((shaking fist at heavens))

We went to the Donida schooling show today. Disappointingly, despite how much work we've put into everything this year, our scores stayed pretty consistent with the beginning of the year - a 60.27 for 1-2 and a 59.35 for 1-3.
Here's what's infuriating: I have no idea how to improve them. I am riding and riding and riding and felt like I had finally pulled it all together, and instead, we've got the same old crap scores we always get.
For test 1-2, they were running about 45 minutes ahead of schedule, so I only warmed up for about 5 minutes. But I remembered Mike's comment when my time changed all crazy at Caber - that it's me who needs the time to warm up mentally, not Willig physically - and we actually did (slightly) better on that test.
The interesting ("") part about that was that Willig was very looky-loo at all the decorations - little pumpkins and leaves on the letters and a nice looking judge's stand - and so we've got a couple "braced" or "counterbent" comments when we're going past the judge at C. Indeed he was.
They let us have a nice long warm up so I got plenty of chances to find out just how hard he was going to brace (and thought of my lesson with Mike just this week where he spent the ENTIRE HOUR bracing in the same spot every freaking time).
Then they had a break, and they let riders come in and school. It was just me and another chestnut who didn't appear to care for the decor, and, not surprsingly, Willig didn't really get used to it. Just like in my lesson, maybe after 100x past it, we could go past it with just an ear craned at it, but if I rode down to the other end and back past it - yup, terrifying again.
So then after 1-3 - which by the way, for both - I felt like we did a great job. Given how much my shoulder has been hurting the last three weeks and the antics he's been pulling and all the opportunities (each letter with each new pumpkin) he had to act up, I thought he was a rock star. I was sitting well, I thought we had good engagement and connection, and I thought he had some really nice movements. A couple of them even made me smile.
Which is why I'm so frustrated with our scores - I'm obviously not feeling the right thing if I thought it was stellar and it was really 60%. So what am I feeling wrong?
After 1-3, the judge called me over and said that I'm letting him rush the trot lengthening, and so he's falling on his forehand, and then just falling on it faster. So do I not even know what that feels like? She also said in a lot of my comments that my leg yields were wrong. And I thought they were pretty spectacular - some of them I could even see in their mirrors.
So - sigh. More to work on with Mike. I could work with him pretty much every day and probably still not know what I don't know.
It was a pretty day though - pretty perfect horse show weather, and he stood in the trailer and ate hay like a champ. Loaded great both times too. And Atom was a little darling in the truck. So that part was good.