When the going gets tough..

Phew - what a weekend it has been. My muscles are still screaming out at me that it was a tough weekend so I doubt I am about to forget it any time soon.

For those who are avid readers of my blog will already know I try to go for a lesson with Tracey Woodhead over in Grimsby at least once a month. It's great to get feedback from both her and Amy about Ceaser and I and get an insight into different tips on how to get the very best from him. Quite honestly they both usually say the same, which is always a good thing!

Before - warming up

Mark was booked in to work Saturday early evening at a gig it meant we could go for a lesson with Tracey, but it had to be early. So, this resulted in our alarms set for 7am on Saturday and us both reluctant to move from our warm, comfy bed. But, no pain, no gain and I intend to have a blooming good year. By 8:30 we were on the road and on our way.

Tracey was running slightly behind schedule so she told us to go for a walk around the park and have a think about what I wanted to go through. I already knew what I wanted to work on and was really looking forward to telling her about our recent scores at Novice which she had encouraged me to go out and do.

As usual she told me to do a quick, simple warm up and then tell her what aims I had for the lesson. I explained I wanted to get the understanding and feeling of Ceaser working more uphill. Whilst I know what I'm looking for I am so used to him not working like that for all these years, that I wanted to know just when he was right and what it felt like. I also explained that Amy wanted me to go and do an Elementary soon, so I wanted to prepare for this.

Tracey said she had noticed Ceaser has a tendency to not use his right hind like he does his left and we needed to correct this. She also said I was slouching a little and my left arm (we call it my spazzy hand at home!) sticks out - something I hadn't noticed until now! She also thinks with his right hind and my left arm it's causing him to nod a little which is losing us marks occasionally. She said once he works correctly, I sit evenly and his right is working correctly and underneath him he stops nodding.

After - the difference is amazing!

So, we focused a lot on getting me to sit up, shorten my reins - which Tracey thinks is something I need to do - and slow the trot down. She said it's almost like waiting for his hind leg to catch up, catching it, then taking a hold and then asking him to work more uphill. She also said I have to stop carrying him round and let him carry himself correctly, so we focused a lot on getting him where I wanted him and then letting go of the contact a little and letting him do the work. She said I need to keep my left hand next to his neck, with both hands raised more than usual and be very wary that my left elbow doesn't stick out. She also said if I sit up more it will help him work correctly.  Additionally I need to keep my right leg on to encourage his right hind to come underneath him more, which once I had got myself sorted it did. The difference was amazing and I can see what she means when I look at the photos Mark first took and then the photos he took towards the end. I will try to post a before and after shot.

Like Amy, Tracey feels lots of counter canter will help him and once I have done this the medium trot feels much more powerful. Once Tracey had got us just where she wanted us she asked me to try lengthening and shortening his strides so asking for the medium, then back to collected. I couldn't believe the medium trot after this and the power I felt I had underneath me. I didn't realise some simple exercised like Tracey had been getting us to do could benefit his medium so much! What a difference!

All too soon the session was over again and Tracey commented on how well he looks and encouraged me to follow Amy's advice of doing an Elementary as there is no reason he couldn't be scoring 8's looking at the work he had done today. Although, more importantly she said "Do you know what Sian, he really loves his job". Which to me, is a comment worth a thousand "He could score 8's."

*


Sunday saw Mark and I moaning again as our alarms went off at 7am. This time it was to go competing and probably wasn't the best idea after two lessons the day before. My whole body screamed in pain as I got out of bed!

I was booked in to do Prelim 19 and Novice 38, two long arena tests. Ideally I needed to get a good Prelim score as so far to date my Novices have been by far better than my Prelims - how that works I don't know, but I'm not complaining!

Sadly, I didn't feel quite up to it and I think this really reflected in my riding. I was tired, achey, felt run down and which ever leg I moved screamed at me that it hurt and Ceaser didn't quite feel as supple as he did the day before - so I am sure he ached too! However, he did an obedient Prelim 19 test and it was accurate, not rushed, steady and although he was slow off my leg at one canter transition he was great. Sadly the judge didn't think so and gave him a rather harsh 65% which just didn't figure as it rode much nicer than that.

With a long break until our next test, Novice 38 I decided to take some tablets, have some food and try to liven myself up a little. I toyed with going home as it felt like both of us were just not up to it, but I am not one for giving up, so I carried on. Wanting to give us a fairer chance for this test I popped the massage pad on full for 30 minutes and then got on an hour before our time and allowed him to do 20 minutes walking on a long rein to loosen up. This seemed to help and he felt much better than he had in the morning. However everything I had gone through in my lesson on him the day before and the lesson I had on Amy's horse in the afternoon was just going round and around in my head and I was over thinking things far too much.

Our time came for Novice and I was determined to ride a nice test. His counter canter was spot on and his mediums felt fantastic - much better than what they did a mere 6 months ago. Everything was accurate and spot on from what I could tell. I did make a slight silly rider error and circled near E rather than at V so I did a rather large 15 metre circle. However (and this leaves a lot to consider about what the judges thought to us yesterday) oddly enough on my test it said "Circle too small". I have no idea where she was looking but it was too big and not in the right place, but still…. I say no more!

Anyway, we were given a fair 67% for this and although it wasn't the 68% we gained in our last Novice test I thought it was fair. I think potentially where I wouldn't class the day as a bad day, I just don't think my heart was in it as much as it should have been as I just didn't feel all too well. The venue kindly gave me my test sheet back and I said I would check for my placings later on in the evening. I took Ceaser home, gave him a brush down, put him to bed, fed etc and then was in bed myself by 4pm and woke up at 7 ready for dinner feeling slightly better. I think I just needed some sleep and probably exhausted myself the day before.

So, the plan now is to go out again this weekend and try to not over think things before I get on. I am working Saturday so I will not have the chance to ride the day before, which probably isn't a bad thing. I just now can't decide whether to do a Novice and an Elementary or two Novices. Maybe because my Novice scores are better than Prelims, I should try that Elementary after all…. I will let you know!

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Believe. Dream. Achieve.

It seems almost crazy that it was only a mere 24 hours ago I decided to not listen to the angel in my head for once and go with my gut instinct. Do I or don't I?

The guy who drives my lorry for me when I want to go competing was on jury service this week so by chance I booked in for some affiliated Dressage for today with the hope his jury service would be over and we could go. If not... I had a long day ahead of looking after the kids on Pony Day. Oh how I prayed for jury service to be off.

I booked in on Sunday with the attitude that if I couldn't go it wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would be nice to be able to seeing as we hadn't anything planned for a couple of weeks. Ceaser had not been schooled for 10 days because of the hot weather - all I had done was ride him in our hay field and do some canter work up the hills to build his stamina up.

Monday evening I decided to check that "if" I could go, who else would be in my two classes and who would we be up against. After a brief glance I felt immediately sick as I saw two professionals would be in both my classes. Admittedly with youngsters, but still, I do this for fun and enjoyment, not to make any money.

When the thunder storms hit on Tuesday and I still wasn't sure whether to go or not, I had almost talked myself into not bothering. Ceaser was dirty, I didn't have time to plait him Tuesday night and we were forecast rain. However, just as I was about to phone the organiser to tell her I was withdrawing, my driver came to me and told me he didn't have any more jury service and did I want to go to Dressage. Without a second thought and not realising it was 6pm the night before I was supposed to go I said "yes". Oh when will I ever learn. I seem to love throwing myself into the deep end.

My first test was due at 11:21 so I had to be up ridiculously early as I had stayed in Boston at Marks. As soon as I arrived at the yard I pulled a rather shocked looking Ceaser out of his stable to plait his (filthy) mane. Thankfully before departing him back in his stable to wait whilst I got his bits and bobs ready I pulled up his cotton sheet to find a mass of green looking stains. Great. After rushing about to find washing up liquid (it removes everything - even poo!) and anything else I could get my hands on, I nearly went flying on the slippy concrete near the hosepipe tap - Which reminds me, I must tell Dad about that - where there's a blame there's a claim! Mumbling to myself what a bad idea this was I set about trying to Ceaser's legs and bum clean and thought smugly in my head that all those people that have ever laughed at me for wanting to keep Ceaser so clean can eat their words now as if I wasn't so Pony Proud I'd be doing a lot more cleaning....

Anyway, after a quick legs and bum bath, Ceaser was all ready to go and I loaded him and Sara - who comes with us to keep Ceaser company - into the lorry.

As soon as we arrived at the venue I calculated I had about 50 minutes spare to get tacked up, ready and dressed and warmed up. Ceaser had his massage pad on for 20 minutes whilst I got myself ready and set about finding a caller for my tests.

Ceaser came off the lorry blue from sweating in his denim rug. Crazy - never get a coloured pony that is mainly white! Thankfully I take my chalk everywhere with me and the young livery that had come along with us for the ride set about chalking him and brushing like her life depended on it. (I told her it did!)

Warming up went ok. Despite Ceaser having not been schooled for almost 10 days he felt fabulous. Maybe a little lazy in his trot to canter transitions but I had jumped him the previous evening so he was probably feeling a little tired. Which reminds me, I must buy some electrolytes!

Soon enough I was trotting down that centre line again concentrating on keeping everything slow, collected, calm and ensuring that this time my circles represented circles and not squares - rider error!

It all felt wonderful, apart from the trot to canter transition on the right rein which he went a little too deep in, but having not done much schooling for a short while I wasn't going to be picky. It didn't feel our best test to date but then how can you measure what is?

Warming up for my second test I concentrated on getting Ceaser moving forward and listening to my aids more. After a few bucks and a rear that NO he didn't want to move forward I finally had him where I wanted and he was going nicely. The key with Ceaser is to know when to back off and not push him forward any more than needed. If you do he tends to object and can be difficult to ride.

My second test felt equally as nice but this time with a little more power in the canter. Our circles were spot on and he felt like he was using his back end more.

All too soon but just in time before I collapsed with heat exhaustion our test was over and I was halting and G and saluting. Phew, it was hot!

I must admit I quickly untacked Ceaser, sponged him down as quick as I could to cool him off and left him munching on his haynet whilst I went to check my results. As I neared the bus where you fetch your results from I was greeted with a rather loud well done from a fellow competitor I hadn't met before and I realised we had only gone and won with a huge 68%!! My little coloured cob had done it once more! To add to the excitement, attached to my score sheet and rosette was £20 prize money! Woohoo!

I got talking to the lady who had congratulated me and she said how nice it was that Ceaser had won and he truly deserved it. She said the whole of his test looked neat and tidy and the two of us just looked "together" throughout. My score sheet was rather promising as well with some really positive comments. Finally, nothing about Ceaser needing to be more uphill - have we finally cracked it?!

I noticed I was also currently in the lead for our second test but with four more GOOD competitors to go I didn't get too excited as, as I said earlier, there was quite a few entered, with some big names in there. Unfortunately we dropped from 1st place to 3rd, but I was still over the moon - we were 3rd with 66%, just 1.something percent behind the winner!

I think my smile went from ear to ear as I beamed my way through the crowd to collect my rosette!

I am also pretty sure we have now collected our three scores needed to qualify for the PetPlan Regionals and are well on our way to getting enough points to qualify for the Winter BD Championships!

Another successful day out with my superstar of a pony and I am going to bed smiling once more because of him. I have been told tonight I need to start believing in myself a little more. The time and hours I spend preparing for these events are endless and when you achieve it really makes it all worthwhile. Thank you to both my helpers today; Tony and Megan and of course my superstar of a pony, whom I couldn't do all of this without. He is one in a million.

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