Otter Creek Dressage Fest

This past weekend I went for my first dressage show with my **NEW** barn. It was amazing!! I had so much fun and I really love the group. We left Friday around noon. That morning I went and clipped Grady and gave him a bath. I gotta tell ya, it is NICE to have a wash rack. My old barn didn't have one so I had to give baths in the yard and that wasn't very fun. So yes, I am enjoying the wash rack alot. I trailered Grady over to Pferde Farm and helped everyone over there finish up getting ready. Then we left... The show is in Wisconsin, about two hours away. The drive ended up being closer to three because we got stuck in stop and go traffic for 16 miles. So we got there (Otter Creek has built an awesome new barn by the way) and set up shop. We had 8 horses and three tack stalls. (It's GREAT to be in a group!!) We rode our horses that evening in the show rings. We went in groups and Lindsay rode alot of horses, but she coached Taylor and I. Taylor is another girl from the barn and she always has phenominal tests. Her horse is as steady as a rock AND a pretty mover. This year she's competing in Training level but will move on to 1st Level after the regional championships this year. (Which she so qualified for, and will probably win) That's good because next year I'll be showing Grady at Training Level again so that way she wont be beating me to the blue ribbons! She's awesome though, she's actually how I found out about Lindsay.

Our ride Friday night went very well and Grady was absolutely perfect. I can not believe the progress we've made in TWO WEEKS! Two weeks! After everyone rode they hung out in the barn, but I went back out to the arenas to watch Lindsay school her Grand Prix horse Rannoch. It was very interesting (we had some private conversation about dressage training) and I also hiked the XC course a bit while we were out there. Then we dropped in at the near by biker bar for supper and then went back to the barn to braid. I braided Grady and another horse as well since I'm pretty good at braiding. We didn't get to the hotel until after midnight and we pretty much crashed. I was in a room with Lindsay, Katelin (not sure how she spells her name), and Jen. We're all still younguns so we had quite a bit of girlish chattery talk going on.

We got up at 6 and chocked down the absolutely disgusting continental breakfast. My first ride was at 8:27 so I got on at about 8. There were so many people riding from the barn that Lindsay couldn't give individual attention or make sure all of us were coached all the time, but I was cool with that. Lindsay also rode three horses herself. Our first test (Training 1) was ok and we got 60%. The score was what I figured I'd get and I was happy because Grady didn't do anything majorly stupid. The judge was sitting in a white van and Grady hates white things so we got shaky when we'd go through the C end. But I was happy with the test over all.

Our second test (T4) was at 11:57 and it was by far one of the best tests I've ridden on ANY horse, not just Grady. He was solid through the whole test. However, we had a different judge and she was scoring EVERYbody low and we only got a 62.8% on it. I was bummed about the score but took comfort in the fact that pretty much everyone was getting very low scores. There was literally waves of discussion and grumbling up and down the barn isles about the judge. Her comments were quite negative as well. No matter what the score though I was very very happy with Grady. He absolutely trooped through the day and was just great.

Well, my break is almost over and I need to get back to work, so I'll have to finish the story of the show tomorrow because there's alot more to tell. But I took some pictures of one of Lindsay's Grand Prix tests so here they are. I don't have pictures of my rides yet because Taylor's mom was taking them and hasn't gotten them to me yet. Rannoch is not Lindsay's first FEI horse, but she's the first horse Lindsay has started as a 3 year old and trained all the way to Grand Prix.

Extended Trot (Lindsay was unhappy with her extended trot)

One tempi

Piaffe

Pirouette

Passage