Core Memory Unlocked: a Haflinger in the Prix St Georges

If 14-year-old me could see this: she’d be freaking out. We’ve cleared the first hurdle and completed our first FEI Prix St Georges dressage test at a recognized show! Now about a week later, I sometimes still don’t believe it. On top of that, we earned a very respectable 62.5% and I could not be more happy! This is the dream!

We worked hard to get here, and having done the PSG a couple of times at schooling shows in Vermont, I knew the test well and liked the flow. But we still needed to work on shape/balance and those intimidating tempi changes. We needed to get back in the ring after a couple of years of not showing together, and on top of that, we needed to up our game to look like we belonged in Wellington!

Crumble and I tested the waters at 4th level to get back in the groove together. Although it wasn’t “easy” by any means, the movements were familiar. I was excited just to be able to show my own horse again! At home, his gaits have improved dramatically over the last year especially, so even though we had competed at 4th previously, his shape and balance were different this time around. I took the opportunity to test his self-carriage more – since my own position has improved as I’ve learned to ride more FEI horses, I’ve learned how to stay out of Crumble’s way more. In turn, he has had to be more responsible for his own balance without leaning on the rein. He’s had to essentially re-learn a lot – which is hugely beneficial in the long run, but the process itself can be challenging.

Our two biggest improvements are in the extended trot and the flying changes. Let’s take a look at each of these:

Extended Trot

Crumble is built for collection, so extension is one of the hardest things I could ask him to do. He will sit like crazy (often too much!), but has only recently learned that his front legs can reach more. I’ve played a lot with transitions between small trot and big trot, showing him how to explore his range of motion more as he also learns to spring off the ground – which we’ll eventually turn into passage.

As Crumble’s balance and self-carriage have improved and I’ve learned to use my back and core for half-halts rather than relying on my reins, he’s finding the freedom he needs! In each test we rode, I felt improvements in his gaits overall and in the extended trot specifically. This winter – for the first time in his life – he actually took me across the diagonal!

The biggest thing I needed to remember to do in the test, though? Make an obvious difference in the transitions from collection to extension and vice versa. Crumble is going to try his heart out, but since extended trot is not his strong suit, the transitions at each end are key to making sure the judge knows that we showed two different trots. When I ride the test, my keywords are to “explode” out of the corner and “almost walk” at the other end.

Flying Changes

This one may be less obvious to many people, but the feeling I’m having in the changes is so different. I’ll do my best to describe the difference.

When Crumble started doing his first flying changes years ago, I had very little experience doing them myself (we were just babies!), and had never taught a horse to do them. So we had to learn together, and any horse person knows how challenging that can be! Now, I have much more experience under my belt, but Crumble really only knows what I’ve taught him. Which meant I basically needed to teach him a new language.

This is a big challenge in itself because he is so familiar to me – if we aren’t getting our changes, I have to work harder to be able to feel it because this is the way we’ve always done it. That’s our normal. And although I’ve done a huge part of Crumble’s training under Ruth’s coaching, this is where I relied on her watchful eye more than ever before.

My goal for the PSG was to make different mistakes. That means even though I knew our tempis weren’t 100% solid, I didn’t want to feel like I was going across the diagonal just flailing around, hoping and praying, and then giving up when we finally got to the second quarter line! So, in the time before our debut, we went to bootcamp. We broke things down and did changes of some kind every day. I wanted to get to the point where they felt almost boring: as mundane as posting the trot.

Putting It All Together

The strategy of riding a dressage test is my favorite part – it’s what makes me excited about the sport and makes me happy to compete. In fact, learning how to strategize is what helped me look forward to competing, instead of feeling anxious and overwhelmed about the whole thing.

I don’t like riding my test at home more than once. Instead, I get much more out of riding it through once at least a week before (if not more – ex: before this show, I hadn’t ridden through the whole PSG since our last schooling show over a year ago). Then I only practice chunks of the test. In each section, I go over with Ruth 1) what the movement looks like and 2) how I’m going to ride it on a particular horse. That way, when I’m in the ring, I can think about the test as having different parts, and it helps me focus on what I need to do at any given time. If I mess up on one thing, I can put it away and think about the next thing, because it’s immediately in my mind as “Now, for this next part to happen I need to make sure I have bend through this corner” or “When I finish this volte I need to make sure I push the haunches out so they don’t lead in the half-pass.”

This way of doing things allows me to slow down my brain and actually think when I’m in the show ring. It’s not just a blur anymore, leaving me wondering what happened. And it’s FUN!

Crumble is a Superstar

I’ve been so impressed with Crumble this winter. He’s never been particularly fond of hot weather, which meant that I was prepared to do whatever I needed to do to help keep him comfortable and happy. At shows, our strategy is a short warm-up, being as efficient as possible. But as it turned out, from very early on this season, Crumble has shown me that he is ready to go to work. His fitness level is better than ever! I’ve stayed one step ahead on his body clipping too, which helps him tremendously.

On the day of the show, Crumble didn’t miss a beat. First of all, he tried to start grazing before he even fully got off the trailer, and he wouldn’t pick up his head until we started tacking up. When we go to shows, he never makes a peep – doesn’t look for friends or get stressed. Once I get on, he marches to the ring with both ears pricked, ready to go. It warms my heart to see him be so happy about the work we’re doing together!

During the test, I knew our strengths and weaknesses, and what I needed to do to squeeze as many points out as possible. I knew that our half-passes had to be spot on, because our tempis (though improved) would not be. While I knew I needed to “ride every stride”, I especially needed to focus on those strong pieces in order to make sure we didn’t throw points away needlessly.

In the end, we earned mostly 7’s and 7.5’s for our lateral work, halts, transitions, and walk pirouettes, which is HUGE! I achieved my goal of “making different mistakes” and I am immensely proud of that achievement. I did not give up on the tempis. Nope, they weren’t perfect, but I knew that going in. Instead, I can tell that Crumble is responding to the new language we’ve created together. And that left-to-right flying change is actually pretty reliable!

To me, a 62.5% says that we deserve to be there and we are only going to get better. It says I only have one more score until I earn my USDF Silver Medal. And, it says that I made my first FEI horse out of this little golden pony.

So, what’s next?

Now that we’ve gotten our feet/hooves wet, we’re going to keep working on uphill balance and self-carriage in addition to getting the tempis down before we get back into the competition ring. We’re heading back home to Vermont soon, so that will give us a little bit of downtime before we start training again. I don’t have any solid plans for the summer, but I’m toying with the idea of a 4th level freestyle…

Keep an eye out for us. We’re only just getting started!