Sister Does Dressage

After Sister met Christian, I made a plan to ride her in the last schooling show of the season - the Thanksgiving show at the Rocking C.  To that end, Sister and I made three trips to Inola to ride with Patty and practice in the arena before the show.  Mallory with Raffles and I shared a couple of lessons on Friday last week and this past Wed.  On Wednesday, we practiced leg yeilds in and out of the circle and trotted over cavalletti poles in the outdoor before trying a practice test in the covered arena.  During the practice test I noticed that Sister was very resistant to the left since before that, I wasn't really thinking about geometry. 

Friday, Pico came along in the trailer for Ruthie but Sister and I had a private lesson with Patty.  We concentrated on figure eights to alternate bend work and made some progress.  I tried to think about weight distribution and tried to lighten my right leg to encourage bend around my left leg and we seemed to do better.  So, crossing fingers, I hoped for a good show day.

Saturday started out fairly cold but the sun was out and the day was beautiful.  Ivy had the first ride time with Pico around noon. 

Ruthie followed with a Freestyle on Pico in memory of Jaime which got me all teary but was lovely. 
Ruthie rode Pico again in a training level test before Ivy rode him again in her T4.  Next, Alaina and Sunny rode their two Intro tests before I took Pico and tried a F4.  I didn't ride the test well.  Right off the bat I went straight down the long side rather than across the diagonal - this was not the fault of my reader.  Then Pico did a huge spook at C in our first canter.  But we finished the test - the score?  A 57.875, could have been worse.  THEN....

Sister and I rode our first dressage test!  Intro B, not very long or very hard but I was pretty happy with our ride.  We scored 59 - mostly 6's with 5 for development of medium walk, 7 for free walk and 5 for the final halt (not square and haunches right).  Sister did not fuss with the bit to much and gave me a little bend left.  Yeah!

Sat. was a fun day with lots of friends to show - Patty and Jurgen had lovely rides and Christiana on Arde dominated Intro.  Shannean had Silka moving out and Ivy had high point Jr Training level.  Charlene rode Lil in a Cowboy Dressage class.  Zoe rode Bullseye in Intro B and Alaina rode Sunny in Intro very well and had him moving very forward for a western show pony.  Marsha and Lakota worked the intro classes, Mallory and Raffles rode a couple of training level classes and Roxanne got a 9 and Jr. High Point for Jr - Intro. 

Sunday was cool and windy but sunny and YaYa Sisters visited Julie for a cowboy afternoon.  After a wonderful beef stew on mashed potatoes cooked in dutch ovens over an open fire, we cruised the ranch in a wagon pulled by a team of Belgians.  We finished our afternoon with more cowboy fare - dutch oven peach cobbler with wiskey sauce and vanilla icecream.  YUMMMMY  Julie and Dude live in a beautiful wood cabin furnished with antiques, wood burning stove, a real ice box, and native stone floor.  What a wonderful way to spend a beautiful fall day.  YaYa!