Laura's Dressage Outing - March 2018
Laura's Dressage Outing - March 2018
Equetech | April 18 2019As real riders, we love seeing our customers out and about and hearing about their horsey adventures. In this blog, we hand over to Equetech Real Rider Laura and her horse Mikey on their dressage outing.
"Hello, Laura here, one of the Equetech Real Riders. This weekend, Mikey and I headed to our first dressage show this year; in fact, it was my first dressage post my back operation last November, and the last time we did some dressage was last June, so it had been a while! We headed out with a goal in mind: to get a last-minute qualification to the Chiltern and Thames Rider Dressage Championship in a few weeks; we needed a score of more than 60% to place 1st or 2nd. After a bit of a wobble in my practice session on Friday evening, I thought I had bitten off too much and put unnecessary pressure on myself. However, we set off for the show with the goal of doing our best!
I was pretty nervous. The last few months have been trying to get back into the swing of things, so just getting ready for the show and driving to the venue, I could feel the nerves starting to build. The warm-up went well, which allowed me to settle the nerves a bit; Mikey was feeling pretty relaxed, although he needed a little encouragement to move off the leg a bit more! Our first test was prelim 7, and having not been inside the boards for a while, we had a couple of "green" mistakes, including hitting the boards on the right rein in canter due to me not having enough contact in the outside rein!
However, overall, I was pleased with the test; we scored 68.6% and managed 2nd place ‐ we got our qualification at Prelim (phew, one down!) I decided not to do too much of a warm-up for my 2nd test (November 28) as I didn't want to overcook it; we did a bit of medium trot and practised my canter half circles back to the track with a few strides of counter canter and then went in, the 2nd test overall felt even better than the first, our walk let us down however there were some really lovely moments, thankfully the judge agreed and gave us 70.8% and 1st place! We did it. We bagged our second qualification of the day. Super chuffed! Now to practise, practise, practise ahead of the championships in a few weeks!
For those who don't know, there is a new BD rule that means you need to display two competition numbers now; if you don't, you can lose 2 points from your score. Check out the behind-the-scenes video to see the Equetech Bridle Number Holders in action ‐ we used them yesterday, and they are super easy to use!
Until next time, Laura and Mikey x"
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