HDS Spring Classic!

First off, Happy Birthday to Glorianna! She is a year old today and nearly 15 hands already!

We had a fairly successful show this past weekend at the Great Southwest Equestrian Center in Katy. This weekend was home to the first CDI competition ever in Region 9 and as always, the HDS and the volunteers did a fabulous job putting on this historic show! Martin and I loaded up Gran Casso and Warendorf and headed to Katy on Thursday after working a few training horses in the morning.

Friday morning, Waren competed in Fourth level test 1 and scored a 60%, which I felt was a little low for how the ride felt. However, with this score, I now have my 2 fourth level scores towards my silver medal! Gran Casso had his 1-1 warm up class mid day and won the class with a 70%. Later in the day, Gran Casso and I rode our first five year old test of the year and scored a 7.5! I know he still has a lot of additional strength to build but I was really proud of him and very pleased that the judges liked him and felt he has a lot of potential!

Saturday morning was an early start again with Waren at 4-1. He scored a 63.1% this time and won the class! The biggest bobble in the test was when his right to left flying change was two strides late and I had trouble then getting him active and prepared enough to really get a nice score on the collected canter circle. Still, I was very pleased with him. Gran Casso went later in the day showing 2-3. This was his first time out at second level and he scored a 64% which is a qualifying score! We finished the day with my first level freestyle on Gran. I have never had so much fun during a ride before! All the transitions were on target and there were no major mistakes. I really felt like I was dancing with my boy! Unfortunately the judge wasn't too crazy about my music (which the judge in Tyler loved!! I guess that's how it goes with freestyles!) but we still scored high enough to earn my second and final regional championship qualifying score.

Sunday was tough for the boys, they were both very tired! Waren, however, scored a 63.7% at 4-1 which was his highest for the weekend, even with a big problem in one of the walk pirouettes. The first pirouette was an 8! The second, he stuck one of his hind legs and just couldn't get out of it and started backing up. Not good! Other than that, it was a nice forward test. Gran Casso was completely and utterly exhausted by his last 2-3 ride and unfortunately did not earn a qualifying score. Waren and I ended up Show II Fourth Level Open Reserve Champions!!

All in all, it was a really great show. My goal with Waren was to have very forward, active tests and I think we achieved this. With Gran Casso, I wanted a pleasant, forward ride which we achieved until Sunday ;-)