Steven, Emma, and I woke up dark and early Saturday to head to the NEC. My first ride time wasn't until 9:31, but I had never braided Mort before (and hadn't braided in a couple years), and I wanted to give us plenty of time for all of the morning's activities. I shouldn't have worried; we had everything accomplished by about 7:00. So we took a trip to Panera for breakfast bagels and relaxed sitting in front of Mort's stall for a while. Eventually it was time to get dressed and tacked and head to warm-up.
I wanted about 35-40 minutes of warm-up. I spent about ten minutes walking both on a loose rein and working on some lateral work. Our warm-up was much the same as the warm-up I've been doing in my everyday riding. Of course there was some traffic that we had to plan around that we don't in our regular life, but with it being such a small show the whole weekend wasn't bad at all on that aspect. He felt OK. He wasn't 100% steady in the contact. He was really touchy about the left rein in our left lead canter. But he also wasn't terrible and he had a half-halt. They were ready for me a little early and I went for it.
I definitely struggled with connection in this test. He was a bit tense and wanted to lift and retract that neck. I did nothing. Well, that's not entirely true but I somehow forgot that sometimes lifting my hands was a thing. I did a lot of half-halts and booted him around a couple of times. I did some more half-halts and forgot to release my hands after them. It wasn't a terrible test by any means. We got a 62.12%. We did all of the things; we just did all of the things with tension.
I had a plan for the second warm-up to be a touch shorter and a little more demanding. When I say demanding, I definitely don't mean demanding from me. Mort doesn't do well being forced into anything. But if I make the work more demanding he often comes around to a better connection on his own. That was my goal this time.
We started the same with a lot of walk and I could tell that he was working better already in spite of it being no different from the morning's warm-up thus far. We started with a lot of lateral work and changes of direction in the trot. I didn't spend too much time there before asking for canter. Almost immediately I asked for counter canter. He gave it to me really well. He was working so much better in the contact and was better moving off of my aids. However, I honestly don't think it was the changed warm-up. I think he just came out of the stall that way because he started well pretty much immediately and the beginning of our warm-up was the same in the walk. I'm not sure if the warmer temperatures did it, or if he just had to have the edge taken off in the morning's ride, but he felt a lot better in any case.
First Three went so much smoother. I was burned a bit from our morning ride being so tense so I kept our lengthens ultra conservative. Looking back, I wish that I hadn't because he stayed with me really well throughout the entire test. We had a couple of transitions that were touchy but he'd immediately come right back to work for me. We ended up with a 65.44% and I was really happy with him. He was just really pleasant to ride. Good boy for sure.
I felt confident going into Sunday thinking that we had overcome some of our tension issues since the second test was so much easier than the first (cue dramatic foreshadowing). We spent the afternoon relaxing and took Mort on a long walk with lots of grazing. After his dinner we left him with all of the hay and water and went home to do laundry and sleep to come back at it again the next day.
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