Day 2
Group polework session in the morning. Some interesting exercises including a corner fan of poles, SI then HP, which never really flowed for us, a fact which I put down to general crapness on my part. Again the emphasis on more energy. I noticed that too much too soon and I lose my balance and block him, so although I appreciate we need to find a more forward gear I am going to work on it with some care because the last thing I want is to cause tension and so on. Q was great in the group lesson, which may or may not have had something to do with the syringe of Carl Hester calmer I emptied down his throat an hour earlier.
Lunchtime Alex did a demo of M61 to show us all how it was done and we all got to judge.
In the afternoon, a lesson on test riding with Dan. Unfortunately, no sooner had we ridden in than the heavens let loose with what felt very much like hail, and something approaching a gale with almost horizontal wind and a great deal of unpleasantness. Q was refusing to turn into it and to be fair I didn't want to either, but in the end I had to turn him and get on with it. I could barely hear Dan due to the wind and we didn't get as much as we might have from it because of that, but again forwards and evenness very much the thing, keeping him connected through the movements - I know I do tend to drop him or at least not support as much as I should. Got soaked through to the knicker elastic. Rui had arrived in the afternoon and came to watch too, but got to hide in the judge's hut.
Day 3
Lesson with Alex in the morning, working on relaxation, forward, suppleness. Now Q is a very supple horse which he is masterful at using in all sorts of crafty evasions but with the degree of forward requested we couldn't really get the stretch and suppleness that I know he has so I concluded that it was probably a bit too much too soon for where we are (that is to say, in pipe and slippers mode). I do know though that I have to learn to ride something other than said pipe and slippers trot in mitigation so this is going to need some work on my part (and his). Some really good exercises, based on ribboning in many ways, change of bend ie SI to renvers down the long side, and switching between LY and HP on a diagonal. I do that latter one with Rui but he'll have me doing LY in one direction then HP in the other. Doing it all on the one diagonal was a bit much for us with the forward as well (!) but with someone a bit further along the evolutionary scale that would be an excellent suppling exercise. We also concentrated on riding into the corners and straightening before asking for medium gaits and that was really good. Riding into corners and using them to set up movements is something I know in theory but never seem to get around to doing.
Afternoon: re-ride the test. I made sure I had it off by heart to get me through the "oh fuckety doodads" moment and in the warm up concentrated on things like riding the corners, riding halts and working to medium transitions (or more correctly, our approximation thereof). By the time the test came we were both running on fumes tbh but got round it without making errors at least - very enjoyable to ride knowing I knew the test and had more brain space to think about how I was going to ride movements rather than just thinking "oh fuckety doodads". Our mediums were very flat, there really was nothing there at all in fact but we got 64.13% for our efforts. I was absolutely thrilled to bits with this :) It's our best ever score in our long campaigning history of four tests (two prelims, a novice and an elementary) and he was awesome, not only in the test but in the group situation away from home, just standing quietly with me waiting to go in, so proud of him.
It's given me the urge to get out and do some comps so I really need to get my arse in gear and arrange something.soon.
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