As I entered the arena, I paused at the judge's booth to give him my name and number. I also smiled and joked about giving this another try. The judge laughed (bless his heart) and promised to do something about the wacko spectators. I don't remember what he actually said, but it was something to that effect. It was really kind of him to acknowledge our earlier difficulty in such a jovial and light hearted way. I was feeling pretty good as we took our warm up lap.
I don't know if the judge gave me extra time or if we were just running ahead, but I had time to pass by "P" three times before the judge rang me in. Speedy was cool as a cucumber the whole time. That's the pony I love!
Test 2 went very much like Test 1 without all of the drama. We started with sevens, earned another 6 for our left lead canter (really?!), and got sevens for both our trots across the diagonal (!). The right lead canter scored a 5.5, again better than the 4s we were earning just a month or so ago, but the stretchy trot is still a problem; we earned a five with the comment, limited stretch, reluctant.
We may have some work left to do on our stretchy trot, but our trot work up the center line both from X and at A is worth bragging about. We earned sevens across the board. Our final trot down centerline came with the comment, fairly steady and straight. I'm good with that!
Final score was 61.607% which was good enough for a blue out of two riders. The score sheet is below. Click images to enlarge.