El Sueno Summer Dressage I

Royal and I had our second show together this past weekend and it was so awesome to see the improvements since our last time together. First of all a huge thank you to Sabine Schut-Kery for helping us get this far in such a short amount of time. It has been so fun working with you and Royal every day to figure out the best ways to make us as strong a team as possible.

When we got to El Sueno Equestrian Center on Friday, Royal already felt more relaxed than last time. Saturday I rode through my Grade II Team Test for the first time. I did pretty well getting a 66.8%. I really wanted to do well for my test the next day so I read over all the judges comments and figured out how to improve. Sabine and I worked on some things during the warm up and I made sure not to tire myself out since I was already on my 7th day of riding in a row. I rode my Grade II Individual Champion Test today and everything felt really great and I ended up with a 71.4%. The judge even called me up afterwards to tell me how much she noticed the improvements from yesterday and was very impressed with my ride! What an honor!

I was so proud of Royal. Each time we enter the show ring he really gets so relaxed, even more so than in the warm up, so I can completely focus on what I need to do to have the best ride while he takes care of me. I am so grateful to Molly Bye for having the insight to call and say this special boy might be just right for me. He definitely gets a ton of love every single day!

Thanks also to everyone at El Sueno for putting on a wonderful show.. from Gina, Jennifer, Natalie, John, Kaye, and the wonderful volunteers. And to Kristian for all his help with Royal, taking video, photos, and even putting on my stock tie!