(no subject)

It has been raining steadily for almost 2 days now- unheard of for us. Instead of brushing Trudi this morning, I hosed the mud off her legs and used the sweat scraper to get most of the water off her body since she'd been eating breakfast out in the rain. She was a pain about the BC, but excellent other than that. We did some 10 m trot circles that really helped to connect her, and doing them as a figure 8 improved her balance. We halted twice and both were smashing- and each time she knew it and looked for sugar, which was pretty entertaining. My current mantra is half halt, corner, release. Ommmm. Her body was wonderfully connected and the release let her be totally through so that the energy went exactly where it was supposed to. This helped in the canter too. We did some 14ish meter canter circles, with about 7 strides of trot between when we did them as figure eights. The changes in direction were mostly terrible, which was mostly my fault, but Trudi did volunteer a few times and came up with canter departs even though I didn't have her bent the right way, or when her balance was totally off and I didn't steady her. She even did a walk to canter- there were a couple trot steps, but she did try to do it. I was really happy with some of the great stuff today.
I'm stunned at how much dressage there's been on nbcolypics.com- totally awesome. Thought Nadine and Elvis were pretty dismal today, loved Steffan and Ravel. The horse looked really sweaty when they came in and it wasn't perfect (like careening a bit in the canter halfpasses), but I got a great impression overall, and it was a relief to see some good piaffe- I can't believe how poor most of the piaffe has been at the olympics this year- it bugs me because that's like a signature move at GP. I haven't liked most of the extended trots I've seen either- they seem to be too much front leg with a disconnected hind end that's not really stepping under. But I think things might get better so I'm off to watch more of the special...looking forward to Courtney, Kyra, and Isabel.

Meh, since I'm still up- Courtney looked so scared. Thought she did a good job but it seemed conservative. IMO Anky got overscored- I don't like the rollkur stuff but I wasn't really looking to pick her apart. I just felt the ride wasn't that special. Really liked a lot of Emma Hindle and Lancet- never watched them before but the first part of the ride seemed to have good flow, lightness and ease- the last part he seemed tired. Heike Kemmer and Bonapart -NICE. I really liked that test. Isabelle and Satchmo- some pretty stuff. The improptu reinback in piaffe into the wall was sad to watch (poor spooked ponies). I thought she did a pretty good job of finishing up after that, but it wasn't as nice as the beginning of the test.
That's all, folks.