Our First Placing

Despite no riding, we did the unbelieveable and actually placed in our second-ever dressage test!
Admittedly, it was only test 0.1 (which has no canter in it) but it's only the third time he has been in a white dressage arena.

I am so proud of my little guy because he was (mostly) wonderfully chilled out despite the chaos going on at the Park. In addition to the dressage, there was show jumping, cross country and a western show on! Talk about horses for Africa!

He took a bit of pursuading to get into the float, but we got there in the end. Once at the Park, he came off the float and went "WOW!". It was as if he thought every other horse there was a potential new friend, and he was so happy he could burst. Apparently, my little horse is quite the social butterfly, and LOVES going out. So once we get him to connect the dots and figure out that going in the float = new friends, we should be away laughing.

In yards like a real show horse!

After our dressage, I rode him around a bit and looked at what was going on. He had been a bit stressed to start with, calling out and refusing to stand still. I applied some groundwork and got him to focus on me, and he got much better. A little while later, I was sitting on him next to the show jumping ring, on the end of the reins, just quietly watching. Such a good boy!

Nom, nom.