July 15 Show: Training 3, 67%

Here's the story on this show. It was a big show! It had rained the night before, and Ri had not gone out. He was calm in warmup, and due to the heat I didn't do much. In the ring he felt distracted and a tad "argumentative" -- against my hand in both tests, not sure if you can see the little arguments we were having about roundness. That said, we did well in placings -- we were first place in a field of twelve experienced riders on very nice horses.  Ri got an 8 on his walk, a smattering of 7s,  and an 8 on his gaits. I got a 7 on position, yeaah!  I had schooled walk-canter transitions to get a better quality canter, and you can see he took it to heart in the walk to trot movement at C, for which we got a 5.

See how dark Ri is in this test? He was covered in sweat, in part because of the heat, but also because of a timing miscalculation. After running ahead of time the first part of the day, the management scheduled in a break, and the one hour between rides stretched to even longer. Because I didn't know they'd adjusted the schedule I got on him way too early, and by the time we come into the ring for T3 he was a hot mess.

As I watch this video I'm aware that Ri is unsteady in the bridle, and at times his movement is irregular, as some have pointed out. He is rock solid round and he moves like a metronome when my trainer rides him, so I think the problem is not him -- it's me. With horses you never know, but I have done due diligence, as those of you who have read my blog know. I'm starting to learn how tension in my body, esp. a gripping leg, affects Ri. Locking my knee/hip locks his back, and he can't move forward when I ask him to, resulting in baubles.  I console myself by repeating that things are improving. I never thought he would have improved enuf to show this season...