The Best Mother's Day

A week before Mother's Day I received a call from my oldest daughter R, asking what I wanted to do for Mother's Day, my answer was "I'm showing Sunday morning". To be quite honest I did not expect either one of the girls to show up at the dressage show, after all it was early for either one to show up.

I had a great lesson on Friday with J. Ms. Lat was so rounded and in frame, however apparently she forgot how to do that on Sunday. Due to social obligations on Saturday I did not get to work her, so Sunday morning before we headed out I lunged her just to take the edge off. We found the show grounds and unload Ms. Lat, tacked her up and decided to start warming up. She was more excited than normal but I felt with a little work we could work through our excitement. The warm up ring was an indoor and the show arena was outside. The weather was beautiful but it was very windy. I felt that the wind might be adding to Ms. Lat's excitement. We worked and worked doing transitions and a number of other things trying to calm her, but it was not working. Before I knew it I was being told that I was up next, so into the arena we trotted. Guess who came with us, no one other than Mr. EXCITEMENT! Other than her decision not to bend during the test we did alright. We even got an 8 or two, I was very surprised that we received a 67.5% on the test, WOW was I surprised!

Second test was not far behind and I felt that she was more relaxed and rounded, I could not believe how well we scored. Several eights and sevens we received 68% on the test. I was so proud of Ms. Lat, she works so hard to please and succeeds. After reflecting back on the day I believe that it is me that makes her nervous, she definitely feels the tension exzuding from me.
My poor "Beauty Queen" was much more rounded and in frame this time around, she is working so hard and is improving so much. Well hopefully next weekend we will do better but we did get a 2nd, 1st and the reserve championship. That's my girl.!

I trotted up the center line, halted and saluted, to my surprise I recieved an 8. We then continued with Intro A, but we were not relaxed, this was not a good test. The biggest surprise was when I recieved my test back and had recieved a 68.5% (2nd). I could not believe it, I was absolutely shocked. Fortunately, Ms. Lat decided to take the day off from the Air Quality Control Agency and did keep her tongue in her mouth.





I had another half hour before the Intro B so we just went for a lovely walk and tryed to relax. When I went back to the warm up ring I really believed we were on the right track. Our 2nd test would be much better, after all in the warm up ring we were bending nicely and very rounded.





Entering the arena, down the centerline, halt, proceeded forward at a working trot rising , tracked left; very nicely done Ms. Lat. We had some blips during the test but overall we did ok.


Now it is time to untack and pack up for home, to my surprise C and the baby showed up, it was so nice to see them, the baby is so cute and C is a wonderful mom.





When we decided to start home, F was nice enough to go retrieve my Intro B scores. F came back to the trailer carrying a BLUE ribbon and a Reserve Championship, I was so pleased, I guess we had a better ride than I thought. I recieved a 68% on B, which was great.





C and the baby followed us back to the farm and R arrived at the farm shortly there after, we emptied the trailer put Ms. Lat away and then went to get ready to bunch. What a wonderful day.