Monday, January 23, 2012

I dreamed I crashed through the judge's stand

Have you had that sort of dressage dream? It is the horsie equivalent of walking into class naked or finding out you're signed up for a class that you've missed all semester. It seems a little far fetched, but...

Guess what, it really does happen!



And I guess the announcer was speechless.


10 comments:

  1. I think that pony wants to be a jumper!

    My first dressage test with my current horse, we rode the test, trotted down the centre line to finish --- half halted to prepare for halt at G --- half halted ---- gulp---HALF HALTED--- SH******T HALF HALTED REALLY HARD and finally ground to a halt nose to nose with the judge who was thankfully sitting on the other side of the kicking boards in the viewing gallery!

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  2. Oh I've lived something rather similar - I was doing a schooling show on cob who was pretty adamant that he wanted to be a show jumper, not a dressage horse. As I was coming around to enter at A, I literally felt him just "click" and he totally checked out. We managed okay through the first few movements but as soon as we went to canter, it was all over. He ended up jumping the letter E and the judge got out of her car ("judges booth") to help me school him a bit. We finished the test at the trot....barely. Did I mention it was an indoor arena with very solid walls that was almost exactly full court width? So when we jumped that E, we were careening into the wall. I'm not sure how we didn't crash. Because it was a schooling show, we ended up scoring a 33%...I keep the sheet around for other schooling shows so when one of the younger kids gets upset, I can whip it out and be like "see! it happens to all of us!"

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  3. How embarrassing for the owner, I love the horse's mane though! Reading the other comments made me chuckle too! In my first dressage I could only just get him into the arena then he just spooked at all the white boards and letters all the way round!

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  4. Oh goodness, I laughed, even though I shouldn't have. I'm sure that pony's owners were so worried he'd hurt himself!

    I do have to wonder what sort of scores you get for that kind of performance, though...

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  5. lol wonder what the score was...

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  6. My thought is that set-up just begged the question: When is a LOOSE, slightly jazzed, hyper pony going to forget all about the existence of that outcropping with the too-low barrier and the people inside??

    This is a German video ... they ought to know more about horse behavior than that! If it had occurred in some remote island in Micronesia ... I might understand better. Good thing it appeared nobody was hurt!

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  7. Well, he left the table standing anyway!

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  8. I'm wondering if the announcer was one of the four folks sitting at the table where the pony came to "visit."

    These people who think ponies aren't very talented or clever have things to learn, don't they?

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  9. I'm not at all surprised that happened. Not exactly the most secure set up for a horse being chased around like that.

    Horse and I jumped right out of the arena one time in, of all things an FEI test. I just lost him on a counter canter and at the corner, out we went.

    Had a judge nearly leap out of her seat one time, when I can down the long side in an extended canter on my big boy. Apparently, she was sure we were never going to collect up in time and crash through something. My boy was super at "coming back," though, and nice as you please transitioned back down at M.

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  10. My friends Morgan Stallion did that, but he was very smooth about it. It was a liberty presentation and you can see him eyeing the platform the judges were on, then he made his move and stepped up onto the platform, extended trot behind the judges and announcer and out the other side!

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