1st day of competition at Twin Rivers is done. I dont think we have ever been finished with dressage day at such an early hour. 7 rides in 2 1/2 hours will do that! Cody was the 1st one to go into the ring. He was forward, relaxed, and very rideable. One unfortunate break in the canter work brought his score up a bit. Currently sitting in 1st on a 21.8. Madison and Roger were next. I didnt get to see their test in person, but heard it was fairly smooth overall. Roger chose to throw an upper level movement of walk to canter in there. Their ring is scoring on the high side. A 34.6 has them in 2nd. Francie did her 1st training level test. To me, she looked nicely forward, and up. Some little young horse bobbles in the down ward and lengthen trot, but all easy things to fix. A bit surprised at her score, as no major mistakes happened, and the test had a consistency to it. None the less, they are sitting on a 40. Piccolo was very much on the muscle today. Sophie had her work cut out managing him. She did a good job through out. Her 1st time at novice and doing the harder of the 2 tests. Had just a slight blank moment remembering where to go, but got it sorted without penalties. A 38.5 and on to the fun part! Snapper had a lovely test. Very relaxed but still expressive. Gary felt his warm up was maybe one horse too long. Felt if he couldve gone a little sooner, Snaps wouldve still had his spark. Smooth, relaxed, with just one miss on a canter depart into the wrong lead. Lovely to watch. Tied for 4th on a 33.6. Bold had a hard warm up. He started out loose, and expressive. A couple close calls of people not paying attention in warm up and almost causing collisions, really tightened him up and there wasnt time to work through it. Attila had the unenviable task of damage control in the ring. He did a great job of getting the most of what he could without any major blow ups. Just one of those days we all face sooner or later. Chins are up and looking forward to the next phases. Tomorrow is a mix of cross country and show jumping. Both of Attilas horses and Snapper do show jumping and cross country tomorrow. Another busy day, but the courses look great, and so far we are lucky with the heat! Thank you to everyone cheering from afar! It is greatly appreciated.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 20:49:16 +0000