Bright sunshine at Boekelo today which will be most welcome as by all accounts the cross country track is pretty wet and soggy. Not so long ago and the main arena would have been a bog as well but with the fancy all weather in place there are no such worries.
Full Monty de Lacense (FM) is pretty underexposed for a 9 year old and if he thought Blenheim was a step up he found the ladder a little steeper today at Boekelo. Blenheim gave FM the luxury of having 2 horses in the main arena at the same time which is a whole new level of hand holding for your first step onto the advanced level. Boekelo offers no such luxury with just the CCIO4*L running and when FM found himself alone in the main arena “his old demons came back to haunt him” as Jonelle put it. Its basically an equine version of imposter syndrome and having circled the main arena he decided that there was definitely a crouching dragon lurking behind the judges box and no thank you very much he was not going past it and down the centre line.
FM spun around a few times and Jonelle tactfully sat quietly and persuaded him that it was really, truly ok and he went down the centre line looking pretty unsure of whether it was the right decision or not. Luckily the first movement after the halt is a half 10 metre circle three quarters of the way down the long side so he was spared a close up view of the said judges hut and he then gathered his frayed nerves and tried to be a little more onside. He then cantered the start of the right trot half pass and when Jonelle asked him to come back to trot he had a mini melt down and stuck his head into the air and Jonelle did a great job to keep moving forward!
A super first change and a solid final centre line and halt hauled the score back from the brink with a 38.3 and Jonelle was happy to say “he finished a whole lot better than he started” which is what its all about. He got a whole heap more exposure today and those are the building blocks for his future.
An hour and a half later it was Global Quest (George) and Tim’s turn. Just their 4th start together and the second time into a big arena and some lovely trot work showed the partnership is building quickly. George showed a super relaxed walk and its just the changes which dropped the score down today really, they are tight behind and it is one of the trickiest things to learn to navigate in a new pairing for sure! The final halt showed some baby piaffe steps as opposed to the immobility required but that made Tim smile and give George a big pat. They broke the magic 30 for 28.8 and put themselves in the top 15 at the end of two mammoth days of dressage.
