Majek's first GP and schooling day for Victor with Robert Dover

The morning started early with Majek's first GP at 8:09am.  He warmed up fairly well, but I wanted to try for more engagement and power, and I started to piss him off later in the warm-up.  He displayed his displeasure by getting testy in the piaffe and bucking in the one-time changes.  Getting after him generally only makes the situation go from bad to worse, so I changed the subject and worked on something else for a while.  His test was ok for where he's at.  The piaffe didn't work very well at all, although the last one on the center line was better.  I did get a 7.5 on my two tempi changes and would have scored high on the ones as well except he had one change that was short behind.  He broke 60% but just barely.  I was happy to get his first GP done, and that it went reasonably well despite being on the verge of giving me the horsey-finger in the warm-up.  Tomorrow he will do another I-2 then be done for this weekend. 

I schooled Victor today under the supervision of USEF technical advisor Robert Dover.  Robert has tons of experience in top level dressage over decades (he's ridden in 6 Olympics I think!!) and has a real passion for improving American dressage at all levels.  He is also very gracious and kind in person.  I'm always a little leery about having someone help me at a show who doesn't know me (or the horse) well, as I have a system that pretty much works (although imperfect) and hate to screw too much with it.  However, Robert had some very good ideas about improving the presentation, some little things that I tend to overlook (like riding into the corners, having my leg lie flat on his side, keep a steadier contact, stuff like that).  He also wanted me to ride a little more aggressively forward and uphill in the changes (which I tend to let him be a little flat).  I was interested to hear what he had to say about Victor's hind leg in the trot and passage (he tends to be a little out-behind).  He said that since he piaffes so well, that he can close his hind leg up, I just how to figure out how to carry that shape forward into passage.  So when I was in piaffe, he wanted me to keep him in that shape then push him forward into passage but with his legs more under him.  It did make him harder to get forward into passage (as then he wants to get a little stuck) but I think directionally that's where I'll need to go with the passage to get him more engaged.  Also he wanted me to think of the passage as being more "up and down" than forward.  That was a little backwards for me, as I'm always thinking I have to ride him forward to get him more engaged.  But sometimes that only makes him longer.  So riding it like he described felt better and ironically more underneath himself.

I also did an interview with Axel Steiner today for the Live streaming on the CDP website, which was a lot of fun.  I've done interviews before but never a live one.  It's a side of high performance dressage that I'm not very familiar with but is interesting to experience.  I've shown in front of Axel many times but it was interesting to actually talk to him about my horse and his history, my goals, etc, providing background information that the judges oftentimes don't know.

Tomorrow Majek goes early again at 8:38 and Victor does his freestyle at 1:09pm.  Then we will start packing up and leave Monday morning for Bishop and the long drive home.  This week sure has gone by fast!