Dale Dedrick (Ann Arbor, MI) rode her Bonifatious to a score of 64.619% in the Grade II Individual Test. Here are her thoughts;
On her improvement over the Team Test:
“It was a much more forward and obedient test; we still had a lot of Erik’s, ‘Oh, no what’s happening now?’. But I was much more prepared for it today, I knew he was going to pull and I was much more ready to attack the minute he tried that and I said, ‘no, no get in there, get in there, get going.’”
On her best movement:
“That last medium trot was the best.”
On why the pair showed such improvement:
“It was because if you really watched the test and thought about it, he messed around every time we trotted; when we walked he never blinked an eye. Which means he wasn’t scarred of anything, he was just messing with me saying, ‘this is a big arena, you fell a little tight therefore I don’t have to pay attention, I can do my own thing. He’s not real honest in that way. So today anytime he thought , ‘I don’t think so’ I kicked him hard.
On how she will prepare for her Freestyle;
Listening to my music like crazy.
On her Freestyle music;
A piece called kitten on the keys. I’ve ridden to it before and the horse dances to it.
On what she worked on after the Team Test;
My dominate riding, that I couldn’t wait for him and say, ‘Oh, please do this’ and wait for him to do something and have him say ‘I don’t think so, check back with me later.’ I needed to say ‘get in there and I mean it.’ In every situation attack.