It is a real pleasure to show at CornerStone Farm's National Dressage shows in Palgrave Ontario. The facilities are beautiful and with six competition rings running for three days, it is definitely a "happening place".

For Spring into Dressage this year, we attended with two horses. Prisco showed at Third Level, and our homebred mare Bluebird Lane Kestrel came out for her first show ever, at Training Level.

Lori and Prisco got off to a great start on Friday, riding Third Level Test One and placing second in the field of 13, with 62.2%. The judge's comments included "Well presented test. Super pony!". Speaking of comments, Prisco gets lots of "Cute", "Adorable" and "Awwwwww"'s from the people on the show grounds - but I like it best when people say "Awesome!", and he was getting a few of those too :-) On the second day of the show, we had some "communication problems" and placed last but by Sunday we pulled our placing back up to the middle of the pack, and overall finished fifth in our division. Since this was only our second ever show at Third Level, we were happy.

Kestrel did the home team proud, and ably carried her "Bluebird Lane" name to achieve Training Level Amateur Champion, at her very first show!! In a field of 23 competitors, Kestrel showed consistency and a lot of promise for the future, scoring as high as 71.36%. Having a home-bred and -trained horse do so well on her first "away mission" is a thrill indeed! Thanks to everyone who helped our team at the show, and special thanks to Tina Busse-Irwin, who coaches Kestrel and Lori.