Our First Attempt At Stressage

Our impromptu decision to enter the Winter League dressage sure came around quick.

I stupidly only printed the test off on the Thursday and spent all day riding it through in my cloudy head. We also had a last minute lesson booked with Trudy on the Thursday just for a bit of panicking prep. The lesson wasn’t toooo bad I mean we may have evacuated the arena once but I did manage to not make any crying noises!

All of Friday at work whilst scrubbing diggers I called my test out to myself with occasional swearing and facial high fives as I forgot the next movement.

By half four I was erratically sweeping the digger yard and hinting to leave early so I would have time to give Sir Aladdin a good scrub over.
On the drive to Aladdin I had my radio on mute and spent the journey going through my test over and over.
And upon arrival at the yard I could see my fabulous yard family and Emily all around Aladdin grooming and plaiting him up, what great friends and what a difference it makes to have a yard family!

I gave Aladdin a quick groom over myself too so I didn’t feel like a slave driver and tacked him up, it’s the first time I have put his fancy dressage pad on that I got him months ago- he looked so handsome and smart!!
Aladdin was rather confused in the warm up and was nagging at me for a good ole canter but I kept him together and practised our circles and diagonals.

In we went… He was rather dubious about entering the arena through what is normally the big white spooky wall.
Aladdin poked his head up like a giraffe as we warmed up down the centre line and I am pretty sure he winked at the judge. The bell went making me jump and realise I had forgot to put some anti-sweat on.
The test seemed to be going well but I was being too careful with my leg and not using it enough as I was trying to avoid the jogging and trantering. My lack of leg back fired when it came to the free walk on a long rein across the diagonal as Aladdin realised he had enough head stretch at his 0.01mph bimbly walk to have a sly itch and then paw at the ground and consider rolling! I squeezed him and muttered PRI*K making him trot off in a smug manner.
After this little mishap I don’t recall any other inappropriate freestyle actions I was just happy to be stood ‘triangle’ and saluting.