It felt like the Anky Pony Club on Friday morning with all of us running around gathering our gear, preparing the truck, hanging hay nets, adding shavings etc…
We had Anky’s head groom Wilica’s mom drive us which was nice. She acted as everyone’s horse show mom and helped out everywhere she could. It felt nice to have a mom around, I’m so used to having mine at shows with me it added an extra bit of comfort.
All the horses travelled well though it was only a 30 min drive. The weather was terrible and we all got soaked. Thankfully, warm-up was inside and we only had to go outside when it got close to our test. Of course, once your wet you don’t really notice the rain. I did jump straingt into a hot shower though as soon as I got home!
It was a good test for Vitall who kept his cool in the rain even with lots of people and their umbrellas. The test went well thought we still have lots to work on but for his 5th PSG and it really was not bad. I had to keep his frame a little lower then it should be because he isn’t strong enough to maintain “show frame yet”. Anky and I decided that it was better to ride him a bit lower and have a good test rather than put him up and struggle trying to maintain his balance.
The national shows over here have a panel of 3 judges. Overall we scored 65 and one judge gave us 69, 64, 65. It was a big class of 27 we placed 13th overall.
The nice thing with the show was with all six of us that went were really a team. Even though we were competing against each other we all worked together, helping to get ready, takes boots off at at warm-up, standing in the rain videoing etc. Everyone else did well, Anne Rita from Switzerland was just below me with 65 also Johanna from Sweden had two 67’s on both her horses and Anky’s two Dutch students had a 69 and the other 70. So Team Anky did well and she was happy with all of us.
The show plan for Vitall and I now is for us to work on making his “show frame” stronger so he can maintain it. I’m going to wait and not do any CDI’s until July and keep going to a few more national shows to get him in the ring. I’m still figuring him out at the shows and it takes awhile to get it down to exactly the right program. With my previous horse, Elektra, I knew exactly what my plan was and how I needed to do it so my goal is to achieve that with Vitall.
Anky is gone to France for the next week. I’m planning to run through my freestyle this week and see how it works out. I haven’t ridden it in a long time. Then the following week I’m heading home for a week to do a few things that need to get done and while I’m home Anky will ride Vitall. Oslo will be joining me on my trip home, he’s a jet setting dog!
