The Learning Curve

So, I had dilligently practiced my test (dressage, Training 4) for a couple of weeks, and aside from a few hiccups on particularly cold nights, we were doing well. We were relaxed and on rhythm, and were moving forward without running away. The little arena felt small, especially on the loops, but we had been coping nicely. I had a nice ride Saturday night, we did a calm, collected test, and I cooled him out, untacked, and did my braiding (in the 45 minutes I had before barn curfew; they were worst braids I've ever done, and that's saying something #grins#) before giving him some treats and heading home to clean my tack.
Sunday morning I checked his braids (surprisingly, I had little to fix, but it took ages to pick the shavings out- he must have rolled at some point) got into my show gear (minus the tie; I was running behind and I still can't tie one to save my life anyway) and headed into the warmup. We warmed up pretty well; he was slightly tense but he was listening and responsive. I entered the ring when the last horse left, and we walked around for a while. There wasn't much for him to look at, since this is the same ring we ride in all the time. The only new thing was the line of rails on the blocks that marked the end of the small arena, and I made sure to go past it in both directions. I stayed towards the C end in order to not have to make any awkward circles to get on line. We were pretty calm and collected. Then the bell rang. I took up my reins, asked for a trot, and off we went.
For all the prep work, for all the warming up, for all the time spent learning and riding the test, the minute we left X he acted as though he'd never done the test before in his life. Although he wasn't quite as mental as when we showed away from home, he was wound up like a clockwork toy and not inclined to slow down; we exploded into the first canter depart and after a circle that was practically a hand-gallop we damned near jumped right out of the ring while I was trying to come down to trot at H. The free walk was wiggly, with a jig at K, and the second canter depart was better but he still leapt into it. He did stretch in the stretch circle, but I couldn't manage to bring him back easily and we ended up halting about three feet to the right of G, which the judge was quick to bring to my attention #grins#
Still, it was a schooling show, which means the judge gets to talk to you afterwards and give you pointers. In my case, there were a *lot* of pointers. Which I didn't mind; I mean hey, free advice. And she brought up a lot of good points, pilot error being the most prominent (which is pretty much always the case). Fair enough. I just wish I could have gotten her opinion on the practice test I rode last night, when he was calm and felt great.
Cam seemed oddly worried afterwards; when I got off he wanted his head against me the whole time I was talking to the judge, and when I put him in his stall and untacked him he put his head in the back left corner, which he never does. He has three basic stall postures; head by his feed, head by the window, and head by the door. Today he just put his head in the back corner as though he was depressed. I thought perhaps his show issues were due to being away from home, but now I'm starting to wonder if it's just that he has the horse equivelant of test anxiety. I petted him and tried to reassure him that I wasn't upset with him, and after a while he took his head out of the corner and came up to the front of the stall again. Funny things, horses. I do know from someone who knew him before that he had never had a good show experience, and I will probably have that to deal with for the rest of his life. But what I didn't expect was that he might actually feel bad about how he acts while in the ring. It's not anthromorphizing; animals, while obviously not thinking in the same way humans do, do think and feel emotions. Anyone who says otherwise has obviously never worked long hours with them outside of a lab environment.
So anyway, all in all it was another learning experience; while sometimes I despair of ever competing him and having him be calm, I know it's probably just that he needs more low-stress show time until he realizes that everything is fine and nothing's going to hurt him. But it would be nice to get a judge's comments on a test on our normal riding style. I'm just saying.