Out of the starting gate

I have officially entered our first horse show of the season! Yay!

We are going to do the Starter division combined test which includes USDF Intro Test and then a stadium course of fences set at 2 foot. Woot!

I've also entered First Level Test 1 and Test 3. Gulp!!

First-1 doesn't scare me, it's pretty simple. As long as I don't forget where I am going (like I do at, oh, every horse show), we should do fine.

First-3 I am mainly entering just to see what happens. The only tricky part is the canter loop. This movement depends entirely on whether I ride correctly or not. Hampton falls apart if I am not on it and really help him out. But if I do my part, we can do this movement very nicely.

I certainly do not expect the 67%'s we were getting at Training Level last year, but my hopes are to score in the 60s.

My goals for stadium are to get around clean. My confidence was really boosted after my lesson with LAZ and I think Hampton knows the job a bit better now. :)

In the meantime, Hamps has started shedding like crazy and has a beautiful, shiny summer coat coming in. He is working well under saddle and hasn't seemed bothered by the sudden heat. We've been working on ground poles, leg yielding, shoulder-in and trot-halt-back-trot transitions. Today I was shocked when our walk-canter transitions resulted in the most collected canter I have ever gotten out of him. So I took advantage and worked on counter-canter, too. I was able to pick up counter-canter at several random places around the ring. And he was able to maintain the counter-canter on each lead without an issue.

He is feeling fantastic with loads of energy lately (hmmm, could it be the good food?). I've having to half-halt a bit stronger now and I haven't worn my spurs at all for a couple of weeks.

I'm going to start really working on parts of First-3 to try to be as prepared as we can. Introducing half-pass is within my reach as well. Today as we were counter-cantering, I felt him offer some real jump - like he may have been thinking about a flying change - something I have never felt from him before. Counter canter has always been a "lets just try not to break into a trot" movement. But there was such balance and jump today.

I love how hard he tries for me. My instructor is going to ride him next week I think. I'll be sure to get pics because I know he will look awesome for her. :)

... in other news .... GREAT NEWS on the job front ... but not going to spill more because I don't want to jinx it. :) :) :)