Dressage New Brunswick Show

This passed weekend we attended the very first show of the season. It was a gorgeous weekend and as always Dressage New Brunswick did a super job with organizing the show at the Princess Louise Park in Sussex.

Whiscalina had not been in the show ring since Blainville last year -but, the hard work we put in training and clinics did pay off! She went super and I could not have been more pleased. Our focus in the training had been getting Whiscalina sharper and quicker and I felt this work paid off as she stayed on my aids throughout each test and remained nicely uphill. She felt very confident and was working well with me, which made the tests a pleasure to ride. Positive comments were also received from the judge, Elaine Potter.

Show results for the weekend were as follow:
Third Level Test 2 69% and 70%
Third Level Test 3 67% and 68%
*Whiscalina won the third level adult amateur/open high point award

This show was an excellent opportunity to see how things flow in the show ring. As I say every year, riding in the show ring is not the same as riding at home. I'm looking forward to fine tune a few areas of my test in hopes to improve things even more for our trip to Quebec. Dressage at Blainville will be held this year from June 18-20.

No pictures this time but I promise we'll take lots in Blainville!

Steffen Peters Symposium

It was an amazing weekend! At the beautiful Sumac Farms in Pictou Nova Scotia we had the opportunity to take part in a clinic with the 2009 World Cup Winner and Olympic rider Steffen Peters.

Not knowing what the expect from the weekend, I loved every minute of my lessons with Steffen. Steffen's focus and message was the importance of throughness, connection, responsiveness....of course elements that can always be improved upon no matter what level you ride at.

After a short warm up on Saturday Steffen noted that it would be nice for Whisca to become a little quicker so make certain movements better. Steffen offered he could instruct me on how to do this OR he could get on Whisca to give it a try. Of course, I didn't pass up on that opportunity. No one else has ever ridden Whisca but an offer from Steffen Peters to ride my horse was certainly not one to turn down! It was interesting to watch and pretty special to see him work with my horse that I have trained myself since the very beginning. When Steffen commented on how well she was trained on the basics I was of course very happy! Steffen also commented how much he liked Whisca's trot work -this we worked a lot on over the winter and for him to comment so positively on that is certainly great! Some helpful pointers on how to achieve the same balance and collectionin the canter were appreciated.

On Sunday Steffen shifted the focus on riding Whisca uphill and more in a show frame. Again, throughness, connection, and responsiveness remained the focus in the uphill work as well. He was pleased with her work and said it was good but gave us pointers to make it even better so that we can continue to move up in the levels in the future. Steffen's teaching was very clear and quiet. He mentioned, often times we "negotiate" too long with our horses. We don't achieve the ultimate feeling because we either give up too quick and didn't wait for the desired response or didn't "fix" quickly enough if the response was non existant, insuffient or incorrect. When it comes down to it, very black and white. I liked it a lot!

Overall a super weekend and I'm very happy and thankful to take part in it!

A few auditors took pictures during the weekend and were so kind so share with me. Thank you Martha, Teresa, and Kelly!