Officially Official

It's officially official - Misty is now 100% mine! I got her all paid off and her old owner sent me her registration papers so now I can get her transferred into my name. After, of course, I decide whether or not I want to spend $100 changing her registered name and possibly spending another $25 to update her picture plus the $55 cost of actually doing the ownership transfer. Gah, too many charges!

It's a baby Misty!

In other news, our dressage show is exactly one week away. I didn't realize it was this close, it snuck up on us so fast!

Figured that I should probably ride Misty in the dressage saddle for the first time... I've just been playing around in the western saddle. I put it on her today and actually rode her as if we were doing our dressage test. It will definitely be interesting.

Stuff she needs to work on:

• Consistent contact
• Consistent tempo
• Bending and being on the bit at the same time
• Transitions
• Straight lines
• Stretching down into contact

She has such a lovely trot when she's on the bit and she's coming over her back, but it only lasts about a quarter of the way around the arena before she gets distracted by something or decides to speed up or go into drama-llama mode. She does not think it's possible to hold a bend on a 20 meter circle at the same time as being on the bit. Her canter's definitely easier to sit in the dressage saddle, she just has so much suspension! Transitions all around aren't that great - downward ones are too abrupt ("You mean halt really fast?" Misty says) and upward transitions are disorganized. Our free walk is hit or miss, half the time she gives me a nice stretch down but the other half she tries to curl behind the bit. At least she has a nice walk!

She is definitely starting to trust me a lot more and I'm really having fun with her. Hopefully with time we can smooth out all these issues and I think she'll be a really nice little low-level dressage horse.

Trying to take a picture with Misty lying down and not really succeeding...

But in the meantime, luckily we still have the rest of the week to practice!