On Sunday, my husband and I took Nilla to a Combined Test at RDLA in Castro Valley. This was a great show. I'm going to break it up into a series of posts since I just don't have time to get everything down in one post.
I got a text Friday night saying Dressage at 11:58 and Jumping at 1:45. Since Dressage started at 9am and we are an hour away, I was really happy to start so late and get to (kind of) sleep in on Sunday.
On Friday, after practicing my dressage test at work, I also practiced it in the arena. Then I practiced some jumping.
Nilla was being really good about the jumping, but only mostly good about the dressage. Here's the thing with mules: they're incredible smart. But this is a blessing and a curse. Nilla learns things quickly, but she can learn the wrong thing quickly too. With all of our recent canter work, Nilla has decided that canter must be the answer to everything. No matter what I am asking her, she will try to jump into canter instead. Here's how our most recent rides have been going:
Me: walk to trot transition
Nilla: Canter?
Me: No
Me: Bend around inside leg
Nilla: Canter?
Me: No
Me: halt to walk transition
Nilla: Canter?
Me: No
Me: turn left
Nilla: Canter?
Me: No
Me: trot to walk transition
Nilla: Canter?
Me: No
Seriously, even the downward transitions produce a hop to canter. It's like any move on my part must signal canter. Since we are just showing Intro, I just didn't do any deliberate canter practice either Friday or Saturday though I did let her canter after the jumps if she wanted to.
On Saturday I went to a used tack sale while my husband was hiking with a friend. I went looking for a cheap dressage saddle and some show breeches. I found a pair of brand new with tags Ariat breeches in my size for $20 and a really beat up wintec dressage saddle. When I asked how much the saddle was, the woman looked at it and said $100 with free webbers and stirrup irons. Sold!
When we met at the barn, I was getting Nilla ready and adding the stirrups to the saddle. My husband asked if I had borrowed the saddle and I was like, I might have bought another saddle. He was completely baffled as to why I needed another saddle and would not accept my explanation that a dressage saddle is different. It's not like I bought another jumping saddle.
I hate wintecs and honestly, this saddle looks like it was gnawed on by rats or maybe drug along the ground over gravel. It's beat. But I really could get my leg on her more easily. I may need to make a real dressage saddle investment. Given how well my $100 saddle purchase went over, I can only imagine how buying a real dressage saddle will go.
For this ride, I basically only did trot to walk and walk to halt transitions as Nilla was fine going up, she just didn't want to listen about slowing down. There was much bracing on both of our parts. And the tongue made quite the appearance.
I only rode for about 30 minutes because it was late at this point and we had a movie to get to. We did manage to get a few nicer downward transitions, but I was not holding out much hope for the next day.Labels: Horse Show, Nilla
