We win some, we lose some and others we lose to ourselves.

Yup we are just that awesome that we are capable of losing to ourselves.  First and foremost my daughter is so awesome!  She chose to go to the show to help me.  She got up that AM packed a lunch for the both of us.  Then proceed to help me the entire day.  I am such a lucky Mama.  She was exhausted by then end.  I don't have any electronic evidence.  I knew no one from the show and didn't have time to even worry about it. 

The Combined Test.  Show up and check in and come to find out that I am the only rider in the Novice division.  Yay!  First place for me!?  Well one would think.  There we a bunch of pony clubbers. LOVE!  Hey if my club is less than par I still like to see a big group of PCer's out there riding, working together, having a blast and riding well.  I have several people come up to me and were just in awe of how gorgeous Steady was.  I even had a couple people ask what breed he was which surprised me because I feel like he has always looked like stereotypical Thoroughbred.  One ladies comment when I told her he was off the track was, "wow you lucked out with him.  He is amazing."  I tried not to chuckle and humbly take the complement.  But 'luck' did play a part in the coolness of Steady's temperament but anything else was a lot of hard ass work.  But doesn't matter it feels so amazing to have people drooling over my horse.  He has always had a stature about him, that come natural to him and it helps that he is massive but now his color is a dark rick liver, shimmering shiney coat and filled out musculed up in all the right placed.  It's cool.  Anyways back to the rest of it.

Dressage: I warmed up very little.  It was a very small grassy area. Test were ridden in their indoor.  The first half of the test was better than the second.  Well besides that I got to B and I kid you not my mind went completely blank.  I had NO idea where to go next.  Doh!  The bell rang.  Got back on track.  At the first canter transition he got pissy and kicked out.  I swear he does this in every dressage test.  I MUST do something to make this happen.  It never happens when schooling.  I need to figure out what I am doing wrong I know this has to be me.  I have some ideas as to what I probably do. He got more tense as the test went on.  He was OK just not as good as, well, as he was even just 5 minutes earlier warming up.  I have to say I rode the disobedience pretty much perfectly and didn't let him change me and he came back to me quickly.  The rest was like I said Ok.  The opposite canter was worse the transition was good but then he cross canter at some point.  I went to fix it and broke him back down to a trot.  At that point I felt I blew the movement and I went off course again.  Double Doh!  Had a nice halt, which I am pleased with that improvement.  Over all it sounded worse than the score showed and I thought the judge was generous.  But it was actually pretty good for us at a show and the first show of the year/spring.  So I was pleased enough with it.  Score was 37%.

Then we had to wait, TOO LONG to jump.  He warmed up nicely though we warmed up inside and they had 2 REALLY wet REALLY slippery spots right at each end of the arena where you would turn before and and after a jump.  I did not know of these spots to begin with and unfortunately Steady slipped twice.  Then we trotted only.  Jumping was outside in a small grassy area.  It seemed small to me for a course.  At least when you are riding a boat and not a pony.  First jump good.  Second he hit hard with his back legs, knocked the rail and it pissed him off.  He bucked a couple small bucks to let everyone know he didn't like that.  Third jump then it was 2 strides to #4.  He ran out, erg.  I went back around jumped it and was off my game at the point and basically blew by #5 and last second did a shit job trying to salvage it and Steady was like, Naw I ain't doing that.  I re presented, not an issue.  #6 then 2 strides to #7 and unfortunately you can probably see how this course was going.  Yup another run out.  I was displeased with the way I rode.  Yes I was displeased with Steady but I can't get to upset because something is missing.  I am still trying to nail down what it is but Stadium is by far our weakest area.  Two stride combo's are our achilles heal.  I know that %100 of the issue is straightness.  I lose him through his right shoulder and he for some reason decides that he does not think he can make to stride combo's and uses that as an evasion.  He does not refuse because he looks at a jump EVER.  He doesn't even glance at jumps as far as color, deco.  I am not sure what it is but we will get to the bottom of it.  He goes to the masseuse tomorrow then a jump lesson on Wednesday. 

In a division of one we  lost to ourselves and left with an E.  Meh it was a schooling show and I am by no means broken up over it but I would be lying if I said I didn't second guess his reliability.  We will keep working and we will see where this year goes.  Our next show we are aiming for is another schooling show on June 29th where a large some was donated for OTTB's competing in.  We are gonna get our shit together for that one!

I am bit peeved at myself because my mental game riding was just, 'off'.  Going off pattern twice in dressage.  Missing a jump in stadium.  Forgetting how to keep my horse straight between jumps. I just felt off not physically, because I rode strongly and safely but mentally I just couldn't get it together.  I don't know if it had something to do with only getting a few hours of sleep the night before but I will not make that mistake again.  We have never been eliminated for refusals before, EVER!  So I guess now we can mark that one off the list so we don't have to do that again?