Preparing Arwen started on the Monday, six days before the show. With the help of my sister, who is a lot better at hair than I am, I experimented with Arwen’s mane. She rubbed out about a foot of the middle, leaving a highly unattractive Mohawk between two hairy tufts.

While Thunder is a big drafty type and looks good hogged, Arwen is a Nooitgedachter – in other words, she’s supposed to have long, straight, flowing mane like a unicorn. Ha! Apparently, she had other ideas. We eventually settled on plaiting it in buttons and trying to squash the Mohawk into tiny knobs as best as we could. It looked pretty dreadful, but not quite as dreadful as the tufts.

 

After that I went through all my equipment to make sure it was safe, legal and at least not too scruffy. With Rain calling my dressage test (and, lacking markers, a hastily memorised dressage arena map in my head) Arwie and I rode through the test. She was pretty good; obedient with nice transitions (apart from one sticky canter transition in the middle of a half-circle from B to E), but not outstanding. I thought we would probably survive the test without getting a 0 for anything, but didn’t have high expectations.

Tuesday turned out to be rather too rushed to ride Arwen at all; I had a very long day at the stables, but did manage to ride my test a few times from memory on Reed (who rides a killer preliminary test by the way). Arwen spent the day eating grass, and I started to think I wouldn’t need a caller after all. In fact I knew the test by heart and rode it in my head several times a day, but I was terrified that I would enter at A and instantly forget the rest.

Wednesday was our lesson. I rode her without any training aids at all the whole week, because I wanted to know what to expect on Sunday. She was a little better than on Monday, still a bit rushy and unbalanced in the canter and rather heavy on my hands. The Mutterer was mostly concerned with making sure I didn’t burn her out before the show, so we just did some low-pressure flatwork and popped around a 50cm course. She was a little off her rhythm and knocked down one pole, but jumped very willingly with no hesitation.

We had the most amazing session on Thursday. We started by warming up with tons of lateral work, which got her really nice and light on my aids; she was so nice that I decided to play with her a bit and as we came around the corner to H in a working canter I opened my inside rein, pressed my outside spur against her side and asked for a leg-yield, expecting two or three steps or a yield to the quarter line if I was lucky. I was instantly rewarded by a forward, bouncy, willing leg-yield that felt so effortless I let her go all the way to F. It was awesome. That was just the kind of frame of mind she was in, which was too lovely for words. Even her canter was rhythmic, steady, light in my hands.

We jumped around the 80cm course, which I had viewed with some trepidation; in light of the approaching show, it suddenly looked about the size of the Berlin Wall. It’s ridiculous, of course, she pops around 1.00m without any trouble, but shows do funny things to the nerves. She was fantastic and jumped foot perfectly, not a single pole down, drifted a bit to the right but overall she was extremely willing and rhythmic. We jumped our 7-effort course three times without any issues at all and rounded off the session by riding the best test she’d ever given me, excepting a somewhat runny halt at the end. I was on cloud nine. If only she would be as good at the show as she was on Thursday, we would do awesome.

I was tempted to give her Friday off, mindful of not letting her burn out and eager to keep our confidence levels up for the show after our great session the day before, but in the end I lunged her for 20 minutes or so. Arwen is just always much better to ride when she’s had a lot of consistent work. She was her usual impeccable self for lunging.

Saturday was Arwen’s spa day. I was running around like a chicken without a head, trying to rescue my numnahs and things from the washing line, clean all my stuff and prevent her from rolling after her lengthy bath. Arwen was, as usual, very easy to wash apart from her face (which she really hates to have cleaned). I used Trident’s Glistening shampoo (which, despite my sister’s warnings, did not turn my horse purple) and scrubbed her body and hooves well. I only shampooed the mane lightly because I wanted to plait it, but I went a bit crazy on her tail. Arwen has the most wonderful tail ever, and once it’s been washed, thoroughly conditioned and carefully combed out it becomes a wavy cascade of silky wonderfulness. She spent the afternoon grazing in the garden because of the lack of dirt to roll in. I had heard all the dire warnings that grey horses will always roll directly after a bath or the night before the show. Arwen became my heroine that evening because she didn’t even think of rolling, went happily back to her paddock, and judging by the lack of grassy bits on her coat on Sunday morning, she didn’t even lie down in a dirty spot for the night.

I intended to have an early night on Saturday, but nervous excitement kept me awake reading an outdated Manual of Horsemanship until 9:30. It was only a training show, but it felt like it would be a very big day tomorrow.

To be continued…