In the weeks leading up to it I had a couple of lessons with Linda and Allie gave us both the best most amazing walk and trot work of her life, and the worst bullshit mare crap I have ever had from her. Literally she would be trotting along beautifully into the contact, with a lovely cadence and I would dare to ask for inside flexion and BAM - she would throw in a stop and nothing would get her moving again, not pony-club kicks, not cracks of the whip, not Linda waving her arms, and she would even back up all the way across the arena, until finally she would rear, I would pull her down, and she would trot off again like nothing happened. Every time this happened I just followed the contact and didn;t give her the release that way but she keeps bloody trying it.
Anyway. Friday I rode alone and it was bloody awful. Full blown high-ho Silver moments, and the rest of it was tense and yuck. Thankfully Linda drove down to warm us up for dressage on the Saturday.
Warm up went fairly well, considering. We had one big rear (that no one caught on film, sadly) but the rest of it I rode the very damn best I could and Allie truly appreciated it.
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| This photo was taken after her one big rear in the warm up. She had her hissy fit, then decided I was in charge after all. She got a nice rest for that epiphany |
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| Discussing the game plan |
After this we went looking for arena 1, which was not where we thought it was. Luckily I was running early so I got to the arena right on time.
Here's the test.
I'm fairly happy with the test, for the most part. The right canter she picked up the wrong lead because I bumped her with my outside leg, but she came back to me easily and popped straight into the correct lead the second time. Out free walk was not what it should have been. Just as my test started a bloody great green tractor turned up and started driving around doing god-knows-what so that didn't help.
Here's my test paper:
Next up - cross country.
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