A Real Dressage Test - Galloping at Gazzam

This morning while I was on the ferry my riding instructor, Ulla, called me to cancel my lesson. Apparently they are still doing heavy construction over at Barnabee and working really close to the indoor arena and it's freaking out all of the horses. Plus since it's been in the uppers teens at night lately the ground is frozen and so the outdoor arena wouldn't have been an option. I was sad to have my lesson cancelled since it's been about a month since my last one, but if we would have had one I'm sure it would have been a disaster. Probably a bit like this:

A Real Dressage Test

BASIC LEVEL


A Enter extraordinary serpentine.

X Halt.

G Try again.

C Freeze in horror at Judge's stand. Take opportunity to salute hurriedly.

C Track to left in counterflexed bolt.

E Irregular polyhedron left, 20 meters, plus or minus 5 meters.

FXH Change rein unextended jig.

H Canter, or counter canter, or crosscanter.

M-F Working out-of-hand gallop.

A Just try to walk.

KXM Tesseract, stopping at each corner to rub nose on foreleg.

C Down center line, working trot bouncing.

X Pulley rein. Halt. Salute, exhale.

Leave arena in free walk, loose language under breath.

Sadly, all equestrians have probably all been there. But that is what bonds us together, right?

So, to make up for the cancelled lesson and to get out and enjoy a bit of sun despite the freezing temps. I took Ben on a trail ride up to Gazzam Lake. Well, maybe I should say I took Ben for a walk, since I had to walk him 1/3 of the way before he would let me get on him. Ever since he encountered a coyote on the trail last year, he's been really goofy and resistant to trail riding. He thinks something is going to pop out of the woods at him and in order for him to be confident enough to move forward I have to hand walk him. I feel a little silly doing so, since I feel like I'm walking a 1100 lb. dog that is a complete scaredy cat. But luckily about 1/3 of the way into the trail he's calm enough and I can convince him to move forward and then we have lots of fun galloping through the trails. All the extra adrenaline is actually nice, since it allows him to carry his back higher and arch his neck. Even though we weren't in the dressage arena today, we practiced lots of shoulder-in, haunches-in and half-pass along the trail. The perfect combination, DRESSAGE ON TRAILS!!