Intro A at White Birch

In case you're not a dressage aficionado, Intro A is the lowest level dressage test that you can ride. It is a walk and trot test only. In fact, the purpose of the test is "to introduce the rider and/or horse to the sport of dressage. To show understanding of riding the horse forward with a steady tempo into an elastic contact with independent, steady hands and a correctly balanced seat. To show proper geometry of figures in the arena with correct bend (corners and circles)."

In other words, it's not rocket science. Even so, I was quite pleased with Izzy's Intro A Test. It's not beautiful, it's not rhythmic, the tempo was wonky, and the rider's hands were all over the place, but it was BETTER than the last two. Take a look.

That halt!  Not perfectly square, but it was so soft and forward thinking that the judge rewarded us with an 8! The rest was just so-so, but there was still much to like. Everything Izzy did was distinctly better than in the first two shows he did, and it wasn't because of the different judges. He's just developing confidence.

​Here are his scores from all three tests from this season. The last score shown is from this show.

• Enter working trot rising, medium walk: 5.0, 5.0, 6.0 Better
• Track right, working trot rising: 5.0, 6.0, 6.0 Showing some consistency
• Circle right 20-meters: 4.0, 6.0, 5.5 it felt pretty good
• Change rein across the diagonal: 5.0, 6.0, 5.5 my fault
• Circle left 20-meters: 5.0, 5.0, 5.5 no rearing or bucking
• Medium walk: 5.0, 6.0, 5.0 it felt okay to me
• Free walk: 4.5 (jigging), 4.0 (jigging), 4.5 he actually walked!
• Halt and salute: 6.0, 6.0, 8.0 I'll take it!

We finished up with a score of 58.750%, 5th in a class of 5, but several other riders finished with scores nearly identical to ours. It was a class of (mostly) very green horses.

A sub-60% score is never what I am looking for, but I was so excited by Izzy's effort. For the first time, there was no spooking, rearing, bucking, squealing, or wild head flinging. He was nervous and worried, but he kept himself together.

In the warm up, I didn't just shoot for survival. I was actually able to school him. He walked down to the test ring without a companion, human or equine, and he walked right into the ring without any hesitation. If you saw our Saturday lesson, you'll know he was quite spooky at C, but for the test, he got tense in front of the judge, but he stayed with me.

Tense, but present.

As I scrolled through the video, frame by frame, looking for bloopers, I had trouble finding any truly horrible moments. The shot in front of the judge was the most tense and ugly shot I could find. It wasn't a great test, but it wasn't bad either.

I am really excited about this show. Progress, even a little bit, is all I am looking for. My plan for the next few months is a lesson or schooling show every two weeks. I think we're finally getting somewhere!

Next up: the Intro B Test.