This message is from: Lori Albrough <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Hi all,
I just wanted to share with the list our latest dressage show report, well actually the show was two weeks ago, in Palgrave Ontario. The Palgrave facility is very impressive, with 5 competition rings each with their own attached warmup area, separate lungeing areas, permanent stabling for 400 horses, and a beautiful pavillion overlooking the grounds with a view of all 5 rings. It was a 3 day show plus we always go the day before to set up and school on the grounds, so 4 days away. This was another National show with all the big names and International judges, and the biggest show we've been to so far. 202 horses were there - 13 of them were not Warmbloods. One Fjord (mine :) Prisco did great in his tests, and got a lot of positive attention, including from a senior judge who called us forward after our final salute to ask about what breed he was, his height, etc etc. She thought he was wonderful. We ended up with Reserve Champion in our Basic 2 division, only 1.1% behind the Grand Champion! In the Basic 2 tests our scores were 65.7%, 64.4% and 65.0%. I'm so grateful to my coach Ute Busse who is really the best and we couldn't do it without her. We were having some difficulties before the show, he was getting so he didn't want to pull forward into the bridle and would throw up his hind end quite energetically when I insisted. He was starting to back me off and it was not looking good. Ute had to get on him on the Thursday at the show ground and they had some serious discussions, resulting in him being back to his sweet old self the next day - and from then on - and of course the show results speak for themselves. Apparently I had let him over time get behind the leg so it was my fault, as it always is with horses. I guess you have to screw up your horse to learn yourself. Sure helps to have that expert someone there to fix your mistakes before they become habits. Now, the exciting thing is the other day I got a call from a high-up muckity-muck in Dressage Canada. Apparently Prisco has attracted some attention at the upper levels and they want us to consider showing him at the FEI Pony CDI in Blainville at the Coupes des Ameriques in July. This is the biggest event ever staged in Canada and is an FEI-level Invitational event consisting of horses from US, Canada and Latin America countries. Wow! Apparently (former US Olympian) Lendon Gray will be there with 3 or 4 ponies. The thing is that in the FEI-Pony division it is a Junior rider (16 or under). Not a problem as they had identified a junior on the Canadian Junior team who could ride him and asked me to bring Prisco to the Albrecht Heidemann clinic (German trainer who comes over to coach our Juniors) next week to see if I approve of her. My first reaction was to be flattered, of course, and I would love to have him represent our country, and the breed. But after reviewing the requirements of the test, Ute and I have decided that he is not ready for it this year. The test doesn't include anything he doesn't know, per se, but since I am not riding at that level and I ride him four days a week, it is stuff that he seldom practices. The requirements that we figured we'd be OK on include half pirouettes in walk, half-passes in trot, medium and extended trots (good enough :-), trot shoulder-in, 8 m voltes in trot, etc. The canter work however includes a number of difficult requirements that we decided are too much at this point in his training: an entry in collected canter with transition directly into halt from canter, a 6 loop canter serpentine with 4 loops in true canter and 2 in counter canter with a simple change at X (canter-walk-canter), also simple change from counter canter to true canter, 20 m counter canter circles, medium canter, 8 m voltes in collected canter - some pretty challenging stuff. So while he could probably 'fake it' and get through the test I've decided that the logical progression of his training is more important and I've told them that we will wait until next year or the one after. I'm going to keep going with his training and he can only get better. And I'd like him to stand a good chance of winning - or at least scoring really well - if he goes. The woman did apologize for being so vulgar and forward as to ask me to give up my pony who is obviously the love of my life, but she said we have so few quality ponies in Canada and he is just super (shameless flattery but also true :-). Lori
