Camden Equestriad - Dressage!

Ok guys, spoiler alert - my mare is fantastic!


So as I've said we entered the Camden Equestriad newcomers and I got my draw early in the week. It was super civilised with dressage at 3.02pm, XC at 4.45pm on the Saturday and Showjumping at 2.20pm on the Sunday.

I pulled in at 9am on Saturday because I didn't have my sister to help me for the first time ever (she was away for the weekend). I was also worried about parking but I shouldn't have been, there was plenty.

It was a beautiful day!!

Allie seemed much more settled than she had at SIEC a couple of weekends ago, and settled in to eat some of her breakfast while I plaited up. About an hour later I saw Debbi's float pull in and about 20 minutes after that she called me to see where I was - I said I was about to go walk cross country and that I would find her float on the way up there. It was a bit funny because I walked around the float next to me and there was Debbi's float - she had parked about 15 second walk away and we had no idea haha.

Anyway, off we went to walk the course. The footing was AMAZING - we had a little light rain during the week but there was no mud - just beautiful easy footing. The only things on XC that worried me was a ditch (it was tiny, we could walk over it if we wanted) and trying to canter down hill. The course itself was awesome and I was excited to ride it! None of the jumps scared me. Good stuff!

Debbi's dressage was about an hour before mine but I tacked up and walked down there at the same time and just let Allie graze for a good hour or so. I wanted to get on her at about 2pm, but ended up getting on at 1.45 because my lower back was getting sore from standing there!

Looking cute in a borrowed bonnet. Fancy in the background scratching his face on a tree. He's very cute!

Lucky I did go down to dressage warm up so early, because on the way I asked Deb how she thought Fancy would go in the test and she started talking about a stretchy trot and I was like "what stretchy trot?". I had learned the wrong test!

Thank god for smart phones - I downloaded the correct test and spent my time watching my class and reading the test before warming up. Once I hopped on, I concentrated on getting Allie through tot he bridle and relaxed, lots of over bending and nice quiet transitions. She did really well, but I can tell she's due some body work because she is stiff in the left side of her neck and left shoulder so found it hard to over bend to the right.

My other (non-horsey) sister Erin was coming to watch with her family and Allie was feeling really good about half an hour before the test (there was so much room in the warm up that I was able to run through the whole test off to the side and she did great) so I let her walk out on the buckle to go find Erin. We came back to the warm up with 10 minutes to spare and I just tested that she still had her head screwed on before presenting to the judge.

After presenting, Allie had a bit of a spaz out - she was wearing an ear bonnet that Deb had lent to me because there were a trillion flying ants around, but I think something bit her. I did an extra circle up at A and then headed on down the centreline to halt at X.

Erin got video of the test, I'll let it speak for itself.

Here's our paper:

So we got a 66.59%!!! Very happy with my 7 for rider. Not many comments to go from but I know what we need to work on. We have spent the last few weeks getting her really through and forward into the bridle - now to refine that!

Fancy went really well in his test too for a green horse with only 2 weeks prep after a 12 month spell after retiring from racing, Deb is a great rider and really helped him through it.

Back to the float to chill out for a little while, eat some food, then get on with tacking up for cross country!!