This was a great year for Cazador and myself. We successfully showed 2nd level freestyle, 3rd level technical and 3rd level freestyle. We qualified for both 2nd and 3rd level freestyle and 3rd level for Regional Championships in Scottsdale, Az. For all of my freestyles at regionals, the sound tech was not spot on so one I couldn’t hear the music, and one he started way before I was ready so that was rushed to catch up. We did ride our 3rd level technical test but we were a little tense. Good experience.

We also completed the requirements for my USDF Bronze Medal and our USDF Bronze Freestyle Bar! It was a lot of hard work but was excited when Jan Lawrence from Millbrook Farms came out with my last score! Cazador was my ride for all of the Freestyles and Master helped with my 2nd level scores and Cazador finished that up with my 3rd level scores. I so love these horses.

At year end, Cazador was Nationally ranked #1 for Andalusians in 3rd level Adult Ametuer Freestyle, #2 for Andalusians in 3rd level Open Freestyle, #1 for Andalusians in 2nd level Adult Ametuer and Open Freestyle.

For Utah Dressage Society, Cazador was ranked #4 for 3rd level technical Adult Amatuer, 1st for 2nd level freestyle, and 1st for 3rd level freestyle!

We went to the Millbrook show the first part of July and did fairly well at our second level test 3. The Sage Creek III and IV shows were 2 weeks away and I had signed up for the First Level Freestyle with no music and a small idea on the choreography. Jan Lawrence was nice enough to agree to help me with the music and we picked out some pieces that we thought Caz would agree to. She has a HUGE selection of music broken down into beats per minutes which makes it easier to find music to match footfalls of your horse.

The next day we rode to the pieces and found that Caz did well with a ragtime/charleston piece that was already cut and edited. All we needed to do was add intro music.

Stacy Williams and I then worked on the choreography the next day. I listened to the music all the time. The next day we rode to the music on Jan's speaker system and Cazador about had a melt down!! I'm thinking, crap the show's less than a week away and he doesn't like what we picked. We keep riding to the music for another few days and by the time the show comes around he knows the music and what he's suppose to do where.

The first official time up the centerline with the music turned up and Jan at the volume control he was business as usual. The second day up centerline, he was amazing. Our first score was 65.900% and the second day it was 68.167%, which was .16% shy of a first place score! It was really cool to finally get to ride a freestyle and to do so well with less than a week and a half to get it all together.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rX6YD0AbjE_-_3pj391njLlbQMOFw7Gbxw/view?usp=sharing