First Three-Phase

"Aw, beat out by half a point!"

Ruby decided to behave and load on the trailer for our Riverdale show (thank God!). This was our first time ever being judged in a dressage class. Since we have not worked much on cross-country, we decided to enter in the tadpole 3-phase (USDF Intro C, 2' stadium, 2' XC).

For the dressage: not our best performance. Mostly from nerves on my part- our warm up was absolutely beautiful, but once we were in the ring I started getting overly anxious. This resulted in messing up a cue for our sticky left lead, so we picked up the wrong lead for that canter circle (ouch).

We scored a 73% with scores at:
1. 8
2. 6.5 (not deep enough in corner)
3. 7.5
4. 6.5 (awkward circle)*
5. 6 (abrupt)
6. 8 (very good rhythm)
7. 7.5
8. 3 (picked up wrong lead)
9. 4 (still wrong lead). Didn't fix it, so my bad haha
10. 6.5
11. 5 (needs to stretch down more)
12. 7.5
13. 7 (not straight but beautiful halt)

*awkward circle- I practiced my tests at home in a full (large) dressage arena...which  means I was missing a whole circle in there and had to do some interesting calculations quickly.

Collective remarks:
Gaits 7, Impulsion 7, Submission 7, Rider Position 7.5, Aid Effectiveness 7, Geometry and Accuracy 7.

Overall comments: Very nice test; circles and bends very good. Need to pay attention to your corners.

Not too shabby for our first time :)

The stadium jumps were fairly straightforward. Very simple hunter course with an outside line, two diagonal lines, and another outside line. The first jump was the most difficult/spooky since it was a plank. I had Ruby trot in and canter the rest of the course. Clean round.



Thanks to Dan for the pictures!



I did not get any pictures of the XC round because Dan had to leave (to make me dinner!). Since we have only ever had one XC lesson at Debi's I decided to start out trotting all the jumps. By about jump 7, Ruby broke into a nice quiet canter so I figured, why not? Completed the course like a champ!

From an artistic standpoint, Dan snagged an interesting shot for me (which I tweaked a bit with my "I am too poor and cheap for PhotoShop alternative, Picasa").

Next show is on June 6th at a new venue: Chatt Hills. Can't wait to see how that goes.