Challenges
It's important to know which challenges to tackle, and then to tackle them. There's an old prayer which I am sure you've heard of:
Warm up
I am learning (very slowly) that the warm up is key to everything. Having said that we can produce some marvellous work in the warm up and then go into the arena and it all falls apart. It's almost as if when we stop and walk to the arena Beau thinks it's all over, and being so opinionated spends the next 5 minutes trying to persuade me of this!
We've had some marvellous work using lateral moves in the warm up - small circles in walk leg yielding in and out gets him to accept the contact and work up into it. I have to avoid the perfect accelerator check which is a walk to canter transition, because he offers them in the test if I do, and we are mainly at prelim!
The key is about 15-20 mins with Beau - 5-10 of just walk up into a contact, then a bit of lateral trotting before we go in. Ideally we should trot from the warm up to the test arena but it's usually not possible :/
I got some lovely work out of him in the warm up for the worst scoring test of the year, but we were out there an hour and then rode the test, so he was starting to get bored and a bit grumpy, which means he starts to look for trouble!
Arena
A sage piece of advice i received this month to explain why Beau can be a monkey at home but is almost always very good out at competitions. At home, he is looking for his friends. At competitions his friends are not there and it's all new - so he's looking for me
Training
I have found that before a competition I can't ride through the test because Beau learns it quickly. On one occasion Tory and I were both riding Beau in the same class. She completed her test, then I hopped on, went straight in and tried to ride the test, but because Beau had done it and figured he knew where he was going, I could not get him to the sides or ends of the arena - he did the whole test in the middle!
New approaches
From the minute you get on each time you ride you need a plan. If you do the same thing you will get the same results... so if something doesn't work - change it!
Judge's opinions
This is a tough one - I apologise now for any controversy!
This year i have completed 3 tests in competition. One in which my score was baaaaaaad, but the judge's comments were fair and i agreed with what she had put - in other words i had felt what she saw. So i was happy with that, the score is the score. But these last 2 weeks i have had some odd experiences. In one test, Beau was tense and i was riding pretty badly, so we were inconsistent and the score was bad, BUT I felt his free walk was the best he has ever done - and we have had 8.5 in the past for that. That was the high point of the test for me so it was the first box i looked at on the sheet - and she had given me a 6 with the comment no contact maintained. When i checked the photos that Simon had taken however, there was no loss of contact at all! And further when i checked the rest of the sheet the judge had scored us 6.0 for every single movement (feisty upside down trot and smooth, even, good canter) except the entry for which we got a 7.0. Odd
The following week at the same venue but with a different judge, our test had some good moments but was't brilliant, and the score was in the low 60s, which i felt was fair - and then I saw Tory's sheet. I watched her test which was lovely and flowing and smooth, and should have scored (in my head, and i am not usually far off) high 60s, and i beat her. This did not make sense. The judge seemed obsessed with rhythm, and if there is one thing Sardra is very consistent at it's rhythm - even if being a girafolopolis, which she wasn't
Sometimes it's tough to keep motivated towards improvement, when you go out and the judge's opinion is either simply wrong, or doesn't reflect what you achieved. The main thing i have taken from it is that I felt some improvement in my riding so I will hold onto that, and that it's not possible to change things to please every judge - so I will keep my goals in place and keep working towards them - whatever other people say. My aim is for harmonious riding and a happy relaxed consistent Beau - which will come from a happy relaxed and consistent me - because he already knows his job.
Remember:
It's important to know which challenges to tackle, and then to tackle them. There's an old prayer which I am sure you've heard of:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot
change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the
difference
Warm up
I am learning (very slowly) that the warm up is key to everything. Having said that we can produce some marvellous work in the warm up and then go into the arena and it all falls apart. It's almost as if when we stop and walk to the arena Beau thinks it's all over, and being so opinionated spends the next 5 minutes trying to persuade me of this!
We've had some marvellous work using lateral moves in the warm up - small circles in walk leg yielding in and out gets him to accept the contact and work up into it. I have to avoid the perfect accelerator check which is a walk to canter transition, because he offers them in the test if I do, and we are mainly at prelim!
The key is about 15-20 mins with Beau - 5-10 of just walk up into a contact, then a bit of lateral trotting before we go in. Ideally we should trot from the warm up to the test arena but it's usually not possible :/
I got some lovely work out of him in the warm up for the worst scoring test of the year, but we were out there an hour and then rode the test, so he was starting to get bored and a bit grumpy, which means he starts to look for trouble!
Arena
A sage piece of advice i received this month to explain why Beau can be a monkey at home but is almost always very good out at competitions. At home, he is looking for his friends. At competitions his friends are not there and it's all new - so he's looking for me
Training
I have found that before a competition I can't ride through the test because Beau learns it quickly. On one occasion Tory and I were both riding Beau in the same class. She completed her test, then I hopped on, went straight in and tried to ride the test, but because Beau had done it and figured he knew where he was going, I could not get him to the sides or ends of the arena - he did the whole test in the middle!
New approaches
From the minute you get on each time you ride you need a plan. If you do the same thing you will get the same results... so if something doesn't work - change it!
Judge's opinions
This is a tough one - I apologise now for any controversy!
This year i have completed 3 tests in competition. One in which my score was baaaaaaad, but the judge's comments were fair and i agreed with what she had put - in other words i had felt what she saw. So i was happy with that, the score is the score. But these last 2 weeks i have had some odd experiences. In one test, Beau was tense and i was riding pretty badly, so we were inconsistent and the score was bad, BUT I felt his free walk was the best he has ever done - and we have had 8.5 in the past for that. That was the high point of the test for me so it was the first box i looked at on the sheet - and she had given me a 6 with the comment no contact maintained. When i checked the photos that Simon had taken however, there was no loss of contact at all! And further when i checked the rest of the sheet the judge had scored us 6.0 for every single movement (feisty upside down trot and smooth, even, good canter) except the entry for which we got a 7.0. Odd
The following week at the same venue but with a different judge, our test had some good moments but was't brilliant, and the score was in the low 60s, which i felt was fair - and then I saw Tory's sheet. I watched her test which was lovely and flowing and smooth, and should have scored (in my head, and i am not usually far off) high 60s, and i beat her. This did not make sense. The judge seemed obsessed with rhythm, and if there is one thing Sardra is very consistent at it's rhythm - even if being a girafolopolis, which she wasn't
Sometimes it's tough to keep motivated towards improvement, when you go out and the judge's opinion is either simply wrong, or doesn't reflect what you achieved. The main thing i have taken from it is that I felt some improvement in my riding so I will hold onto that, and that it's not possible to change things to please every judge - so I will keep my goals in place and keep working towards them - whatever other people say. My aim is for harmonious riding and a happy relaxed consistent Beau - which will come from a happy relaxed and consistent me - because he already knows his job.
Remember:
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| courtesy of www.equestriman.co.uk |
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