Thoroughbred Series Leg 1 2025

Apologies for the wall of text. Apparently I was 0% good at candids on the day.

We kicked off our year without delay. Despite a two-week break over the holidays, Arwen came back into work in January absolutely raring to go, having apparently lost no fitness. Thank you, you athletic little ball of rage. So we entered a nice local show to break the ice at our most favourite venue in the world for February 1st. K was happy to get to come to a show, DH was happy to get pizza, and I was happy to ride, so it worked great for everyone.

Our ride time was only at 16:36, so we had a leisurely morning and then I, true to form, started getting stuff ready much too late and ended up in a flat spin by the time K arrived to help. We were dropping Midas at Penbritte to get sold (boo, but also yay), and of course while I was plaiting Arwen, he rolled in the biggest pile of moo poo he could find. Thanks, bro.

Anyway, K got him cleaned up, I threw Arwen's plaits in, and we jumped in the horsebox without further ado just on time. I've been experimenting with reducing the amount of omepracote she gets for traveling and gave her only one dose before we loaded up, which proved to be a silly idea. She was sweaty by the time we stopped for our routine check at the end of the dirt road. Sorry, big girl. Two doses are clearly where it's at.

Nonetheless, we were all chill when we arrived at beloved Penbritte. I had time to fuss around a bit and poor Arwen dried off from her sweaty ride in the box. We got Midas installed in his new stable across the venue and then it was time to tack up and hop on.

It's been a couple of months since we went down the centreline, but Arwen didn't show it. She marched into the warmup and went to work like the professional she is. We had a nice deep stretch in both walk and trot, and although she had her standard magnificent buck through her first canter transition, we very quickly settled into a lovely warmup.

We'd spent the week before the show working our butts off on our worst mark for 2024 - the change left to right. I am simply bad at them and struggle with both horses, likely because of my uneven hips and general inability to do dressage. But we had really started to nail them down the week before, and she was giving them to me cleanly in the warmup. I knew it would be 50-50 if we got them through in the show ring or not but the progress made me happy.

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We were relaxed and ready as we headed down to the show arena, and as we walked in, Arwen engaged in a new habit of looking up and having a little whinny as we approach the judge's box. Ever since that test at Gauteng Champs where all the horses evaporated from the face of the planet during our test, she likes to just check in and make sure that she, a herd animal, can see other animals of her species. Normally it's one whinny and then we get to work.

This time, of course, Midas heard her from his new stables and whinnied back. Thus ensued a screaming conversation between the two and I knew it was going to be a little bit of a train wreck. She was jogging and whinnying when we reached the judge's box, and the lovely show organiser expressed her surprise.

"She's usually so well-behaved," she said.

I grimaced and explained the situation, which perhaps garnered a scrap of sympathy from the judge. As we waited for the bell, we trotted a little figure-eight. Arwen was obedient to a fault - honestly, she always is - but already trying to dive behind the vertical as she does when she's stressed. I quietly insisted that we stay up in the bridle, and then the bell rang and we wibble-wobbled our way down the centerline to fall in a heap at X. To her credit, she only wiggled a step or two before she stayed still, so we scraped up a 6.0, "more immobility."

She knew the medium trot was coming despite her tension so I didn't give her a single aid for it, just turned onto the diagonal and hung on. This mare pulled out suspension I didn't know she had. Though I felt her collapsing in the frame a little, I worked hard to keep her up and to sit the amazing bouncy power she'd found somewhere. The judge was unamused; "more length of frame and airtime," 6.0.

The rest of the trot work, albeit faultlessly obedient, was mostly my quest to keep her in front of the vertical with varying degrees of success. My unaccomplished butt can only push her neck up if I'm not bending her, so the lack of suppleness dinged us in the half-circles, the shoulder-in, and the half-pass, which were 6.5, 6.0, 6.0 all with "more bend." She threw her head and put her tongue over the bit into the extended trot, then put it back and gave me a really nice trot, but still had 5.5, "some tension." Fair enough. I have to put the bit low because of the melanoma in the corner of her mouth, so that's a thing that happens sometimes.

We started to settle down and halted perfectly for a really fluent rein-back, except I was convinced it was five steps instead of four, so we got 5.5 because I cannot count. Our shoulder-in was another 5.5, but she was feeling less worried and got 6.0 "more uphill" and 6.5 "better" for the half circles and the half-pass.

To her eternal credit, tense as she was, Arwen did not take a single jog step in her walk work. To my credit, I didn't stuff up the TOH. We got 6.0 for both and 6.0 for the medium walk, "some tension, more fluent."

She was still tight and unsteady in the connection in our extended walk, 6.5, "step more to the bit." Again, she was absolutely obedient to the walk-to-canter transition for 6.0, "more cadence." Her half-pass left felt fantastic; she'd gotten over her tension for the most part and was listening nicely, so she asked politely if I wanted a pirouette (which we've been working on) on the centerline and lost her tempo for a couple of steps when I declined It was 5.5, "more steady head." She wanted to dip BTV in the half circle and I worked with all my might to keep her up in the bridle, but we did make a very nice little change that was not late behind despite having a bit of a bounce in it, 5.0, "croup high."

Our next half-pass was great, 6.5, but I was so relieved about our "bad" change being good that I forgot to, like, ride the good change, which was close behind for 4.0, "late behind."

She didn't get antsy in the extended canter although I rode it a little conservatively for 6.5, "more uphill", also 6.5 for the transitions. For once, when we came down to collected trot, she was easy and steady and not rushing, so that was another 6.5. We ended on a high note with our 7.0 for a really fabulous, straight, square, steady and immobile halt. (This particular judge appears to have a case of the 5-6-7s).

We had 6.0 for the paces, an expected 5.5 for the impulsion and submission, 6.5 for my seat, and 6.0 for my aids. Our comment was "Unfortunately quite tense today with tongue over the bit at times. Settled a little towards end of test, relaxing a little over back."

As we walked out I knew it would be touch and go whether we scraped out that last grading point. This judge tends to be harsh, but even under a generous judge, it wasn't a good test. I was really proud of two things, though: that Arwen remained imminently rideable even though she was genuinely upset, and that I rode every step and didn't let my feathers get ruffled. I kept her up in front of that bridle to the extent that we didn't get a single BTV comment, which was no easy feat.

It was a good show, it just wasn't a good test, and I wasn't surprised with the final mark - 58.87%. We'd missed getting our tailcoat by 1.13%. 

I waved the test at DH and told him the mark, and his response pretty much equaled my sentiment. "Oh, well, honey, now we have an excuse to go to another show soon!"

We bought way too much pizza, loaded up, and went our merry way with happy hearts despite the marks. It's always a good day with the horses and people we love.

God is good.