So. We all love pictures more than words. And I'm not separating this between dressage and jumping, because all I have for the jumping are words.
C and I hitched a ride with a new boarder, the former A rider. She's got a baby and, while she's no longer interested in showing, she wants to expose the baby to as many different things as possible. I applaud this.
Archie walked into her step-up trailer with absolutely no issue, thus reaffirming my desire to have no ramp on my future trailer.
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| Eyes closed. |
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| Yes, I took off my iPhone before entering the ring. |
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| I kinda dig the popped collar look. |
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| I like this one because my boobs and arm position hide my chub. |
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| Wuuuuh? |
As you can tell, I entered the ring with absolutely no contact. Dude is a fucking champ because his mom does not always fire on all cylinders.
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| Free walk after X. |
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| God, he's a handsome pony. |
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| Trot circle. |
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| Trot diagonal. Camera whore. |
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| Second trot circle, where Mr. Prancy Pants tried to canter no less than four times. FOUR. Check out that butt, though. |
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| Free walk. |
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| Resting bitch face. I ate lemons. |
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| Gorgeous pony. |
The test:
I don't know what any of this means. One of you eventers break it down for me. Math, what? All I know is that somehow with four measly canter strides and plopping over baby crossrails, I managed to get my first first-place ribbon on Archie. Stupid happy about this. Oh, and I wasn't showing against myself - my class had three other people! And they weren't kids! A couple of them were super-cute Morgans who had the nicest knees.
After C showed, we loaded the ponies all back up and made the hour trip back home. It was a great first show (with C) for her mare, a great outing for the baby, and Archie was the best he's ever been.
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21 comments
YAY SO FANTASTIC!
ReplyDeleteDayum- that a hell of a dressage test. This link has a great explanation of what the scores mean... although I would say that 8's are also not super common and the fact that you have them in your collective marks is badass! Great job!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.classicaldressage.co.uk/html/judges__comments.html
Those scores are AWESOME!!!!! Congrats! Love the photos! He looks like he's piaffing in the Prancy Pants photo. ;)
ReplyDeleteYou guys are amazeballs. Also yes, pop the collar all over the place.
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome. :) I love how the judge was very positive with the comments too! Normally even with a good score they write a negative comment lol.
ReplyDeleteCongrats! Awesome scores :)
ReplyDeleteWhat fun! Love the pictures.
ReplyDeleteawesome job! Archie looks like he's having a blast too - looks so relaxed and happy!
ReplyDeleteCongrats! Love that headshot photo of Archie... gorgeous!!
ReplyDeleteWay to go!! You guys look SUPER! And that's a GREAT dressage score!
ReplyDeleteWoot woot! Good job lady!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! Archie is TOO CUTE.
ReplyDeleteBroken down, that means you did AMAZING! Each movement of the dressage test is awarded from 0-10 good marks, then there are ‘collective marks’ at the end which are about the overall impression you made. For the marks you earned, 6 is Satisfactory, 7 is Fairly Good, 8 is Good, 9 is Very Good, 10 is Excellent (these definitions are from the USDF/USEF and are static across all tests/levels). The marks you receive tie back to the purpose listed at the top of the score sheet and how you demonstrated the elements required in the test for the level. A score over 70 is very very good! 60's are common, 80's rare like a unicorn. For reference, consistently scoring at 65% or better is a good indicator your horse is ready (on the flat) to go to the next level. In this test there were 160 total possible points for you to grab, you grabbed 119 of them which gave you a score of 74%. In dressage, that'd just be your score, but in eventing we take that 74.375 and subtract from 100 which gave you the penalty score of 25.63. Eventing scoring is penalty based, then your jump penalties (if any) get added on top of the penalty scores from your dressage test. Sorry this is long, but hopefully it helps make sense of it. Oh, and he's GORGEOUS by the way! I suspect they'll be a lot more blues coming your way :)
ReplyDeleteCongrats!! Beautiful pics.
ReplyDeleteCongrats!!!! You have no chub. You are a rock star :)
ReplyDeleteRock star status!
ReplyDeleteAHHHH!!!! You guys looks FABULOUS! Congratulations to you both :D :D :D
ReplyDeleteYou kind of need to frame that test with a 9 for final halt! Whoot!
ReplyDeleteLegends ☺
ReplyDeleteYayyyyy!!! Damn, if a judge gives you 8's and 9's, you DEFINITELY frame that baby -- I remember my 1st blue ribbon -- I was 22 on a college school horse & I treasure that picture. Very special!! And it's not like there've been very many since then, LOL (I don't count classes where I'm the only one, haha!). Well done, Archie!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI so do not want a ramp on my next trailer either!! Great photos! Congrats!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks!