Well that didn't go to plan

We took part in a dressage clinic yesterday as the monthly unaffiliated dressage was cancelled due to lack of entries, again. Luckily our instructor A had agreed to come over and run a clinic to those who wanted to do something anyway. 

The format of the day was that each rider had 20 min slot and we'd learn the test as we would for a competition, entering the arena one by one, do the test and then discuss details with A, and possibly practise sections of the test or certain movement. 

I was quite excited to take part as thought it'd be good to have a competition-like situation but without the actual pressure (and no plaiting or dressing up!), plus get comments straight after and some helpful tips. 

I'd asked my partner to come and film us and take a few snaps too. Also my partner's sister came along as she was staying at ours over the weekend anyway, and she had not yet met Rainbow. 

I should have taken it as a sign when R retreated to the back of the stable when I whipped her saddle out. She didn't look very excited to work and was actually nearly dozing off in her stable, after the night spent in the field. 


Warm up went fine and she was her 'usual' self; not particularly keen but did what was asked... When our turn was to enter the arena, I decided to walk her through the arena to greet the judges and thus show her all the boards and letters at the same time too. We've never had any problems with them but Rainbow has sometimes gazed at them during the test in the past, so I figured it'd be nice to give her the opportunity to check them out before we needed to do anything. 

Off we went when the bell rang and started the test Prelim 7. Entering the arena at A and proceeding centre line, tracking left at C. Trotted around the arena and go diagonal at F (F X H). Then the show started: approaching H Rainbow decided it was scary and suddenly evaded to the left. So we had to do an extra circle and approach the letter again. We kept circling around and she seemed to get better but then we decided to re-start the test and the next movement was to canter around the arena after a circle. Again around letters E and H she would start evading, so we had to abandon the test and our instructor came out to just help me get Rainbow past the letters without evasions. 

The letters weren't really scary and I am pretty sure she was just finding an excuse to be difficult. We had been past the letters before the test and nothing, so my instructor is pretty sure she had read on my [competition] nerves and decided to play up. We have had a great few months, so perhaps it was time to have a little blip again...! 

It's just typical that just when my other half and his sister are around the horse plays up. You've got to laugh at the timing. R really is a little madam sometimes. 

I do have a video of the whole 'incident' but I don't want to post it as it's out of focus most of the time, so really blurry and because my instructor and I had to get a little tough on Rainbow, the video is a bit shouty and growly – and therefore not very nice viewing. 

I feel that actually having had this problem with her during the clinic gave me a really good lesson and hopefully have eradicated the problem, so R won't get silly again in the arena. Especially during competitions... But we don't train with the letter blocks and the white arena boards, so I did say to my instructor that would like to sometimes set out the boards for a normal lesson as that would help the horses get used to them – so they definitely wouldn't have any excuses to misbehave.

My other half snapped some photos of us, but they're not spectacular. He's not that familiar with the camera and I can't direct him from the saddle, so they are what they are :)... I think I am only willing to publish the one above as the others don't do justice and are blurry.