Firstly we went to Sheepgates 3-day show at the end of November. I had decided to use a Prelim to warm up and then do a Novice to finish us off for the day. Unfortunately though the times got published and we realised I had a huge almost 3 hour gap between my tests which wouldn't bode well for Ceaser.
He warmed up tremendously for the Prelim 19 test and felt right on form and exactly where I wanted him to be. Warming up with big, powerful warmbloods is always off-putting and as always I let it distract me, but nevertheless he felt amazing and I was ready before my allocated time to go in and do my test. We had pulled the short straw and I found out our test was going to be in the dreaded arena 3, but where I would usually let it bother me I tried to turn it into a positive and thought it would give us more experience of riding in the usually spooky arena.The test felt foot perfect and although I seemed to have a brain freeze where I couldn't remember how to do a 15 meter circle at S, I think it went okay. On reflection my circle wasn't too bad and I was given a 6 which was appropriate for how it felt. Ceaser felt fantastic which to be honest has been how he has felt quite a lot lately. Whether it's the additional schooling I am investing in, his superb supplements from NAF or the feed he is on, I don't know, but I like to think they are all playing an important factor.
Unfortunately there was a 3 hour gap between the prelim and our novice test. I would have ideally liked the opportunity to go almost straight into the novice as that was what I was using the prelim as; a warm up.
We were given 67.05% for our prelim test which stood us in good steed of gaining points for the summer championships. That put us into a respectable 2nd place which I was thrilled with as it was one of our better scores in the last few months.
After what seemed like eternity due to the very cold weather it was finally time to start tacking up and plan the warm up for the novice test. I don't know what changed but the happy relaxed partnership that we had in the morning seemed to have evaporated and I was tense, which led Ceaser to be tense and we did one of our worst warm up sessions to date. As soon as I walked in I was told by one rider not to go near her horse as he disliked others coming towards him! Right...ok. Add that to a mix of rather huge warmbloods and then a small Ceaser trying to all warm up together, it turned into an absolute disaster. After spending plenty of our warm up time on two legs I was rather thankful to say the least when they called my name to go and do my novice test.I think my negative attitude from the moment I got on was reflected throughout the whole test and everything Amy and I had worked on in the last few weeks just went out the side door. I rushed, I pushed him forward too much and I completely lost all sense of direction - no, really. I was supposed to canter straight off a diagonal, but instead I carried on trotting until I realise sugar I should be cantering and as I pushed on to canter the judge beeped her horn. Thankfully she realised I had just remembered what I should be doing and allowed me to continue. Silly rider error! Once that happened I got myself together and bucked up and I rode a not bad test afterwards.
I was adamant I had just mucked up our first affiliated novice up and I spent the next half an hour ranting to everyone that would listen that I would now have a shocking score on my record for the rest of my life. I text Amy to say I had just rode the most shocking test and what the hell was I doing. Oh I do like to dramatise. Anyway, thankfully the judge was nice and gave us 66.45%, to which Amy replied with a "Stop moaning, that's a bloody good score". Okay, I deserved that. So, our first 4 BD points and we had gained them in one sitting - I was on cloud 9 and also on the naughty step for having a brat moment that I "couldn't do it".
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Next up was Elms farm the following weekend and what a blooming drama that was! First of all we arrived to find silly Ceaser had gotten his leg stuck in the lorry partition. How, I will never know, because he isn't a bad traveller so god only knows what he had done! Anyway, after further inspection we realised he was fine, not lame and it was a tiny graze that had caused some bleeding. Phew. Definitely needed a corner to rock in after that though.
I had a really long wait until my tests as my yard manager had come along to take part in the unaffiliated dressage which was being ran in the morning. I wasn't on until 2pm and we had gotten there at 10! Thankfully Mc Donalds isn't far away and Mark fetched me one to gear me up before it was my time to start tacking up. It also gave me plenty of time to fuss over Ceaser that he'd potentially nearly tried to break his flipping leg! There is never a dull moment when you own a Ceaser Pony, I promise you!
When it was time to hop on and start warming up I was thrilled with how he felt. He warmed up just perfect. Everything felt smooth and not rushed. Transitions were bang on perfect and I had a good feeling. When it was our turn to go in I told myself to remain calm and I think I can hands down say the test we produced was our best ever. Everything just felt spot on and despite the wind howling around us at nearly 80MPH Ceaser wasn't phased and took everything in his stride. We went on to win the class with 67.50% which is fantastic and another 4/5 points to add towards our summer qualification in Prelim.
Thankfully there wasn't long to wait until the novice and with just 30 minutes to go I kept Ceaser ticking by adding some lateral work into our warm up to get him really thinking and working uphill. He felt on fire and really powerful behind, which is a feeling I admit is a new one from him! His medium trots are really coming along and instead of just pulling himself along I can really feel his hind end working.
With reflection of the week before I just wanted to go into this novice and enjoy it - which is another reason I had booked in to do the same test. As it was another summer qualifier I went in with the idea that any BD points would just add towards our regional qualification but I wanted to come out with a smile on my face. It was really windy and I struggled to hear anything Mark said but it was a much better test. Everything went smoothly and thankfully there were no rider errors! My circles resembled circles this time and I made sure there was nothing but coolness, calmness and collection (apart from in the mediums of course!). I only nearly made one tiny error where I forgot to circle but thankfully I managed to pull it off and circled just in time. Phew! Before I knew it, the test was over and I was trotting down the centreline.I had not been judged by this particular judge before so was keen to see what she scored us like. A respectable 2nd place and 66.50% put us .5% ahead of the week before and some much more positive comments. Maybe a little on the harsh side of judging, but a fair and accurately marked test. So, another 4 British Dressage points to add to our record and of course to our summer regional qualification!
I cannot believe how well Ceaser has done in the last two competitions of the season and I am thrilled to have ended it on a such a high like that. He is a remarkable pony that I am so lucky to own and compete. I cannot wait to see what 2014 brings and am sure what we are experiencing now is only a taste for the future.
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