Six Minutes in Munich

Photo © Sherry Stewart

Friday morning in Munich was the same as any other weekday morning, except I had to drive a dressage test at a World Championship at about 10:15. This didn’t seem to faze anyone on the morning commute.

The short bike ride from the hotel to the show grounds had the same small mix of commuters in cars, on bikes or walking. Some going to school, others to work, and a few of us headed to Worlds, drivers and officials alike. It wasn’t ever very many people at one time, just a small, quiet trickle.

We all waited at the railroad crossing in silence as the gates blocked the road for 5-10 minutes at a time for several trains quietly whisked along by electric motors. There might be a smile or a head nod, but no words. The gates rose, then we were all on our way again.

It was all very Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf. Just another regular day on the way to a World Championship.

Getting Ready

The quiet of the commute fell behind upon arrival at the show grounds. People and horses were moving in every direction, and there was a schedule to keep.

Tara and I have gotten really good at managing our time on dressage day. We write out the whole day on a whiteboard: when to get the carriage ready, get dressed, groom, tack, visualize, hitch and walk off. Everything.

That ritual keeps us busy with tasks that need our focused attention almost all the way up to the moment we leave the truck. It guards against rushing around, and it minimizes idle time. Idle time before dressage can be your worst enemy. Horse show nerves don’t need much space to get a toehold.

As much as Tara and I tried to make this test just like any other, it wasn’t. At one point while I was putting on my shoes, she looked at me and said, “This is your Hoosier moment, isn’t it?” “Yup,” I replied. Enough said.

The other big difference was the size of our team. Usually it’s just me and Tara, occasionally with my girlfriend Sue and Tara’s sister Rebecca along to help. We compete in our own little bubble.

At Worlds, the bubble had about three times as many people in it, since all of the other US drivers and their crews were literally on our team. That’s a little different than just Competing Together at the same event.

The support was very much appreciated. There were always two or three people asking what they could do. It was incredibly kind, and a little overwhelming. Every task someone took off our plate was a piece of our ritual.

Soon, I was standing around with clean hands and not much to do. The area around the dragon truck turned into the chill zone, with people hovering around, reminding me to stay calm, focus and relax. I felt a little like a patient everyone expected to crack at any moment.

Photo © Sherry Stewart

My teammate Marianna Padgett and I had been sharing encouraging words about focusing on the joy of it all most of the week. By Friday, it had a little sarcastic nudge to it.

Focus on the joy, Andy.  Focus…   On…   The…   Joy.

Warmup

Photo © M. Guillamot

Things feel a lot better once you start driving. You’re engaged. You’re doing the thing.

We had a really specific flow. First, Warmup 3 with Camilla to get Loretta loose, relaxed and moving freely. Then a five-minute walk to Warmups 1b and 1a, two dressage arenas in the field of the old Olympic stadium.

We’d worked in all of the arenas during the week, but now the old stadium was clearly hosting a horse show. Only a few drivers were allowed in at a time, but every one of them was just as focused as we were. Each carriage had its own coaches and helpers on the ground. Add the stewards, officials, plenty of spectators and announcements over the loudspeakers, and the energy was electric.

Camilla and I started to get more specific with Loretta in her work, establishing her rhythm and asking for more engagement. Camilla’s voice in my headset was steady, calm, measured and encouraging. It was like having Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz (the original) floating behind me.

Loretta was fairly relaxed, focused and engaged. When I made corrections, she followed them. We were pretty happy with the way she was moving.

But things started to get a little tense. She wasn’t taking the bit forward the way she normally did. With a few minutes to spare, Tara found the curb chain a little too snug, which of course deeply offended Loretta. I’m certain she rolled her eyes at me, since I was the one who put her bridle on. Once we adjusted it, I could almost hear an exasperated little “Thank you.”

From there, she relaxed a little more, some of the swing returned to her stride, and we were in better shape to start our test.

The Test

Photo © Sherry Stewart

Getting to the main arena was its own adventure. Despite a whole army of people relaying between us and the stewards, it went something like this: Ok, it’s time to go. No, wait, stay. Go. No. Yes. Wait, be patient. Ok, hurry up, go.

Once we got to the main arena, the chaos fell away behind us. Just Loretta, and Tara, and me… and five judges, but who’s counting?

The bell rang, and we picked up a left lead canter and started to line up on the centerline. Things were going a bit too quick and unbalanced. I aborted my entry like a pilot doing a go-around to avoid a rough landing. A second circle brought things a little more together, so I took it into the ring.

I had an ear-to-ear grin, like I do when I jump out of a plane. As we crossed X and transitioned from canter to collected trot, I thought, “No shit. We’re driving at a World Championship.”

I didn’t have much time to bask in that moment because Loretta had A LOT of energy! The second movement is the extended trot on the long diagonal. Loretta knew that and was making some pretty big plans on the way there. I was looking for about a 7 or 8 on the energy scale. She was offering eleventeen.

The test went… quickly. It was a little bit like emergency dressage, instead of the poised elegance I had visualized. She was spicy, which isn’t her usual mode for dressage. She was trying to do all the things all the time, like a little kid trying to show off everything they know.

For my part, I hadn’t noticed that we were going so quick. She never got ahead of me, but in retrospect, I wasn’t quite ahead of her enough. Honestly, we were having fun together. I talked to her and had a few laughs the way we do in just about every other test.

The judges were all smiling. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, but I’d rather see them smiling than scowling. In no time we were back on centerline for our final halt and salute. That last part was supposed to be: Halt, count 1, 2. Salute, 1, 2. Move off to exit the arena. Mine was more like HaltSaluteOkThanksBye, like I had a train to catch.

Photo © M. Guillamot

There was polite applause as we exited (kinda the golf clap for the guy who finally put the ball in after his third putt). The gate stewards saluted as we passed. I really appreciated that gesture. It was a classy touch that showed how much the people running this event cared.

I felt pretty good about the test. I knew it wasn’t a great test, but a lot of things felt really good. Loretta’s general balance was more uphill and her engagement was better than it’s been all year. More than a few people who’ve followed us mentioned that they could see a real change.

On top of that, Loretta was super-duper game! Generally, she’s not very enthused about dressage. For this test, she was really cheerful and full of spunk. That’s a much more fun issue to have than getting the stink eye for an entire test!

Most importantly, it was a lot of fun. Yes, you can have fun in a dressage ring. We had a blast!

Six minutes in Munich. It felt more like three.

After the video – Read below for the one thing that could have improved our score.

The One Thing That Could Have Improved Our Score

Over the summer we had improved on so many fronts. I got a lot more clear and quiet with my hands. We got Loretta straighter and carrying herself better from behind. You can see her progress in the warmup video, and there are even hints of it in the test. She’s a horse taking the next step up in her development.

The trouble was, I didn’t really get to show off all of our accomplishments because of one missing element.

Tempo control.

The energy was right, but the metronome in my head was evidently on its third double espresso. I even remember hearing stall warnings go off in my head between C and M on the way to that first extended trot, because I thought I’d brought the tempo down too much. Sadly, that was the closest I got to being on tempo the entire test.

Tempo is a tricky thing. It’s not about going forward faster or slower. It’s about strides per minute. The confusing part: a horse that’s taking fewer strides per minute (aka slower tempo) may cover more ground per stride than a horse that’s taking more strides per minute (faster tempo).

In that example, the horse with the slower tempo is taking larger, longer strides, which also means they’ll spend more time in the air. When you see a very elegant horse trot silently by, what your eye is responding to is hang time. That’s why people say a horse “floats across the ground.”

I’ll admit, the first time I watched our dressage video with a critical eye was when I started writing this article. I knew that it would be cringy for me. Not everyone sees it that way, but I can only watch it with a trainer’s eye. It looked to me like we were blasting around that ring trying to make our cones time.

So I compared how long it took us to do our test, and compared it to the top five dressage tests. I expected a big difference. There wasn’t. We were about 5% quicker on average, and in many cases there was only a few seconds’ difference. We were going a little faster, but not exactly flying. It was more about tempo.

If I could have combined Loretta’s atomic energy in that test with about a 10% lower tempo, she would have had a chance to open up her stride. The longer stride with a quieter tempo would have been far more elegant.

Having a slightly calmer tempo also feels slower. That moment in the corner just before M felt like it lasted a long time. Shaving a little off our tempo would have afforded me the bandwidth to stay more ahead of Loretta. I would have had chances to invite Loretta to reach her head and neck forward, which gives her more access to her hindquarters. That, in turn, would create larger, more elegant movements.

The kicker? Our warmup video shows the tempo just about where it belonged. It just didn’t make the trip into the dressage arena. That’s where my good friend adrenaline really kicked in to play its part.

The Adrenaline Factor

Under pressure, the body releases adrenaline. Heart rate and breathing climb, focus narrows, fine motor control slips, and time can seem to slow down. Most of it flies under the radar until afterward, when the adrenaline wears off and leaves us shaky, tired and maybe a little giddy (or all of the above).

That’s the part I wasn’t on the lookout for. I don’t really associate dressage with high adrenaline moments. I guess it took a trip to another continent to update my thoughts on that subject!

Of course, it all lines up with an adrenal moment:

Focus narrows ➙ “The chaos fell away behind us” when I entered the arena
Fine motor control slips ➙ My busy hands came back
Time slows ➙ The over-caffeinated metronome

Yup, the adrenaline junkie got bit by the adrenaline bug. At least I got the fun part of the afterglow!

How could I have changed that?

Well, for starters, I should have planned for it. We think of adrenaline with skiing or skydiving, not dressage. But a dressage test is a performance, and being on stage is one of the most common adrenaline triggers there is. Just ask any actor who’s forgotten their lines, or rushed them into gibberish.

With all the planning I do for dressage, I usually build in a minute or two of focus time. That wasn’t in there on this trip. I still could have done it when I got to the dressage arena. Just a 20-30 second check-in.

There’s always a moment before the bell rings to gather your thoughts. Even after the bell, we have 90 seconds to enter. Plenty of time for three long breaths before getting started. That could have lowered my heart rate and blood pressure and settled that metronome in my head. Check the driver, then start the horse on course.

Also, next time that metronome gets decaf!

There’s a whole lot that happened that day that didn’t make the cut in this story. What are you curious about after watching our test? Ask in the comments below, and I’ll do my best to answer there.

— Andy & Retta Roo 🐴🇺🇸

Photo © Sherry Stewart