Recap!

I ordered a video of his test so it will hopefully be here this week so I can share it with you all. Like always the pony was great from start to finish! There is something to say for a horse that 100 % loads, hauls, travels, etc every single time like a total champ. There has not been one single place I have taken him where he hasnt loaded up right away and came of the trailer exactly how he loaded onto it. I was telling Mary how it is not everyday that you wish your horse would be a little more enthused in new places as I was dragging him around everywhere because he was slowly plodding along ready for a nap!

We got there in perfect time to check in, get him tacked up, do his hair, and get him warmed up. The warm up arenas footing was super deep and clumpy and gross. Luckily we have a great trainer who noticed that and opted to do all his walk warm up outside of the arena although obviously couldn't avoid the warm up arena for the rest of it. The footing definitely took its toll on him energy wise and even though his warm up time wasn't long or abnormal he was pretty tired by his test time.

I was so happy with how he did in his test, especially since 2 elements he had only done once prior to the show (whoops, our bad! It was the simple changes at the quarter line and the counter canter serpentines too. Not easy stuff!). He did everything asked of him to his best ability at this point in his training. We knew it was going to be a more 'green' second level test, I mean really he has been schooling some of the movements for 2 months, but he definitely showed that he is more then on the right track to getting even better scores by the end of the season.  He got mostly 6's but managed 2 8's! One for both his halts :) His lowest was his first medium trot where he broke into a canter in which he got a 4. We were actually quite pleased to find out that in his second medium trot he got a 6! That is one area that we thought could easily score 4's all around. So that first medium trot got a 4 then the transition score got a 5 because he was messed up anyways. The only other below 6 scores he got were in his rein back (judges comment: dragging feet. Dont think that one will change much LOL!) and his first walk to canter transition coming out of the free walk where the judge said he came up through his neck. All of those were in the beginning of the test. Then he got a couple 7's and 6.5's at the end! In his collective marks he got all 7's except for impulsion (he really was quite exhausted!).

The end judge comments said:

"Obedient and willing! Work for more cadence and swing through back- cute boy"

I mean... she said he was cute, what more could we want?! We actually went and talked to her after as he was the 2nd to last horse to go anyways. She has some really nice things to say about him and said in another 6 months once he knows the work better she thinks he has the ability to score quite well. She just said what we already know about him needing to sit more and be a little more light on his feet, not so clumpy, but that she thinks he has the ability to do it! Obviously it gets tougher because he will be competing more against those fancier warmbloods and such with the big fancy floaty movement but we will just keep going at it and show everyone what little black and white ponies can do!