  It makes me smile because he only got a spot bath Sunday morning, he hasn't had an actual bath since our rated show 2 weeks ago lol.  My boy can clean up well.

Overall everything went so well, I am so happy with TWH's progress.  I am very happy that he is going to work for what I want to do and I don't have to find another career for him.  At the next show in Sept I will put him in the Beginner Novice division and see how things go, why not right?