Karen and I rode her two bay Morgan horses, Capri and Murphy, on Saturday at the Canterbury Schooling dressage show in a second level Pas de Deux that we practiced on foot for 15 minutes. It is a work in progress but will be a lot of fun with some polish. This is what Karen had to say about the experience.
"It was great fun! We practiced for about 15 minutes during our warm-up. Because it was a schooling show, we wore head phones so Shelley could direct me the whole time. So that we kept the gaits with the music tempo, she made several spontaneous changes along the way which was fun. I had one brain fart and went off course that resulted in a near crash. Bianca videoed the event and as usual, review of my riding was extremely humbling (those damn reins are always too long and my hands are all over the place!). Fortunately, the lighting in that arena is poor, so you couldn’t see any more detail! Not only did Shelley coach me on where to go during the ride but, as a true teacher, kept reminding me to “sit up straight”,” keep your heels down”, ”don’t move your upper body”, “keep your hands quiet”, “shorten your reins” during the test. The results was “the test from Hell”! While we are all used to these comments during our lessons, it was somewhat unnerving during a test. No really, it was FUN! She is definitely the “Queen of Multi-tasking” , capable of riding a test she just made up the day before, coaching my riding, figuring out changes spontaneously and at the same time making her horse look a whole lot better than mine! We are actually going to practice and refine it before doing it for competition next time.
