So this past weekend, we took Mollie to her first dressage show, and I rode her in Training Level test 2 and 3.

Thought I’d give you a little break down of how *I* thought it went

Overall, it was a great experience. I was really nervous- beginning the evening prior to the show through the morning. My brain kept wanting to forget the tests, and I wanted to throw up. I think I was nervous because Mollie is so green, and I was afraid of making fools out of ourselves. But once I got to the grounds and in the saddle, the nerves melted away and I got down to riding.

Mollie was on her most excellent behavior – we had no issues in warm up, no crashes, no spooks, no nasty behavior- and it was kind of crowded in there! She was 100% focused on the task at hand.

She was nervous, though. To be expected. She tried her little heart out. And she kept it together- I never felt like she was going to lose her cool.

Test 2:  she hesitated slightly when i pushed her on into the test arena – but onward we went. Initially, she was pretty tense and wanted to break to canter a couple of times – but she did slowly work out of it and got into the groove of the larger arena and figures. Still not as relaxed as she is at home – but for her first show- she did great! We even got our canter leads.

Test 3: she entered with much less hesitation. We did miss our left lead, but were able to correct it on the circle. She was tired, a bit harder to bend and keep going in a balanced way – really felt like it was a fitness issue more than anything.

So – lots to work on, but we have our starting point. Things like being more precise in our upward transitions, and developing a relaxed trot and engaging the hind end. This all comes with time- both in fitness, but relaxation from rhythm which takes time to develop. She’s been doing this for 3 weeks, and is already so different – I think if given the chance (months of this type of work) she’d really come around.

Picture time!