I have done a lot of work with Razz over the winter as well as taking a close look at my riding …
Fixing my hands
- My left hand was so much stronger than my right hand that I had almost no rein contact at all in my right hand. If I did try to take a contact with the right rein Razz would bend his neck to the right which I had to correct with a strong left rein … but a strong left rein contact was what I was trying to fix
A problem without a quick solution. Over the last few months I have concentrated on maintaining a consistent contact on the right rein so that Razz now accepts a right rein contact as “normal” and does not bend his neck. On the left rein I can therefore get him going inside leg into outside hand. On the right rein the outside rein is no longer totally dominating the contact. - I am also trying a different way of holding the reins. I have always been taught that my wrists should be straight and not flexed. I found an article in an old BD magazine that described how the reins should be held with the wrist flexed slightly inwards towards the withers and the flexibility in the contact comes from the wrist by either bending the wrist inwards to shorten the contact or allowing the wrist to go straight to give the contact. I have tried this with Razz and he seems to like the different feel to the contact that this gives him so I am going to continue to use this way of holding the reins.
Sitting trot
- I have also started to introduce more sitting trot into work at home and also in competitions. I have avoided sitting trot work in the past because I know that judges do not like sitting trot at the lower levels as some horse back off when the rider is sitting. Razz has a big trot and photographs show that I try to absorb the movement by leaning too far back. I have worked on improving my sitting trot by sitting upright and absorbing the movement with my hips. I think sitting trot gives me a more consistent aids which helps during a busy test such as E59. However, it is very hard work trying to sit to Razz’s big trot.
I believe that Razz is going better as a result of these changes but the only way to be sure is to compete and get judges feedback. Razz prefers the bigger arena so I booked myself into Burrows Court and Abbey Dressage to do an Elementary test in the big arena.
Burrows Court: Elementary 53
I have done E53 before at the Area Festival at Pencoed. I was very disappointed by the way Razz went at the Area festival so I was keen to see if Razz has improved since last October.
I left Burrows Court with a score of 62.94% a 0.8% increase but more importantly I felt that I had a dressage horse underneath me and not a donkey 
- Razz was forward going and responsive to my leg
- The walk was much better (8 for the extended and 7 for the medium). After the Area festival I was concerned that I had “broken” Razz’s walk so this is an enormous improvement.
- Trot-Walk-Trot scored 8 and 7 which shows that he is much more forward going and engaged
- canter work shows a significant improvement especially the collected but the medium is still a bit of a problem
Abbey Dressage: Elementary 59
I did E59 about a year ago and I remember was a busy and very difficult test. I only scored 60.00% so I was a bit concerned about doing this test again but I really didn’t want to do an Elementary test in a 20×40 arena so I had not choice
I scored 62.19% in E59. So this is more than 2% improvement over the last year and once again, irrespective of the score, I was pleased with the way Razz went.
I would just like to say thanks to Ros McClelland who came over to say hello and ended up helping me to tack up, removed Razz’s boots before the test and videoed my test. Thanks
The sheet and the video show that I need to eliminate rider errors because I lost about 1% as a result of my mistakes:
- the walk to canter was on the wrong lead
- in the first medium trot I felt Razz could give me more (like he does at home) but I used too much leg and he broke to canter.
The comments from both judges are consistent and show that I need to work on:
- engagement & impulsion
- consistent roundness
Easy … fixed by next weekend ….
But I am confident we are moving in the right direction and all the hard work over the winter was worth it. Although the video does show that there is still a lot of work to do to get up to 65% at Elementary … especially in E59 !
