A Dressage Super Star
Well, if summer isn’t oficially here then the weather man should be sacked! It’s so blooming hot that the thought of putting a riding hat on my head is making me feel rather faint. It’s meant that i’ve been up the yard mucking out at 7am each morning, trying to beat the hot sun. So you can imagine the dred when I recieved early evening dressage times for thursday.
I loaded the mare into the lorry at about 5am when the sun was still at it’s hottest. Poor thing, I wanted to cover her in water and despite all the windows being open in the lorry, by the time i’d driven for an hour I could tell she was not happy. The lorry was started to shift and move as a drove it as she constanlty shifted her weight due to being adjetated from the heat. As soon as I reached the competition I opened up the lorry to find a soaking wet horse who had completely over heated. Luckily I was nice and early so I took her off the lorry and grazed her in the shade to cool down for 30 mins.
The time had now come for the pair of us to put on our competition kit, which in my opinion in this heat was simply far too many clothes. We warmed up, only to produce lots of white foam and sweat, from both of us may I add! We warmed up ok, not Zoe’s usual exagerated paces but in that heat I couldn’t expect a fresh springy horse. But due to Zoe’s fantastic competition attitude she entered the dressage arena in front of the judge doing the most amazing medium trot ( a movement not even required at the level I was competing at on this occasion!). I then set her into a really lovely working trot and she produced a stunning test. Our transitions were crisp and accurate and her free walk was simply perfect.
Just as I was finishing I could feel her start to flick her tail at her tummy and could tell that if this test didn’t finish quickly it could start to go down hill. Luckily we came up the centre line and finished just in time. As soon as i had left the arena I jumped off to find that she was being attacked by biting flies attracted to the sweat she was producing in the tremendous heat! Poor girl. I had some really good comments from spectators which always makes me so proud of my horse. It’s a lovely feeling when someone un connected to you says that you’ve just produced a stunning test. I really do love riding my horse, she never fails to put a huge smile on my face.
After washing her off and re loading onto a now slightly cooler lorry I made the dreded walk to see what my result was. I could see lots of different coloured rosettes and some dressage sheets without any. Praying that i’d made it into the placings I checked my score and to my amazement we had WON ! I have never been so happy. I had to check the score 5 times to make sure I really had. Not only had we won but we had scored the highest score by miles across all 6 classes being run. We had also qualified for their dressage championships taking place later in the year so that is now 2 championship places booked for the summer. Happy Happy days!
Looking ahead we now have a championship show next week to contest so keep your fingers crossed for us. I’m going to enter my championship class and a Novice test as well so it’s all go!
Thanks for reading and all of your support. Bye for now x
