Sucking It Up Show

Make sure to check out L's 1,000th post giveaway over at Viva Carlos! 

I took Beefs to another show on Saturday. You know those mornings before your show and things just seem to be a bit off? Nothing runs smoothly? Yeah, I was having one of those mornings. Nothing went seriously wrong, but everything just felt not quite right. I have a bad ear infection, it hurt like hell, and I was tired and grumpy. Not the best way to start a show day.

I got to the show about half an hour later than I wanted to, which I figured wasn't a big deal because Beefheart really only needs about a twenty minute warm up. More than anything, he needs a few minutes to settle down from being hauled since it always seems to get him amped up. I threw Beefs in his stall with a flake of hay to eat for a couple of minutes while I unloaded my things from the trailer. MB was a life saver and parked the pick up and trailer for me and then came back to help me finish tacking up (she's the best).

I climbed on Beefs and go "Ooohhhh, you have a hump in your back!" as we started to walk off to the arena. At this point I was questioning my 'we only need a twenty minute warm up' theory. When we got to the warm up arena he was a little tense, unfocused, and looking at everything. He relaxed fairly quick, but had a ton of energy. What I liked was that the energy translated into his movement and not into bad behavior. JL came to warm us up and it went fairly well. It's always nice to have your trainer there trying to keep you from riding like a dumb ass!

Our first test was training level test 3 and it started out fairly smooth. Then I asked for the right lead canter and Beefs picked up the left. I asked again. Left lead. I asked again. Left lead. We got it on the fourth try. What the hell?!!! I may be far from a Grand Prix rider, but I've also ridden my entire life. I don't miss leads. Like ever. Especially not at shows. Especially not on a horse that isn't super green. It wasn't Beefs fault, it was mine. I totally threw him off balance. I asked in all the wrong ways. The rest of the test went fairly well, other than Beefheart letting out one of his girly whinnies every thirty seconds, but I was pretty much screwed after that. 

Missing the lead messed up my score on two movements and hurt some of our collective marks. We ended up getting a 62.3 and third place out of five. The winner scored a 65 something, so at least we didn't just flat out get our asses handed to us. I was still pretty pissed at myself though.

Our first level test 1 was a little better. Beefheart only whinnied a couple of times and the test went pretty smooth with the exception that he picked up the right lead when I asked for the left. At least we got it on the second try this time. His trot lengthenings were far from spectacular, but that's normal. His canter lengthenings seemed pretty good, so I guess at least he can do some form of a lengthening decently. There was a lot wrong, but there were also a lot of good parts.

We ended up with a 62.something and won the class out of two people. This judge was pretty tough and highest score at first was a 64 (I think we had the second highest score out of all of the first level classes). I'm not going to complain. I don't mind a tough judge as long as they are consistently tough and this one was. MB picked my test up for me since the show office was taking forever to get the scores out. I'm looking forward to reading the comments. Maybe.

Like JL told me; if you're above a 60%, it wasn't bad. I think he's right.

The good part about this show is that I learned that even if Beefheart is fresh and energetic, he can still function. In fact, he moves and performs better in a lot of ways. He's not going to kill me. I was very proud of him. 

They say the good dressage horses are a little hot. I agree. The dull horses just don't have the expression that the hot horses do. Beefs isn't a naturally big moving horse. We need all of the help that we can get in that department. 

The fact that I missed some leads frazzled me a bit. I'm hoping that it was just from my balance being off due to the ear infection. Or that I was just having an EXTREMELY off day. We'll see. We have another schooling show next weekend and then a recognized show the weekend after that. Basically, I have just under two weeks to get myself together.