Final Point, Part Two

Show photos by Daniella Ribeiro Photography

Thunder and Arwen had 50 minutes between their ride times, which was honestly just perfect. It was enough time to unsaddle Thunder and give him water while BarnRat saddled Arwen for me---quite the luxury. When I hopped on Arwen, we still had 30 minutes to our ride time. I normally wouldn't warm up for quite that long, but then again, normally I have actually practiced our test.

"We have half an hour to learn Medium 2," I told her. "Think we can do it?"

Arwen gave a longsuffering sigh. Your whole job is to do the reading, human. I'll do the dancing, you do the reading. How am I supposed to dance if you can't read?

With profuse apologies we set off into the warmup, where Arwen was so relaxed that she was even a little ho-hum in the beginning and needed a little reminder to get off my leg, please. As soon as we'd finished our stretchy trotting and started cantering, though, she was wide awake and ready for action.

Arwen has done this enough times to know that we go to shows to do the things we did a lot of at home this week, and she was mildly surprised when I started asking for half-passes into flying changes, but she gave them to me beautifully nonetheless. We had to go through that sticky change left to right a couple of times before we nailed them down. The renvers was easy from the word go (thank you again, J, for making us do them endlessly).

In fact, I felt pretty confident as we wandered over to the arena. So did BarnRat, who had had time to read through the test a bit more and took her place at E with great pride. 

If I could survive 3-2 on Thunder with zero preparation and a bunch of drama into the bargain, Arwen and I had it handled. She had a big look at the scary logs and then immediately got over it. She was ready to work.

"Ready to give it another shot?" the judge asked.

I pasted on my best smile and said that I was. And thus we began.

I thought our centreline and halt were pretty good, but I, uh, missed the centreline a little for 6.5, "not quite on centreline". (An auspicious start). We turned on the diagonal for her medium---no bell ringing, this time---and she powered joyously across for 7.0, "a little hurried." I felt at this moment that I had a bit less dragon under me than usual. It was a warm day and she hadn't been clipped yet. She was by no means labouring or struggling, just not jumping out of her skin.

in full flight 💜

We turned into the shoulder-in with her a tiny bit on my leg. I bumped her off without trouble but we got 6.5, "more bend," because I was thinking more about her position than her bend. She flowed into the renvers effortlessly and started a string of 7.0s: the renvers, her ever-fabulous extended trot and its transitions, and the shoulder-in and renvers the other way. It was all effortless. Good, good dragon.

The sevens, amazingly, continued into the first turn on the haunches, "more preparation, but good steps." I lost her rhythm for a minute in the second TOH for 5.5, "more suppleness, losing hindquarters." She got 6.5 for the medium walk and a 6.0 for the extended walk, where she tried to pull the reins through my hands (rude) and almost jogged a step at the end, so we got "some tension."

peep the absolute pro of a husband behind us

Her canter transition was effortless for 7.0, and she obediently went to the half-pass right for 6.0, "more bend." I was desperate for her not to anticipate so didn't prepare her at all for the change, just gave her a random spur poke on the long side. She responded with a big buck to tell me to get my crap together. I got it together, prepared properly, asked, and got a slightly close behind but through change. The generalized mess earned us a 3.0, "disobedient, not on first attempt." My bad.

The medium canter was next and I rode it quite boldly for 6.5, "more ground cover."

not sure how much more ground these little leggies are supposed to cover

We got another 6.0 with "more bend" for the half-pass. I prepared nicely for the second change, which is her hard one, left to right---and she stepped through it cleanly if a little tight for 6.0. Yay!

threw the curb rein away bc she was getting a little deep

The circle with release of contact was boring but fine for 6.5 and we got another 6.0 for the extended canter, "more ground cover," 6.0 for the transitions too. Then we cantered down centreline and transitioned to trot. Arwen thought maybe it'd be a good time to throw her toes a bit and I had to put the handbrake on to get a halt at the end, but the judge gave us 6.5, "obedient, not quite square."

Our collectives were also pretty good; 7.0 for paces, 6.5 for impulsion, 6.0 for submission, and 7.0 for both my rider marks. "Talented and obedient horse with a tendency to become a little hurried at times," the judge wrote.

I walked her out of the arena dead happy with how she'd gone. Third Level has started to feel easy for us. Okay, we're not lighting the world on fire in terms of scores, but despite our one big mistake with the flying change, the whole test had felt competent and easy. None of the movements are a mission anymore---not now that we've conquered those flying changes.

I thought we might have gotten our 60% but wasn't sure. All the same, I was chuffed with her. She had a very long drink of water and tucked into her hay with gusto. Thunder had been a good boy while she was working, except for untying himself from the horsebox halfway through the test. Luckily he didn't take the opportunity to gallivant anywhere; instead, he wandered over to DH, who snagged him mid-video-taking without interrupting the video. (Horse show husband level: expert.)

the best dragon

BarnRat was happy to chill at the horsebox while Arwen and Thunder stood tied and we went to get tests and food. 5th Avenue is comparatively unique among local shows in that they do several little prize givings throughout the day, which makes it all a little more ceremonious than the usual thing where you just get your test from the show office. The organizer even hunted me down to make sure I was around for the prize giving, which was so kind of her. (Seriously, this venue is beyond cool).

They handed out ribbons to the cool kids who rode Inter I, PSG, and Advanced/Fourth, and then came time for Medium/Third. Of course, MW (who rides a Lippizzaner, yes, a real one, in the Intermediate), won our class.

adorable cafe signs + husband's dressage face

Then they announced that Arwen was second, and I wandered over to get the test and ribbon, and there it was: 61.71%. Not a world-shaking mark by any means, but it was what we needed. We had our points. We'd earned our tails. Sure, it wasn't a great mark, but it was a pretty bomb moment.

100/10 for this scribe's handwriting

Thunder was fourth (okay, out of five) but would have been second if not for the errors. I was over the moon.

The horsies loaded up fine, barring Arwen's moment of hesitation about getting in when I initially tried to have her self-load. BarnRat announced that she'd had a blast, bless her. We went home with chicken strips and chippies (literally my favourite part of many horse shows).

I'd already picked out a show for our mutual first Advanced/Fourth test.

"I think I'd better read it to you," BarnRat declared. "You know, just in case you mess it up."

God is good.