We are doing one more show at the Ocala Horse Park this weekend before heading up to Pennsylvania at the end of April. My mom's horse Gavin is doing his first training level. He is pictured here. I also signed Jet up for the advanced combined test thinking it would be a great opportunity to get him in the dressage and show jumping rings, since he seems to be an ace at cross country.
As my student Holley Russell would say, "the joke was on me" yesterday morning when I decided to pull out the dressage test for Jet to practice. The horse park hosts this combined test as a final prep for any Ocala horses that are going to Rolex next weekend. When I sat down at breakfast to bring the test up on my computer I realized for the first time that we had to ride one of the four star eventing tests! This is a lot to ask of a horse who is still learning his changes and who only moved up to advanced two weeks ago! The test includes half pass at the trot and canter, shoulder in on center line, a rein back, a walk pirouette, counter canter, and four flying changes. I quickly made an emergency phone call to my neighbors (and dressage aficionados) Bill and Susan Woods to see if I could come over and run through the test in their dressage ring. They happily obliged, so with the test in hand I headed over there to practice.
Today, Jet came out relaxed and focused. He put in a very respectable test except for his changes. He did one change clean, meaning that the hind and front legs switched leads at the same time, two that were late behind, and one he missed all together and I had to do a simple change. All of the other work in the test he did admirably. Our score was a 62.7, and we placed 12th in the division out of 18, including beating a few horses going to that sacred Kentucky place next weekend. I have to say my little redhead really put a smile on my face today. He didn't get a bit flustered about the awkward changes, and I know he won a few good points at other places in the test for his accuracy and consistency. Once those changes become automatic we are going to be on a roll.
I have to smile at the irony in all of this. Even last spring I felt that Jet would never be a competitive horse in dressage because he doesn't have a lovely flowing gait, any natural suspension to speak of, and is in fact a very short mover in his trot. He is, however, very obedient and always shows up to work. I am making note here of how I misjudged him. We have worked very hard since last winter on his dressage, and last fall at Fair Hill he definitely moved to a new level where I had a personal best CCI** dressage score on him. Today, with his score of 62.7, he beat my dressage score from one year ago on Doc in this same combined test by six points. Doc has all the movement and suspension in the world, but he has a very hard time keeping his mind calm during a dressage test. Even though I would still like to knock another ten points off of our test, Jet, it appears, is the better competitor.
I am reminded of something I read in an article last year after Lucinda Fredericks won Rolex on Headley Britannia. Marilyn Payne, a leading international judge, wrote that you wouldn't recognize Headley Britannia in the dressage ring after seeing her jog up in hand. Apparently when the mare trots in hand she looks something like a short strided pony. In the dressage ring last year at Rolex, however, she put in one of the top placing tests, which I witnessed, and it was beautiful. In another article Lucinda was quoted as saying that she is very lucky because her mare wants to win as much as she does. These, I believe, are my new words to live by.
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