Showtime

I survived SAGE!!!

Or at least the English portion of it...

Well you're probably thinking, "Did a bush try to kill you or something?"

Actually no you're probably not thinking that. You could be thinking anything like, "What's for dinner tonight?" Or, "What dress should I wear to that party?" (actually never mind, if you're thinking that, you probably don't even know me, let alone read my blog...). Or you could be thinking, "I wonder what a taco would look like if it had hands. Like would I be a cannibal if I ate a taco with hands?"

Okay guys, take a moment to imagine what a taco would look like if it had hands. *Shivers*

Okay not too bad

So I was at a show this last weekend and, yeah, I got first (insert applause here). Just kidding, I'm just as surprised as you are that I got first.

 So at the show on Saturday, I was warming up this pony named Goldie for this little eight year old who is kind of on our show team. It was early morning like 7:00 in the morning on Saturday (therefore very early) and I was cross country schooling her so she would be warmed up to the jumps, wouldn't spook, and would take all the jumps with the kid on her.

The first 3/4 mile went great; only a few refusals and that was because the jumps were pretty strange looking in the shadows. Then we got to the water, and she was still fine. And then she spooked at the jump coming out of the water. So I took her through the water again, soaking my show breeches. She took the jump without even looking at it (great, thanks, Goldie). Then there was a ginormous tunnel tent thing that was pretty sketchy and had a loose tarp on top of it, and it was windy.

So this dark horrifying thing creating shadows and a ton of noise was right next to the last obstacle. So Goldie doesn't even look at it. Then as we get to the bank, at a canter, she decides to stop and step to the side. I went over, and was hanging on her neck like a sloth on a tree (and let me tell you, that horse was not in the least bit okay with me hanging from her neck).

Probably something like this

Well, um yay I didn't fall off! What was my motivation? Keeping the show breeches clean. They were all soaking wet, so I refused to get them muddy too. Wow, I care more about my pants than my health..

There was also a dressage test which, let's say that did't go too well. I'm riding this ex-international show horse, and I couldn't do well on a simple dressage course (proves that it's not just the horse that does the work and the rider just sits there; you have to work your butt off). We were supposed to go down a center line, and I was about six feet off the center. Also, part of the dressage test was filled with random circles, and on my score sheet, the lady put, "Your circles look more like lopsided squares. Please fix geometry."

I have something to say, but I won't.

Even though I knew I didn't do that well, I may or may not have gotten touchy after a poor dressage test.

Sorry about a super horsey post, but I was just In the Mood for that, and thought I had some pretty exciting news.

Crazy Dressage Interpretations

Well, people who have been following since my first post (if any of you exist), you should know that I switched horses fairly recently so I could do a sport I love: eventing. This consists of jumping, cross country, and dressage. Gambit, my horse, however, prefers the jumping and cross country part of it much better. That's not to say I don't either (I definitely like jumping better, I mean, who gets adrenaline from making your horse bounce and do unnatural movements, sitting, and smiling and pretending that you are doing what you should be doing? I don't! But it's necessary, so whatever), but dressage is definitely a main part of eventing.

After today's lesson, I realized dressage was going to be much harder than everyone originally planned. Yes, Gambit is very good at looking pretty, and is fairly good at listening to instructions but he hasn't mastered these things called leads, and so that means no matter how good we look, dressage will be impossible. Well maybe not impossible, but the art form we would be doing would not be called dressage, but more like let's-prance-around-the-arena-and-scare-the-crap-out-of-my-rider-and-make-her-cry-because-I-wanted-to-eat-those-flowers-instead-of-trot-from-k-through-x-to-m. Yes, I'm not over exaggerating. I also would go into much more explanation, but I would bore my few readers of this blog away from this URL for unhappily ever after.

Back to riding, if I were to go into competition right now for dressage, my test would look like this:

This is not what a dressage test should look like.

Well what happened today in the lesson? It wasn't a bad lesson, but I definitely wasn't a star today. Let's say we were supposed to be cantering in a circle, a 30m circle, and picture this: A teenage girl on a huge black horse racing all over the 200m riding ring, speeding around on the wrong lead, changing directions every few seconds, and the trainer telling the poor teenage girl to calmly to toggle her reigns, sit back, think slow thoughts, breathe, and think what she wanted to look like. Ladies and gentlemen, Pauline and Gambit. Yes, because these are things humans love to do when speeding around crazily on an ex racehorse.

Who here knows what dressage is supposed to look like?

I promise, I really can ride, I'll start posting videos soon when I actually remember my video camera has a working battery and can take videos. Well in the meantime, if any of my readers (like five or ten of you) are actually riders, here's a short survival guide about how to relax and have a dressage test go well. Go riding!