Show Season 2018

My ribbon display at work.

All from the shows this year.

This is a look back post over this past year, highlight our show season, but also reviewing the steps we’ve made in training, confidence and growth as a partnership. Plus, an evaluation of our overall performance from this year. To start, we need to go back to the end of last year and where I was mentally in this process of learning a new discipline in a brand new, growing sport.

From my post on the last show last year, October 2017:

“I’m at a cross roads right now. I love the discipline of Working Equitation and have been in love with the idea ever since I was introduced to the concept back in 2013. I think it is amazing. I have worked countless hours on improving my riding, and have seen Ashke attains some personal best moments I didn’t think we would ever reach. However, none of that matters when I ride in a show. I scored the lowest score of the season on my dressage test in this show.

I realized standing in the indoor arena at Circle Star watching the wind stream past the open door carrying seed pods and dust from Wyoming, that I’m not having fun. It seems like my goal of achieving a 58% is receding further and further from my reach and I felt dread at the idea of trying to ride the Ease of Handling phase during this show. So many people tell me I should be enjoying this, but I’m not. I’ve lost the passion and excitement I had when I first considered this discipline. It’s not fun any more.”

Sometime after this post, I recognized that I needed to make some changes in both my approach and my attitude when it comes to Working Equitation. First, I acknowledged that despite my protestations to the contrary, I want to do well on my tests, show improvement and advance our skill set. The second thing, Ashke needs to learn to be on the bit, working through the back, and I could no longer make excuses for his behavior. Boundaries. We needed them. So, instead of trying to rush him into lead changes (neither of us was really ready), I worked on correcting the issues that was causing us to get low scores on our tests. I needed to insist and he needed to obey. (He will never be a submissive horse, nor would I want that, however, he can learn to be obedient to my requests.) What I didn’t expect when I set out to change those two things is that we would find a passion for this kind of riding, a desire to work on the things we were doing in our lessons, and the other goals of the year faded away. We have done very little outside the sand box riding this year because I have been obsessed with getting better at the stuff we are working on in our lessons.  It has been a year of discovery and exploration. It has been a year of developing his ability to move through different exercises in our dressage training. It has also been a year of me learning to ride more effectively, to be more consistent in my application of my aids and in learning how to get our of our ride what I want. And more importantly, we began to enjoy ourselves. I could have made the choice to not ride in a show, in conjunction with my decision last fall, but as I began to really enjoy the dressage movements, I wanted to see how that translated under saddle in front of a judge.

We competed in seven rated shows this year. We had one scratch (Expo) and one DQ (July show), with solid scores in all of the shows. Our lowest dressage score of the year was 56.944 at the September show when we were dealing with pain in his left hock. Our best was 62.222% in July. We were consistent and persistent in our approach and I think one of the biggest differences has been in my attitude and approach to showing. I have been actively working on reducing anxiety prior to my show. With our show format this year, the second day I had very little emotional response to the show, powered by my confidence from having shown the day before, and in part by physical exhaustion from showing two days in a room. My scores were a tad bit lower on the second day, which I credit to fatigue and not being as effective in the use of my aids. Ashke is also a little calmer on the second day, since he had worked the obstacles the day before. Our tension as a team seems to effect the dressage scores from my being tense, and from him on the EOH course from being around decorations and obstacles. All in all, I have to put this show season in the win column for both of us. 

In our final dressage test, the thing I see is a horse that is no longer experiencing discomfort. Getting both hocks injected is one of the best things I’ve done for him. He looks comfortable and is no longer using his tail as a sign of his discomfort or effort at doing what he is asked to do. Watching our last test of the year showed me exactly how happy he was to be in the ring. I see so much less tension in my body, and I have worked on the technique to help keep me that way. Thumbs up. Armpits down. Keep the reins short enough to not bounce the contact (still need to work on this in the show ring.) And consistent aids throughout. 

The other part is Ashke’s attitude. He likes being in the spotlight. He was bred to show himself off in the show ring and I see a lot of pride and flash in him as we made our way around the ring. Sapphire, who was the first to suggest WE to me years ago, and who has followed our progress without fail, says she could see him having fun in that last test. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely. Have we turned in the right direction? I think we have. We started the year at Expo, where he hurt himself the night after our dressage ride and I had a serious conversation with him the next morning about how I wanted to show, that yes it filled me with anxiety, but that wasn’t his fault, and that he no longer had to hurt himself to give me an excuse not to go into the show ring. I acknowledged that he was destined to be a show horse and that I would work to get past my anxiety so he could shine.  He has been sound ever since. And with the exception of the September show, I think he has gotten stronger and experienced less pain than in years past.

Perhaps his hesitation and “spookiness” in McCook stemmed from his expectation of pain in the EOH ride. That was the first EOH course we had ridden since the show in September. He might have been anticipating it to hurt and was acting out of self-defense. Or he was just being an arabian with opinions. Either way, I will continue to expose him to decorations, obstacles and outside environments in an effort to work through his snorting, opinion filled behavior. He will develop obedience. We will learn how to do this with an attitude of trust and confidence. When I told Amanda about his behavior in the EOH class, her first response is that we’ve neglected to practice the obstacles. That, and we didn’t have the opportunity to do a dress rehearsal ride the weekend before the show. Both of those have helped in prior shows, so just working the obstacles should help us improve. And I might need to do some “Spook busting” exercises to get him obedient in the face of the unknown. That and consistency are the only things I know to try to mitigate his tension and desire to spook.

I am going to post our first and last dressage test of the year. The videos are shot from different vantage points, so that makes it a little difficult to evaluate, however, the thing I take away is the difference in Ashke. He is more muscled, moves more surely, and is more effective in his movements. He just looks better. 

Expo A-Rated show, March 2018

McCook B-Rated show, October 2018