First Dressage Test

Sunday, was me and Millie's first dressage test for both of us. I've never done one in my life, never even been to one so I didn't have a clue about it. Only entered 1 comp as I didn't know that instructor, T, had the British Dressage tests and only entered the DI prelim one, which I was told was really hard.
It was on in Clonshire, which isn't that far. Gave Millie a good groom on Saturday evening, and I washed her mane and tail, plaited up half her mane, hands got tired and was starving so decided to get up early Sunday morning and finish them off and bun them and plait her tail. So made her a lovely huge comfy bed of straw with her supper and loads of hayledge. Went down Sunday morning, hoping to see a happy clean and shiny horse, but no. She had two massive stains on her side, thinking now she would have probably been cleaner if I left her out in the field. Her tail was no where near the colour white it should be. Tried my best to scrub out all stains at 7am, not used to getting up this early, no alone washing out a tail in cold water at this hour. Scrubbed her down, threw in more haylege to keep her quiet while I was doing her mane, which turned out ok, but plaits got very close together as I went up her neck but she looked cute. Took me an hour to do her mane, as she doesn't exactly agree with someone pulling out of her mane for more than 4 minutes. But we got there, then done her tail, which turned out surprisingly nice, and quick had it done in about 5 or 10 minutes. Left her forelock until we got out. Got a very urgent phone call from Claire at 9am to say she hadn't Jess plaited or anything. So ran home, threw on jods, shirt, old hoodie and pants over jods and flew up to hers, do do Jess's mane, which turned out harder than planned. We were pulled around the place a bit. Got 4 buns done, and decided to plait it and bun it when we got out there. Parents then decided to run late so we thought we would have no time, but we had 2 horses loaded up at 10.30 and on the road. Millie was ready except forelock so when we got there, we got Jess out and I bunned her plaits quickly. Claire's test was 11.48 and mine was 12.00 and we were there about 11.10 so we had a good bit of time. Got them tacked up and headed to the warm up.
T was there with her horses and gave us some advice. Claire went in and done a great test on Jess. Then I went in. She was very good, apart from me taking off in canter in the wrong place twice but I had so much fun. She was such a good girl for me and I was so proud of her. She done such a good test, we had one incident of her taking off on the wrong leg which I swiftly corrected but I was so pleased with her. Will definitely be getting into dressage more. The comp wasn't over until 2.45pm and we knew we weren't anywhere close to winning so we went home at 2, after looking at some fab photo's that the photographer took, he's a friend of mine. Got a phonecall to say that we got a 59% and a 57%, don't know which was which but I was so happy with that score for my first ever test. I couldn't believe it, I was aiming at about 40% highest and I would have been over the moon with that, so that result was better than any rosette to me. I'm such a proud mammy right now :) I can't wait for the next one, will be entering the two the next day so we will have more to do, but it was such a calm and relaxing day and will definitely be doing more in the future. I will finish with the test I done today. I went wrong on my first circle on the right rein was supposed to be trot/walk/trot circle then a canter circle but I did canter then remembered I was wrong. But I had great fun and thats all that matters.

Schooling Around

So even though it was bucketing down with rain again yesterday (Sunday), myself and Claire decided to go schooling anyway. When I got to the yard with Millie, it was raining heavy enough. Threw her in the stable and got the tack out of the jeep. We waited to see if the rain would lighten a bit but it didn't. Dad went up to collect Claire and Jess anyway and by the time they were back, I was already out on Millie warming up and doing some dressage like Tara showed me. The rain shower lightened and then cleared when Claire came into the arena so we were good to go. Millie was very good. She did everything she was asked but trot is really hard for her. She won't put down her head in trot, don't know if its habit, confusion or just being bold but in walk and canter she is fine, so I don't think its boldness. I don't know. But the other problem with her is, when I put on my inside leg for her to move away from it in trot, she speeds up too. So its very hard for me to do the aid with my hands when I am trying to slow her down too. Its such a bad habit she has and I don't know how I am going to break it. She only speeds up in trot and canter and not in walk. She moves off my leg fine in walk, and will leg yield in walk and trot, so its not like she doesn't know what she is doing. Anyway, it will all take time and effort and some days it wont be as easy as others but you got to take the good with the bad and move on with it. In my experience, its always one step forwards and three backwards with horses, but when you finally get there, the feeling is unreal. But I am super excited about our new goals and I can't wait to have something new to work on. Anyway, so we done our warm up, failing a bit in trot, especially on our bad rein, the left one.
So there was a grid already set up in the arena with three bounce fences, and then two strides to another fence. Dad adjusted the distances a little for horses and we gave it a go. It was such a good exercise for them. They really had to concentrate on what they were doing because it was all new and it was also a variety for them too, instead of constant jumping courses all the time. Got two really good books, 101 jumping exercises and 101 schooling exercises so going to give them a good read. Anyway we jumped our grid a good few times and got some videos. Then we done a horse swap.
I rode Jess (shockingly bad) and Claire on Millie. To my complete and utter shock, Claire had her in an outline in two minutes (vid at end). She was so so good for her I couldn't believe it, although she used a different method of getting her head down that T thought me in lesson, not sure if this will confuse her or not so will stick to trying method learned, but it was unbelievable. It was so weird seeing her behave so well for someone else. But I was mega proud of her. We had a jump around on them and then I tried to replicate what Claire was doing on Millie myself. Didn't get on too great but its a start and everyone has got to start somewhere. I think its myself as a rider has to learn to ride and feel her in an outline. Where I learned to ride, we weren't thought about that, it was all about jumping and you just sat on a school horse and jumped what was in front of you. I think its myself and my riding that I need to improve. Maybe Millie was capable of this the whole time but I just haven't been capable to tell her the right thing to do in the right way. Hopefully my dressage lessons will be able to fix this problem, because I need to badly. Going to organize another one this week and I think Claire is going to come too and get one on Jess aswell.
Ok this is after getting seriously long winded for a little update post. So thanks for reading if you got this far and if you have watched the video's, another huge thank you :) If you have any feedback/advice/critisizm about my riding in these video's please don't be afraid to tell me as they are things I can work on and improve to help both of us. Thanks again :)

Going in trot

Another jump added to grid

Bigger jump at the end

Gettimg it right

Horse Swap with Millie in the perfect outline

Me trying to replicate Millie in an outline, not doing too well