The Green Horseman

Stanley’s start in life and racing career looks entirely different from what his life looks like today. It’s impressive to see how versatile and adjustable thoroughbreds truly are; no wonder they are my favorite breed.

Stanley at home is a soft easy ride. Still adjusting to contact but a large part of that is my own shortcomings. I am an amateur myself and he’s marvelously forgiving of me. We come SO far in only six months considering he’s my first restart.

Last weekend I took Stanley to our first Combined Test….and our 4th time off the property. I almost didn’t sign up….or almost signed up for Intro A and B only. I was afraid to canter off the property again after the first dressage show. Thanks to my trainers giving me the pep talk I needed we signed up for the starter CT.

This show was put on by our local Group Member Organization ENYDCTA (Eastern New York Dressage and Combined Test Association). It was held only 20 minutes from our barn on a beautiful farm called Trilogy Equestrian. I have had the pleasure of building jumps for this farm in the past and even made ENYDCTA some wooden jump course numbers for this show in exchange for sponsorship.

Stanley is getting used to my friend’s step-up trailer. He’s more at ease going places and getting out. He’s so calm standing at the trailer munching his hay. He lunges calmly off the property. I get on and he warms up beautifully. About 10 minutes in, however, he realizes he’s concerned and starts to escalate. Part of it is separation from his brother, Tiger.

We entered the dressage ring and Stanley was super tense. Head high, far above the bit. Short stride. In essence a bundle of nerves. He listened to every gait cue…walk, trot, and canter. Even landed both the right lead and left leads. He ignored most of my other aids. He refused to bend through his ribcage, and wouldn’t move over when we proceeded down the 2nd track instead of the edge of the ring. We got through it despite his stress. I gave him some love and we moved on with our day. I knew we blew it but it was excellent exposure for him. We also had some great moments that show improvement over our first test.

I changed Stanley’s saddle pad and put on his boots and we moved on to the jump field. Tiger and Suzanne moved out to their dressage test scheduled at the same time. Stanley settled into the warmup for our jumping. I cruised him around the open warmup field. Took him over a couple of cross rails. Took him over some small verticles. It wasn’t long before he was feather-light in may hands and quietly trotting around. He offered a stretchy trot and we went around on the buckle with his head by his knees. Soft, calm, and happy.

When I gave him a chance to walk he would walk for a little while, even offer to stop and watch the hustle and bustle. After a short while, however, his tension would grow and we proceeded to get the energy out a little more with a calm trot.

We entered the jump ring and cruised around the ring with 9 2ft fences. He was more in his element in the jump ring. He knew his job. I felt him occasionally drift and as I added leg he straightened out and headed right toward the jump. He found his distance every time and it felt unbelievable. We left the ring with an amazing sense of accomplishment for a clear round. I think even Stanley knew he did well.

We went back to the trailer where he enjoyed a long pee and happily returned to his hay bag. He ate, drank, and settled back down next to his brother. After I untacked we walked over to the jump ring to cheer on our friends. We cheered on Becky, Katie, and Suzanne while Stanley munched on the grass.

Once the class was over we got our test scores. We got a 51% on our dressage score (yikes) but went clear on our jump round. Overall we had a learning experience and one more notch in our belt. We also had the same judge as our first dressage show. While giving us fair marks she gave us very supportive final comments. “You have such a lovely attitude! Keep at it to help him realize nothing will hurt him! Work on really getting him to understand bend to help with his accepting of bit.” Luckily Stanley is pretty accepting of bend and the bit at home so as he begins to settle into this new show life I know he’s going to wow the judges.

Tiger performed well in his dressage test. Somehow this thoroughbred is just a sleepy boy and extremely at ease with show life. Normally if he doesn’t win it’s because he fell asleep and knocked a rail. He started his first jump sleepy so Suzanne did a great job to wake him up. They went clear to win their division!