Dressage at Lamplight was another successful weekend!  It was the first horse show outing for Jamaal and Anakin.  Both horses behaved very well.  We had horrible weather on Friday, it was cold rainy and windy, there was even a show delay due to lightning.  By Saturday afternoon it started to clear up, and Sunday was absolutely beautiful!

Jamaal Medium Trot

Jamaal created quite the fan club at Lamplight and we were getting requests from the sidelines in the warm up to show the crowd what he can do.  He was quite the sport!  On Friday he suffered from some tension as he did not like to go from the warm up with horse to the arena all by himself.  He did his job, had clean tests, but not as “brilliant” as they could be.  I am surprised he did not lose his voice from calling out so much!  He received a 64% and a 65% for his second level rides.  Saturday morning the footing was very sloppy from all the rain and he was having some trouble maneuvering his giant feet around the arena, but as always he did his job.  In our test, Jamaal had to make another pit-stop to go to the bathroom at the end of our serpentine with simple changes in 2-4.  He just had to stop right as we were facing the judge, Axel Steiner!  Axel seemed to get a chuckle out of Jamaal, as he was laughing with me at the end of the test! His second ride was at the end of the day and the footing had finally dried up and Jamaal felt like himself again, I could go for it more and ask for more expression, we received a 69% and high point at second level!  On Sunday we had just one ride, and he was great in that as well.  He received a 67% and another high point championship at second level!

Anakin

Anakin was a very good boy at his first show away from home.  He was quite balled up in a few warm-ups but usually he was able to let himself go and do some good rides.  On Friday, he was able to show before the rain started and he put in a nice first level test one, but with one mistake he still received a 69%.  I scratched his second ride due to the weather, I didn’t think it was fair to either of us, as we were one of the last of the day.  On Saturday, our first ride of 1-2, was going super until he did a flying change after the canter lengthening and I made too big of a correction which then goofed up the last 3 movements of the test (which I think we received all 4-5′s on!) but an overall score of 65% was not too bad!  He was then able to put in a decent 1-4 for a 68%, and ended up with the reserve high point at first level.  On Sunday, he was tired and a little tight in his back, but he was able to let me ride him more and our scores improved.  A 73% at 1-1 and a 71% at 1-4, winning the high point at first level! 

Pip in the I-2 with his fan club looking on

Pip’s ride on Friday was at 1:00pm in the middle of the storm.  The test was I-II and it was being judged by the same judge as the Brentina Cup test on Saturday, so I wanted to ride the test and get a feel for some improvements I can make for the ride on Saturday.  My personal goal for the weekend was to do both rides with clean lines of flying changes, and that goal was accomplished!!!  On Friday, I was very proud of Pip!  He put in a very solid, clean I-II in very bad conditions.  I tried to ride very conservative in order to save some energy for the next day, and the score of a 63% reflected that.  On Saturday, the footing was still sloppy from the rain, but at least it was nice out!  He felt a little blah, and it was very difficult to get him up to the bridle.  We were able to put in a clean ride, but with very little energy.  A score of 62% put us one step closer to qualifying for Gladstone!  Upon returning home, and the next time I rode him in the double bridle, I noticed that it was put together wrong!  I had changed the browband on the bridle before my Brentina Cup ride and had twisted the snaffle cheek piece around the noseband cheek piece, no wonder it was difficult to get him to go up to the bit!  Moral of the story: always double check your tack!