So I haven't been blogging much because not much has been going on, other than rain and wind. Plus I went to my first recognized show 2 weeks ago, and have been totally bummed about the experience I haven't figured out how I wanted to share it. Do I want to have a pity party about how the weather ruined all our rides? or how about a humorous internal dialogue from Dexter and his fear of mud puddles? or maybe the judges u"un0fficial" comments that didn't make the test about what the hell we were doing there?
Ehh, I'll just tell it like it is.... it was not fun, for several reasons. To start, the week before the show, it started raining, so we hadn't ridden for a few days. This was our first 2-day show where we would be staying over night, and we showed up a little late the first day so i didn't have a whole lot of time to warm up.
The first day we got there and I knew I needed to lunge him, he was acting full of himself like he had the very first show. We lunged for a while and he calmed down a bit, but not as much as I would have liked. It was cold and wet and I think the weather was getting to him. I rushed to get dressed and got on with about 15 minutes to warm up. Every show we go to we get the same comment, relax over the back. So that's all I focused on, transitions will come, the bend could be better, but for now, just relax. As this was a bigger show than we've ever been to before, there was just too much for Dexter to look at, relax wasn't going to come.
So ok, I only entered opportunity classes the first day for this reason. We would just school through this first day to get ready for tomorrow. We started out ok, he was straight down the center line and halted on cue. Overall the test was okay, but it was a huge leap back from what we had done in the last show and at home. He was counter bent, leaning on my hands, tense and just not paying attention. Same for the second test of the day. Oh well, like I said, we will school today and show tomorrow.
Day 2 - Tomorrow
Hey, your rides are never as good at the shows as they are at home. It's too bad the show was a bust though. Especially since it was your first (rated) one.
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