Well, we just finished the CT at MacNair's. I didn't go to Five Points, mostly because I'm a big weenie and missed the xc schooling in August, so didn't feel prepared, but a bit of that was due to finances (specifically, lack of). So, in spirit of working on Oliver's dressage and stadium, we did the BN CT at MacNair's.
Oliver was wonderful in the crazy warmup arena. He got a compliment from a very nice girl who said he was "adorable", and then someone asked me if I was riding a 4th level test, which made me go "hmmmm". Once we got down to the dressage arena, I quickly found out that the judge was MEAN. The ring steward and I apparently had watches that were about 5 minutes slow, so when I got down there, I found out that I had to go into the arena right away. I asked for time to finish walking around, but the judge looked straight at me and rang the bell, so I just shrugged and went on in. We had a lovely, lovely trot down the centerline when he caught sight of something and gawked, hard, and I had to overbend him to the inside so that we could turn right and not plow into the judge's stand. I think he saw the geese landing on the pond behind the arena. There were quite a few. In August, there weren't any geese, so I think he noticed the pond for the first time. We managed to get it back together for the short diagonal, and then had a nice remainder of the test. He had a very nice canter depart to the left - very prompt and obedient - and then had sort of a blurry one to the right, but the canter to the right was wonderful and uphill and light. However, after my halt/salute, the judge proceeded to give me a lesson about how my hands were too high and that I was stifling Oliver by holding his head up and in, and restricting his movement (huh?). She said that I need to ride the outside of him more than the inside, but that he was a lovely uphill mover. So, I had sort of figured out what score I got from her after that little chat.
Stadium seemed to flow better than last time. The "dreaded" yellow V panels and the stone wall were there. The stone wall was fence 3, off a bending line from a simple vertical, and the V panels were on the short side of the arena after a turn. I had recently practiced jumping Oliver over our stone wall at home, which looks a lot like this one, and also over a blanket tossed over the barrels to reinforce "jump no matter what" in his little brain. It had been going well, so I wasn't too worried, but I had to make sure that he saw the jump in plenty of time, and came in balance. I didn't realize you were supposed to check in with the gate steward, as last time it was complete chaos due to the absence of said steward, so I didn't get to go until the very end, because everybody else had apparently checked in. By this time, Oliver was thoroughly annoyed with me for using him as a couch, so when we picked up the trot, he charged over fence 1, leaving out a stride. I tried to balance him back through the turn to fence 2, but he grabbed the bit and charged over that, too, so I really sat him back on his butt for 3, which was the stone wall. I was afraid that if I didn't get him balanced and back, he'd duck out in surprise. He didn't seem to have any issues with the stone wall, and the rest of the course flowed beautifully, even those yellow planks. After the planks, we had a 90 degree turn to the last two jumps, and he popped his shoulder and we jumped the oxer a bit crookedly, so had a deep spot to the last fence, but we were double-clear.
After untacking, I found that we were in 3rd place with a 36. First place had a 32, and then 2nd had a 35, so I wasn't too far behind, even with the judge not liking the way I rode. She gave me a 6 for rider position, on account of my hands, which is funny since I got an 8 on my position last show. Oh well - you can't make them all happy. I have since reviewed the tape and I thought we put in a lovely test. I was very happy with Oliver and how well he went - his jumping is really coming along quite well.
