Dressage Day

So I can no longer say the “Road to Rolex” because I am here!!! Dressage is completed and now it is on to cross country!

Yesterday, Thursday, was a beautiful day. I could not have been luckier with the weather! In the morning I had another short lesson with my dad, Jeremy, and Isabella was just going great! Now all I had to do was stay calm and ride her:) Easier to say!!

By the time I was finished with this it was time to head back to our hotel for me to change into my formal dressage outfit. Top hat and tails for those of you not in the horse world! My nerves were getting me a bit by this time, and Chris had his hands full :) Back to the Horse Park and some quiet time just trying to stay calm

At 12.40pm I got on Isabella, this was 50 minutes before my dressage ride time, when Rolex is doing the time keeping they tend not to run late!! It is about a ten minute hack down to the warm up area and when I arrived there were a couple of riders schooling their horses. No one was dressed to compete though, just me, as I was the first to ride after the lunch break. I was hoping very much that they gave them a VERY good lunch and that they would be in a good frame of mind!! At 1pm the official for the warm up arena, informed me that he would be asking the other riders to leave and I would have the area to myself for my last minute preparations before entering the arena. All was going well, I had about 20 minutes to go and Isabella and I were staying pretty calm. Ten minutes later though………………………..only ten to go, I got a little frazzled. I was making her nervous by being tight and she started to swap her leads when I did not want her to. Jeremy stayed very calm as I was slightly unraveling, saying all the right things and trying to return my brain to a state of calm. Three minutes they say………………….oh crap oh crap oh crap, deep breath, deep breath, deep breath. “OK Susie we are ready for you” I turn and laugh to the steward, “that’s all very well for you to say, I don’t know if I am ready!” He laughs back and says, “have a great ride” I take a another deep breath and Isabella and I walk down the beautiful green rubber brick walkway down to the beautiful brand new arena. I cannot even begin to describe, I was just trying to stay calm. Jeremy had advised me to walk around the dressage arena in an attempt to keep both Isabella and myself calm. I approached the arena to the right at a nice collected trot, then as I reached about half way down the long side, while waiting for the bell to begin my test, I came down to a walk. I passed by the two judges booths at C and M at the walk and said good afternoon, with as much of a smile as I could muster! Just after I turned the corner at H the bell rang……………..another deeeeeeeeep breath! I picked up a collected trot and passed the final judge at E and gave her a smile. I actually felt amazing relaxed. Jeremy had said, “Jan (his wife) just schools the horses through the test”. This was to be my goal. I pick up my collected canted they open the boards at A and we canter down the center line at ROLEX!

I was pleased with my test, parts of it were as good as I could have hoped for, towards the end of the test, during the very difficult canter work, Isabella, (and I!) started to get a little tense, we made a couple of small mistakes, nothing bad, but it just knocked my score by a few points. But I was still thrilled. We scored a 62.8 which is 9 points better than we scored at Fair Hill last October, at the CCI*** which is a much easier test! And I got all the changes……………………………YEAH!!! I am fairly far down the pack, but I am still thrilled, the level of competition here is incredible, 9 countries are represented, including the British, French, Dutch and German Teams. I am thrilled to be holding my own in this incredible company!

Today is an day of walking the cross country course, …………………………………lots of times! I am off now to walk with Phillip and then will go out again alone a couple of more times.