The exhaustion has set in from the weekend and everyone is vegging for the night! Saturday was a better day for Oslo and he was calm enough to get 5s and 6s on his walk work - a big step up from the 2 we received on Friday! We rode the Intermediaire 1 test today and although he was more relaxed today, he still had very tense moments and was not always interested in listening. Consequently, we had numerous mistakes resulting in a score of 61%. I really couldn't complain too much though since Oslo gave me the walk and it was a huge step up from Friday. Taking into account all the mistakes, only 3 three tempis, an extra change at the end of the two tempis, large pirouettes, and a sloppy canter zig-zag, the score was still fairly remarkable for what we had to work with!
Saturday evening Skippy and I did the Intermediaire Freestyle under the lights in the covered arena, in front of about 500 people!!! It was a very electric atmosphere and I was more than relieved that I was riding Skippy and not Oslo. There were so many horses that completely lost it in the ring that night. Skippy is completely amazing though and was more worried about the flowers around the ring than anything else! Good old Skippy! We had a nice forward freestyle that was bang on to the music. It was a lot of fun to ride! Skippy received a great score of 66% and was Reserve Champion! He also had to be the big brave horse to lead all the other horses into the ring for presentations! The other horses wouldn't stand still and were jumping around during presentations and Skippy was just chewing on his sugar that he received from one of the awards presentor! He was so awesome. Such a star!!! =)
After the Intermediaire Freestyles the CDI 3* Grand Prix Freestyles occurred. Therefore, we got to see Ravel compete in person, along with Shannon Peters on her gelding, Odyssey, Guenter Seidel on U II, and many other amazingly talented horses! Such an amazing experience. I am such a huge fan of Steffen and Ravel's music so it was really special for me to see them perform in person. Also, Guenter's horse is a piaffeing machine!!! I would love to see his score sheets to see if he gets 10s on the piaffe work. It just seems flawless and effortless.
To conclude the evening the top riders, including Steffen, Shannon, and Guenter, did a freestyle together on stick horses (in a much shorter ring of course!). You may think that seems completely ridiculous and it was, but also quite entertaining!!!
Today was a new day and we started off with Skippy having a good test in the Prix St. George, placing him third in the class. It was a great conclusion to Skippy's fabulous weekend! Oslo also had a good finish to the weekend with his Intermediaire 1 Freestyle! Finally he was more relaxed and actually rideable today =) I was sooooooo happy with him today. Finally I kind of felt like I had my horse back. He was still a bit "stiff" feeling and was not always enough in front of the leg, but we had a good walk (for Oslo anyways), and we had a clean ride. No major mistakes. Definitely needed more suppleness and exuberance, but I couldn't have asked for more knowing what happened the past few days. I was a bit disappointed with how my choreography worked out (the timing and positioning of the movements), but that was my error and I know that I need to know the music even better. There wasn't anything majorly wrong, but I got a bit ahead and my pirouettes were not placed very well. I did only ride the freestyles a couple of times a few weeks ago, so I am hoping with a few more practices at Steffens' in the next couple of weeks, things will be more bang on for the next show! Our final score in the freestyle was 67% which put us 4th in the class (Steffen won the class on Magic with a 76%).
Overall the show was a great learning experience and a very interesting event to be a part of. Warming up riders such as Steffen Peters and Guenter Seidel is more than a little intimidating at first, but once I got over the initial fear, it was really cool!!! LOL. Even though I wish Oslo would have been better, I realize life doesn't always work out how you wish it would, and just being at the Del Mar show was an incredible experience! I feel that much more prepared for shows in the future.
We moved the horses to Arroyo (Steffen's barn) this afternoon after the show and all three of them got turnout for a while before settling into their stalls for the night. Their turnout time consisted of rolling in the dirt, more rolling, and ended with even more rolling. They were very happy to get out and "wash the show off of them"!
I will have access to the internet everyday now for the next couple of weeks, so I am hoping to update the blog far more often then I have been.
I am super excited to have the horses at Arroyo now and am eager to get lessons with Lientje and hopefully Steffen himself over the next couple of weeks! This past week has already started to whip my butt into shape, and I hope many lessons in the next while will get my body and mind into even better shape!
That is all for now!
Linds + Oslo + Skippy + Cashew
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