Too Hard On Myself

The story of my life, seriously.

My coach grabbed my tests from the show, and of course there are a few surprises hidden within.

Test 1: If you recall, I was thinking low 60's. Surprise! We scored 64.9% even with the 4 for that break in the canter and the -2 for my inadvertent error of course.  Because we got 8's on things like our centerlines/halts and the rest of the walk work. And great marks on the stretchy trot. And obviously since those were good moments I forgot about them so I could dwell on the bad.

Test 2: I thought we did the best we could given the pony tude. Predicted mid 60's. Surprise! A 69%. Lots of good moments rewarded.

Things to work on: Slow the tempo down more for more swing and bounce in her gaits. Particularly the canter...it can get heavy/hurried looking. Those of you with horses that tend to want to get stuck behind the leg will understand that struggle...I feel like on a bad day she's all lazy and wanting to stop, so I kick on and it can easily go the other way where she's like "Ahhhhh! OK fine, here is my best frantic giraffe impression (for two strides;)!"

Finally, if you recall, I was all stressy about not having enough time to clean my tack/pull her mane/generally get the pony in presentable show shape. So, in the real world I won the prize for best turned out horse at the show.

Educational, for sure. I feel like maybe I should do this for every show...record how I THINK it went vs how a professional judge thinks it went. Right now, I give myself a 4.5 for dressage judging, it seems I am unfairly hard on one rider in particular :)