WATERLOO IN JULY

We had three weeks at home to debrief from the Dressage Derby and get ready for Waterloo in July.  We had the luxury of taking only 4 horses, Damon, Royal, Valdeon and Boca.  Mary Anne, Andrea and I have worked together so long that we can finish each other's sentences, making it a real pleasure to show together.
A couple of days before we left for the show, Damon's owner, Sarah Bushong-Weeks, came out from Denver to meet Damon for the first time.  She was out of the country when he arrived in Ohio and this was the first chance that she had to come for a visit.  Of course we had sent her pictures and videos of him since his arrival but there is nothing like meeting him in person.  After seeing his pictures and videos, it is still amazing to meet him in person.  He is larger than life and has the most outgoing personality and wants to play with you all day. I don't think he knows how to spell tired, although I might have seen him resting once or twice but he asked that I not tell anybody.  He is tireless, should be a politician, always up for a public appearance.
The good news is Damon had three weeks to rest between shows, the bad news is that he got rested.  Sarah watched me ride him at home and commented on how quiet and sensible he was but she was in for a surprise when we got to the show.  He put on quite a show on the lunge, if he wasn't bucking he was leaping and did every acrobatic move he could think of.  Fortunately, he was quite obedient under saddle, although you could tell there was a lot of tension right under the surface.  Sooooo glad he is a team player and holds himself together in spite of his nerves.
He put in a good test, 69.4% and the canter work had improved quite a bit since the last show.  The judge said she wished that we would have gone for a more dramatic trot but I explained to her when we spoke after the class that we can have huge gaits, as big as you want, but we can't do that and navigate the test pattern of 10 meter half turns.  She said she understood my dilemma and said that he needs more time to grow into himself and let go of some of his tension.  She did comment on how wonderfully balanced he is both longitudinally and laterally for a youngster and wished us good luck.
Waterloo was our last qualifier for the Young Horse Finals and we were not able to make the cut into the top 15 in the country. It was a long shot to try and get him qualified in such a short time, but he did a great job handling going to 4 shows in 8 weeks, especially since his first trip away from home was on the plane to come here.
We have some time to settle in now and probably won't show again until the end of August.  Our goal is to continue gaining confidence away from home and to be able to relax enough in the ring to show the gaits that he is capable of.

He surely knows who his people are, every morning we are greeted with a huge bellow and a horse that is eager to go to work.  You gotta love that!!!!!!