Smooth like Butter

Because this was a championship, the six of us in the class went in reverse order. PW arrived about an hour ahead of time and we walked the course after they shuffled things around from training. 

We walked and he went over the plan, from the very first moment. Trot in, then walk or halt and go over your plan for the course, then pick up your right lead canter, circle between 6A and B, and then approach 1. From 1, go forward, ride to 2. Count strides between 2 and 3, it should be an 8, if you do 9 then you need to pick up the pace a bit. If you do 7, you need to balance up. Then ride off your eye to 4. Don't cut the turn to 5, give him time to be straight, but don't go all the way to the rail either. To get to 6, we decided on going just outside of 3, but not by a lot, just skim the standards. 6AB was a two stride, land kick forward to B. Ride off your eye to 7, same type of turn to 8 as from 4 to 5, then make it a bending line for a smooth 6 strides to 9. All the fences, just one look, then hold it. Don't worry about the distance, ride your canter. 

Warm up was a hot mess. I was continually approaching the warm up fences at the same time as another rider and we were trying to cross paths over and over again. PW said as I took my "one look" I was letting him slip behind my leg. I might argue that it was because we were about to die, but y'know LOL I got it together slightly for the last two fences, but it was not a great chill feeling. 

I rode him under powered to the first fence, but he's careful, and kept it up. We did do 9 strides from 2 to 3 which kinda clicked me in to riding him a bit more forward. From there, it was beautiful, quite thoroughly the nicest course I've ridden. I was thinking and reacting the whole time. Ben was relatively easy in that regard. The right answer was always leg on, hands bouncing lightly towards the fence to keep his shoulders up but keep him positive, and my own shoulders back. Butterball can go sooooooo many different ways that I have to actually feel things and then react to what I'm feeling. Crazy. 

With our clear round we kept our 5th place spot! 

He's so cute, I should've actually posed for a picture at some point, but this is what we got. 

Again, so cute. How are you this cute?

It was a great ending to our spring/summer event season here. While it would've been nice to come out and do our absolute best dressage test, our best score so far still would've only put us in 4th instead of 5th. And the jumping phases that got a little tricky this spring felt so much better and more confident this go round.