Blue is Wonderful! But ...

Goals met, even exceeded, but I have no idea how.

The only ride that I thought went quite well was Saturday's First Level Test 3, but that ride earned us our lowest score of the weekend, ​a 62.500%.

Ready to be bailed out!

On Friday evening, I had a warm up lesson with Chemaine. We worked on the canter lengthening and the trot lengthening, neither of which got any kind of decent score on the tests. The warm up was still productive however since I was able to work Speedy through the spooky corners so that by Saturday, the ring was a non-issue.

We warmed up on Saturday morning like we also do. Having Chemaine there to coach us was reassuring. I wasn't anxious or nervous though, and in fact, I decided not to use Chemaine as reader. She wasn't going to be able to coach me on Sunday, so I memorized the tests like I should have done already this season.

Speedy was heavy, heavy, heavy the whole weekend. In the video below, you can see non-stop head wagging which is so frustrating. This is something from several years ago that has resurfaced. I know it has to do with my ineffective half halts, and I've made Chemaine promise that we're going to be addressing that at our next next lesson.

Normally, after a two-day show, I have oodles of take aways to share. For this show, only a few things stand out. 

1. We need more uphill balance.
2. I need a more effective half halt.
3. Speedy needs to be snappier off my aids.
4. Chemaine gave me a great nugget: compression first, extension second followed by don't lengthen from a regular gait. There must be some compression first or he'll fall straight onto his forehand. Yes, that is true, he will.

While I found my scores a bit baffling, they seemed high, after much analysis, I think they were actually dead on and fair. Sometimes judges make us work too dang hard for a six. I think this judge started with a six and only dinged you if you really made a mistake. A six is supposed to be satisfactory, not brilliant. So with that in mind, my scores look pretty accurate although I wish I felt better about the over-all quality of the ride.

Here's the score sheet from the first test of the weekend.

We scored a whopping 65% for Saturday's First Level Test 2. My goal was to break 60% so that I could earn my USDF First Level Rider Performance Award. I guess I hit that one out of the park.

I knew I would be the only rider in the class, so I had already expected the blue ribbon. When I went to the show office to pick up my score sheet, I gave a little "Ooh!" at the ribbon laying on my test. They were much nicer than the average ribbon. Earning four of them didn't break my heart one little bit.

I do have some very interesting "soapbox" things I want to share later this week as well as some statistical analysis of all of the show's scores, not just my own. Chemaine was able to video Test 3, so I'll share that tomorrow.​

More to follow!