MiniHGal
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Hi all,
I wanted to share with everyone my last big show for at least the next year. Starting in June, I begin my last year in vet school--the clinical year. Obviously, there is no way I will be showing during clinics, so this is, temporarily, the last one for a while!
We went Intermediate Tandem VSE at the Vineyard Classic CDE in Woodland, CA. It was two weekends ago, but I've been quite busy...so you are getting the pictures now. It was a three day CDE, so pretty busy (and long)!
Dressage was good. The girls were pretty nice and forward. Because they are very different in style, type, and movement strengths, they can be difficult to synchronize, especially for walks and collected work. Peeks can collect down to nearly a piaffe...Fas finds collection much harder. Fas has a huge walk, Peeks has a very nice, rhythmic, correct walk, but not nearly as big. But, somehow, we pulled it off and got a 48 in dressage, with a "Just wonderful" on judge comments from one judge!
A note on our 'turnout'....yes, I am 'mixing metals' because the Comfy Fit breastcollar works better than the California soft collar for the tandem wheeler--shorter length to the trace buckles from the front of the horse. But, it is a CDE, and I was using it for more important reasons than presentation. Plus, if you shine up the brass really well, it gets harder to tell which is which!
Thursday warm up. Peeks just floated out there in front. Since it was warm up, I like to ask my horses to stretch and work through their backs for the work out. I don't drill too much once I have them working nicely. Peeks is doing a lovely example of what I like to work on for warm up.
Friday dressage:
Working trot.
Lengthened trot. This was just after I finished undoing Fas from Peeks' leader rein (she caught her bit over the rein). I had to do some fancy rein handling to get that undone, stay on track, and get them to lengthen across the diagonal! I'm not sure what my groom heard, but it probably wasn't pretty. That rarely happens to us, but is a risk when using a liverpool (or other shanked bit) that doesn't have a slobber bar (which come with their own risks). I did not have success in finding rubber tubing to substitute, but that would have helped. Peeks thought that meant she was really supposed to stretch. But then you can see that her front end is elevated--a true lengthening.
Collected trot.
After dressage is done, going up the driveway to go back to the barn.
Unfortunately, I have no pictures of marathon. But, it was a lot of fun. Only in one hazard did we have a tandem moment, when Peeks backed off just enough that I couldn't 'speak' to her, and Fascination decided that she had had enough of following somebody else around. But we sorted it out and had speedy times for the rest.
More in next post!
I wanted to share with everyone my last big show for at least the next year. Starting in June, I begin my last year in vet school--the clinical year. Obviously, there is no way I will be showing during clinics, so this is, temporarily, the last one for a while!
We went Intermediate Tandem VSE at the Vineyard Classic CDE in Woodland, CA. It was two weekends ago, but I've been quite busy...so you are getting the pictures now. It was a three day CDE, so pretty busy (and long)!
Dressage was good. The girls were pretty nice and forward. Because they are very different in style, type, and movement strengths, they can be difficult to synchronize, especially for walks and collected work. Peeks can collect down to nearly a piaffe...Fas finds collection much harder. Fas has a huge walk, Peeks has a very nice, rhythmic, correct walk, but not nearly as big. But, somehow, we pulled it off and got a 48 in dressage, with a "Just wonderful" on judge comments from one judge!
A note on our 'turnout'....yes, I am 'mixing metals' because the Comfy Fit breastcollar works better than the California soft collar for the tandem wheeler--shorter length to the trace buckles from the front of the horse. But, it is a CDE, and I was using it for more important reasons than presentation. Plus, if you shine up the brass really well, it gets harder to tell which is which!
Thursday warm up. Peeks just floated out there in front. Since it was warm up, I like to ask my horses to stretch and work through their backs for the work out. I don't drill too much once I have them working nicely. Peeks is doing a lovely example of what I like to work on for warm up.
Friday dressage:
Working trot.
Lengthened trot. This was just after I finished undoing Fas from Peeks' leader rein (she caught her bit over the rein). I had to do some fancy rein handling to get that undone, stay on track, and get them to lengthen across the diagonal! I'm not sure what my groom heard, but it probably wasn't pretty.
That rarely happens to us, but is a risk when using a liverpool (or other shanked bit) that doesn't have a slobber bar (which come with their own risks). I did not have success in finding rubber tubing to substitute, but that would have helped. Peeks thought that meant she was really supposed to stretch. But then you can see that her front end is elevated--a true lengthening.
Collected trot.
After dressage is done, going up the driveway to go back to the barn.
Unfortunately, I have no pictures of marathon. But, it was a lot of fun. Only in one hazard did we have a tandem moment, when Peeks backed off just enough that I couldn't 'speak' to her, and Fascination decided that she had had enough of following somebody else around. But we sorted it out and had speedy times for the rest.
More in next post!
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