Horse of the Year 2023 Part 2: Dressage

 After in-hand, we had only a brief break before dressage. I spent most of it lying on the picnic blanket with no jacket on, drinking water until I wanted to puke. The heat was intense and I was baking in my jacket. Did I mention that my long boot's zipper stripped in the middle of Wynnie's class? K and DH sewed me into it again, and thus there was no changing into my white breeches for dressage. I was in my boots and there was no getting me out of them until it was all over. So there was no respite from the baking.

the face of one who is baking

K had somehow managed to plait Faith's mane in time for us to head down to the warmup, and we trotted briskly over together, a smidgen late and sans K's dressage test, which was on my phone and had been kidnapped by BarnRat. Then we trotted over to the wrong arena and mercifully discovered that we weren't far from the right one. To get there we had to thread through an ocean of showjumpers - a major jumping show was happening at the same time as HOY, which made for even more cool things to watch! - and we dodged around all the big names and their warmbloods, who stared at us two girls on our little round grey mares like we'd come from another planet. It was the kind of conundrum only K and I could ever get ourselves into, but we at least got ourselves back out of it.

Mercifully, when we arrived at the dressage, it transpired that they were running late. Perhaps thanks to the heat, Arwen was being unusually civilized. Faith, too, was perfectly behaved with Arwen mentoring her. K had enough time to do a quick warmup and, when she finished, BarnRat appeared with water, wet wipes and my phone, utterly saving the day.

photo by Opus Proprium

I hopped off and joined K in the dressage arena, leaving BarnRat to get dragged around hopelessly by Arwen (poor kid is only 12). Then Faith was marching up to the judges' box for her first ridden show in four years and her first time ever in a dressage test.

She was beautifully behaved. She didn't spook at anything, or even lift her head or call out to Arwen. Every movement was steady and consistent, although she was tense enough to not quite give a good stretch in the walk or trot stretchy stuff in Prelim 2. I give my young horses a pass on that one as long as they stretch at home - it's nerve-wracking. K rode a good, solid, accurate test (apart from using her voice), but as they went on there was a definite unevenness in both hind feet on Faith. She'd seemed OK in the warmup, but had been a little off in their last ride before the show, which we attributed to her being a little tired after a busy week. The judge obviously had to mark them down for the unevenness but told K that she'd ridden a good test on a nice horse, so that was fine.

photo by Opus Proprium

I had a couple of tests before Arwen, so we did a bunch of trot-canter transitions, which I anticipated could be our worst mark. Then I drank a ton of water, grabbed my jacket from BarnRat the Magnificent and headed on in to ride from memory. (Novice 2, for the record, is much easier to ride from memory when you've spent a few years at EM). BarnRat, EM, Mom, my sister (who is called Steve for blog purposes), and DH cheered us on from the sidelines.

I wish I could give a detailed recap with scores, but honestly, at the end of the weekend I was so done that finding my dressage test - which wasn't at the main show office, as it turned out - just seemed like far too much. So I have no idea how it scored, but my guess would be low-to-mid 60s. Arwen was all business when we headed in, solid and steady, but we had a few small mistakes and nothing was particularly wow.

Our first centreline and halt were really super. Then we had the little ice cream cones - change rein M-X, half circle X-B - and she was a little stiff in these but rhythmic. Her lengthening felt the best it's been, although once or twice she asked if she should canter, which was my bad - what I get for doing so many trot-canter transitions in the warmup. It caused a minor bobble in the rhythm, though. This was followed by a messy walk transition where she thought maybe popping out of the arena at A would be a cool thing to do, with which I strongly disagreed. Confusion solved, we changed rein in her signature free walk with her nose on the ground, which is either a 6 or a 9 depending on the judge.

photo by Denford Studios

She was just the tiniest bit tense going back to medium walk but didn't jog, which I was happy with. We trotted on at C and had a decent canter transition at H, followed by a nice solid rhythmic canter circle. Her change of rein with half the diagonal in trot was much quieter and more obedient than I anticipated it would be, but she threw her head a bit into the canter, something we've been working on of late but not yet mastered.

The 15m circle was good again and then we had a decent lengthening with a slightly resistant transition back to working canter. Next it was a good transition to trot, and then a stretchy trot circle that didn't particularly happen, partly because of Dragon Reasons and partly because my brain did not brain. We finished with a decent half circle onto the centreline and a very nice halt.

Like I say - there was a 7 or two in there, but most of it was pretty ordinary. Still, I was all smiles as we left the arena. I was on my Arwen doing some dressage again and she was as stoked to be there as I was. There's nothing that beats that feeling.

photo by Opus Proprium

With that, dressage was all done, and it was time to go back to the stables and get ready for some show riding!

God is good.