At Home vs. Away: The Great Comparison

Despite feeling pretty positive about my rides last weekend, the scores and overall lack of engagement and "throughness" have really had me bothered all week. I thought we were better than we showed, were we really not?

So I did what any good obsessive person does, I went home and looked over the video of 2nd 1 from just two weeks ago. 

Interestingly, I appear to be riding a much different test in that particular video than the one at the show. In the older video, Guinness is much more engaged and collected. He is pushing more and stepping up with his hind leg. The test isn't great (I make some serious accuracy errors, and he falls flat in quite a few places), but it shows that the quality I'm working with at home is about 30% better.

Videos for your comparison:

Schooling 2nd 1 at Home

(click through to site for video)

2nd 1 at Heartland Schooling Show

(click through to site for video)

I'm thinking we have all the right stuff, but we need to push much harder at home. Basically, I need to establish 100% throughness at home, so when we get to a show and only get 50% or 70% of what we get at home it is still good enough. I also need to bring my hands up even further than I already have. My elbows are bent better than ever before, but I need to start carrying my hands as instinct instead of constantly using my head to remind myself about them. All of that's totally possible, but it's going to lead to some tough training moments ahead...