As I walked onto the yard with my tack the first thing mum said to me was;
"Katrina just pooped on my head! I was picking out her hinds and she just dropped it on me”
I nearly died. I tried so hard not to laugh that my face went bright red, and the need to laugh only got worse when she asked me to pour an ice cold bucket of water over her head to get it out of her hair! I had to let a few giggles slip out. Poor mum she helps me so much, but it was funny.
I was so excited, I would be trying my first Elementary today! But I had to force all thoughts of it out of my mind and focus purely on Novice 30 first. In the warm up, Katrina felt great and we were working together beautifully. I honestly don't know what happened. We entered the arena, and Katrina suddenly tucked her head in and went straight onto the forehand, constantly pulling at my arms. She had never done this to me before and I didn't quite know what to do to stop her. I tried to half halt her to sit her on her back end but she was having none of it. Clearly she wasn't feeling the dressage vibes, because she jumped clean out of the arena! Disaster! Luckily, I remembered the test, but I'm ashamed to say it was the worst I've ever ridden, the highlights being the free walk and our first medium trot where we got 8s but the rest was dire. Revising the Elementary 44, I swallowed my nerves and nursed my damaged confidence from the last test. So I rode into that Arena, determined to ride a better test! Katrina kept on going over bent, possibly tired from yesterday’s lesson, but I tried my best to keep her up. It was all going okay, we were together, in a nice frame if a little over bent sometimes, and we were nailing the moves, but then I forgot to do one of my 10 meter circles. I'd get lost in my own bedroom. Seriously! All I could do was shake it off and focus on my next move.
The highlight for me was the 5 meter loops in canter, considering how quick Katrina is to throw flying changes in canter, I was so proud that she managed them like a star. She even got every strike off perfect, including the simple change across EB!
I was so pleased we actually won the Novice and to have scored a respectable 61% in our first Elementary despite getting lost and a couple of little mistakes. So after a fun day at trying something new, both Katrina and I are absolutely knackered but we’ll definitely be trying Elementary again!
Alanna xoxox
