eximo kiss

I wrote in last week’s Friday Foto Finish about an upcoming saddle fitting appt — it finally happened yesterday, and I’m excited about how the whole experience went! 

arrived early to hang out and chill while the fitter worked on other horses

It was serendipitous actually how it came to be… We’ve been having a nagging pressure point issue with Doozy’s lovely County Solution monoflap jump saddle, and despite the local rep being super helpful and attentive, the issue hasn’t resolved. 

So at a recent lesson I asked trainer C who they use for fittings. It turned out they already had the Veritas owner booked for a visit — and we were invited to crash the party!

she literally acted like this was the most normal thing in the world #love

Some real talk first, tho: I am *not* a saddle fit expert. And in fact, over the course of my extensively documented and varied saddle buying + fitting experiences, I’ve only grown increasingly skeptical about the field in general. 

It is my personal opinion that you can have different fitters (esp those from different brands and training schools, all of which have their own philosophies and brand ideologies) examine the same animal, the same saddle, in more or less the same conditions, and each fitter might arrive at a different (sometimes extremely so) conclusion about whether the saddle “fits” or not. 

To me, it’s sorta like how the man with one watch knows what time it is, but the man with two is never quite sure. Typical horse stuff, guys.

holy shit, emma’s in a dressage saddle!

Therefore consider me an agnostic-cum-anarchist on the subject. My guiding principles are basically to focus first on the horse, and second on the individual professionals* themselves (to a degree), and otherwise stay open minded on brands, construction, materials, whatever. 

And in this case, I have immense trust in trainer C: she has referred me to various other specialists over the years whom I’ve also come to trust (like our longtime chiro / acupuncture guru who we might be seeing at the same exact moment you read this!). So we went along for the ride. YMMV.

(**Note: dearest reader, you may consider yourself an expert in this field and perhaps are literally brimming with advice you’d love to offer me. Please have no doubt, however, that unless we’ve had direct private conversations (and perhaps even if we have lol) you are not among the individual professionals I’m using for this experience!)

it remains true that nice tack does not solve every issue, but it certainly helps!

First order of business at the appointment was obviously assessing the County. That particular brand identity, at least in my experience, seems to include believing that horses appreciate a more snug, narrow fit. Tho, depending on who you ask, it might be said that a County “narrow” is more like a “medium” from any other company’s stamp. Again, ymmv. 

It is true, tho, that every County person (and there have been a few now) who has assessed Doozy has classified her as a ‘narrow’ horse, and she goes in a ‘narrow’ stamped saddle. But….. the pressure points, bleh. 

much closer to actually sitting the canter omg

This new fitter declared Doozy a medium narrow, however, which I personally perceive to be synonymous with a ‘County narrow’ in general… Tho he also observed that the saddle was in fact flocked snugly at the tree points. That, combined with likely side to side movement from Doozy’s and my combined biomechanical asymmetries and poor girth choices (in the fitter’s opinion), could very likely be the root of our issue. 

Ooh, and the fact that Doozy is, erm, plushly upholstered at the moment. Ahem.

might be ready to #riskit for the biscuit

Fortunately, he was optimistic he could make all the needed adjustments via reflocking the saddle. AND, in the meantime, wouldn’t ya know it but he just happened to have a couple dressage saddles with him that matched our specs, and wouldn’t I like to try them while he worked on my jump saddle?? 

Which. Obviously, yes please — don’t mind if we do!

Because, as any of you who have been following along will recall — I’ve been low key trying to get us into dressage tack for, um, a while now. We’ve tested quite a few different saddles at this point, but idk if it’s just me being far too noisy of a rider for that much touching omg, who knows, but we have not had good experiences.

first clip is the first test saddle; 

second two clips are in the saddle i took home on trial

But Doozy had clearly remembered to take her #PrincessPills on this particular morning, and was a DOLL for the rides. And both saddles felt super comfy! AND trainer C, who was in the ring with us on another horse, was able to snag some video — yesss!!

Please keep in mind while watching the video: we were not in a lesson, I was not getting real time instruction, yes I still ride crookedly and tip forward and sit to the outside and look down and do weird things with my hands and hold Doozy counter bent even tho all I’ve been talking about for legit months now is inside bend. Yes I still don’t sit the canter well and yes I still go floppy the literal second Doozy gets soft bc “omg holy shit wow we’re doing it what now omg.” Ahem. 

“does this mean i’m grown up yet??” — doozy, skeptical

But guys. It felt goooood sitting in these saddles. Omg. both of them. The first had bigger blocks, and the second had a deeper seat, so they felt a little different, but both quite nice. Obviously just sitting in a dressage saddle isn’t enough to resolve muscle-deep positional bad habits, but it’s crazy how much more attainable certain postural changes felt.

I opted to take the second home on trial (with generously flexible terms) bc let’s be real — trainer C’s barn has weird magical juju that always brings out the best in horses. I need to see what happens when that spell breaks and we’re alone at home lol — will it still feel so good? 

So wish us luck. The saddle is a slightly older model Veritas Eximo that’s so pretty I forgot to get a picture of it lol, whoops. The fitter went ahead and flocked it for Doozy too, so I’m extremely hopeful that we’re set up for a representative trial. 

Wish us luck! Ooh and also cross your fingers that the adjustments made to the County did the trick for our pressure point too…. It’s always something, amirite!

windurra w Sally!

Happy Monday, y’all! We’ve continued to enjoy the milder and less humid conditions lately, and decided to capitalize with a destination xc clinic @ Windurra with local legend Sally!

freshly arrived on a gorgeous day for some xc!

Not gonna lie, Windurra is just a touch far from our new boarding barn, and especially for our level there are certainly plenty of places closer to home. In fact, I’d kinda gone into this year thinking we’d get our regularly scheduled xc fix in lessons with new 5* event trainer, considering those lessons take place at a full fledged eventing facility complete with xc course too… 

started by being a princess over some little logs

But that hasn't happened yet for whatever reasons, and in the meantime I’ve been keeping us in practice with little solo expeditions to Tranquillity. Which, obvi, I love. But every now and then I wonder if all the haters who think I’m ruining my horses by jumping them so much outside of lessons might at least have a point. And so off to a lesson we went!

i feel like there were more bebe jumps than last time we were here

And it was a good one!! Not necessarily meaningfully different from my solo schools — bc let’s be real if you’re jumping small fences for the lowest levels of eventing… Basically just point and shoot your way around lol. 

But then again it’s always super nice to have expert supervision — esp in the form of Sally, a widely popular local pro who is all about confidence and successful progressive repetition. And also a bit unapologetic for pushing for those slightly bigger or more technical elements that we might not do alone.

look at this cute little table!

Doozy, for her part, was a super star! Still strong and chaotic (especially on the back side of fences), and also *quite* fussy about picking up our trot and canter at the beginning of every turn. Like she gets so ahead of herself, knows we’re going to canter, but also knows I’m going to ask her to go slower than she wants, and so we kinda get stuck in a little fit just trying to get going. Thankfully, these little moments became significantly less explosive as the lesson wore on.

already a pro about water

It was exactly the style of ride that I honestly never really do with Doozy — because it’s hard, because of those little fits. Starting and stopping and jumping one fence at a time is a challenge when every transition feels so hard won. Much much easier to just get into gear and cruise around for a bit. 

ooh we jumped some BN things too!

But then again, that’s what lessons are for. That’s what practice is for. And Doozy can certainly benefit from learning that we stop after every single jump, instead of racing off into the distant horizon, never to be seen again (LOL. But Really Tho!). 

a little wild about the banks combination lol

The jumps themselves were also quite nice. It seems like Windurra has invested in a whole bunch of new low level fences — including quite a few that had too much top spread for Starter but maybe weren’t fully BN height - a lovely dimension! It was nice to have the variety, even tho realistically Windurra is most useful for the higher level horses.

another super sweet little table!

Doozy tackled each fence with aplomb, only ever really surprising me when she occasionally proved slightly more civilized than I was expecting. She really didn’t make a bid at anything (except the step up, oops) and actually bc of our sorta fussy sticky transitions, I was able to keep a fair amount of leg on the horse almost all of the ride!

lovely roll

Our straightness was not fantastic — possibly also a side effect of the fussy transitions. But ya know. That’s why we practice, right?

fun feeder!

Probably the only kinda crazy (for us) thing that we jumped was a little roll top coming out of the water. Not a big fence at all, tho obvi bc of its position on rising ground it’d measure quite a bit larger than its true dimensions. Plus, obvi, the proximity to water makes it significantly more technical than what the guidelines allow even at Novice. 

technically you wouldn’t see *anything* like this before training level, but why not play a little amirite?

But that’s kinda the cool thing about Windurra overall — All the questions thru 5* are set up in various levels of progressions and heights, such that you can start to get familiar with more technical stuff in easy and inviting ways. 

view of the same jump from the other side — obvi a very small jump but quite a nice question!

Overall, I’m glad we went — and def want to go again, tho ugh I wish it wasn’t so far! It felt reassuring to be in a lesson environment where the coach was basically just reaffirming that we’re doing the things we need to be doing for where we are in the training. 

proud biscuit <3

Like, yes, there are things for us to work on — straightness, balance, posture, all the normal things — but that’s literally what this level is for, learning all that. There is no prerequisite for needing to know everything before you’re allowed to do anything, it turns out.

helmet cam video!!

And ya know, it also turns out that doing the things — even somewhat less than perfectly — is still fun and rewarding in its own right <3

feeding the beast before going home

Anyway. Doozy was basically a princess about being on the grounds from beginning to end. There was a fair amount of activity when we first arrived, tho we had the place almost entirely to ourselves by the end. Didn’t seem to matter for Doozy, tho! 

feeding the other beast too, ahem

She was also super good about horses in our group coming and going for their turns, including galloping and jumping in close proximity to us. We’ve only ever really had maybe 3-5 experiences ever of schooling xc in this type of group environment, and you really never know with Doozy, but so far, so good!

pro tip (especially if you’re actually a pro!): *PaY* *tHe* *PeOpLe*

It’s nice to know bc while realistically I’ll still probably do most of my routine xc schooling solo at Tranquillity or similar places, there’s something special about the fun camaraderie of group clinic-style lessons. 

I was actually talking about it with someone who rode in an earlier group — about how it’s a little far, and a little expensive, and all these little reasons why maybe it’s not the most rational thing. Except — legit NONE of this is a ‘rational’ thing. We do it bc we want to, and isn’t that enough?

friday foto finish

Happy Friday, folks! Anybody else feel like schedules are starting to get a little chaotic with the close of summer and impending fall? At least around here, esp with all our recent events and whatnot, we’ve kinda been running from one thing to the next, without much downtime.

the softest schnozz <3 <3

I like being busy, don’t get me wrong — but I also like being able to sit down and reflect on the totality of what all is up in the Land of Dooz erry now and again. So let’s take a quick trip thru all the various random photos that have accumulated on my phone in recent weeks without landing in any dedicated post.

such a pro at the trailer these days

For starters, a couple recent lessons have slipped a bit thru the cracks — but maybe deserve some attention. In the weeks leading up to Waredaca we rode with both longtime dressage trainer C, and new eventing trainer Woodge, and both lessons were excellent. And then we had yet another lesson with trainer C yesterday. So let’s get caught up, yes?

young bucks were racing around the cornfields outside of trainer C’s ring like they were running the daytona deertona 500 lol

I’m continuing to really enjoy intermingling these two trainers, and feel like Doozy benefits so much from the slightly different approaches. Idk if it’s just a dressage thing, or maybe just a trainer C thing, but we seem to be able to let Doozy travel along a bit more in these lessons while helping her find her balance in the forward — vs feeling constricted or held back.

we had a good lesson anyway <3 not that it made much difference for waredaca tho, womp

The focus has stayed on continuing to establish and sustain a fluid inside bend thru Doozy’s whole body — utilizing circles, serpentines, spirals, and leg yields to help achieve the right positioning and posture in the horse. 

In one lesson, Doozy was really getting it in one direction, and really locked up going the other way, so we used one-loop serpentines to slowly introduce the difficult bend in more ‘bite-sized’ steps when she was already traveling well in her stronger direction. 

and yet another pre-waredaca lesson, this time with new eventing trainer, and we jumped jomps!

For my purposes, I’m working on thinking more about ‘lifting my chest’ vs ‘shoulders back’ as that seems to be a more effective mental trigger to help me sit taller. Also thinking about ‘knee down’ vs ‘leg long’ as again this slight variation on the terms helps me arrive in an overall better posture. 

Other current inner mantras include reminding myself to feel the balls of both feet pushing equally into each stirrup footbed — to help me stay sitting centered and down on the horse. And trying to unlock my arms in canter while keeping my torso more still. Feels like rubbing my tummy while tapping my head, but y’all know how it is lol.

we changed farriers at the end of last summer and our experience this year has been so much better. note that little white squidge of some sort of epoxy-esque substance he’s started using under the clips to reduce chipping and damage 

Our recent lesson with Woodge was a good one too — and she moved us fairly briskly thru our warm up and into some jumping exercises — including multiple jumps in a row, and approaching jumps in canter omg. The whole focus seemed to be on utilizing shorter turns on landing to try to show Doozy the importance of not blasting away from every jump. 

another day, another ride. we practiced circles in this session lol, can you tell?

Doozy, for her part, has been an absolute princess for all of these lessons. Which again, can be hard to believe considering how we performed at Waredaca. But I swear, the mare is really getting it. 

And when the pieces come together and she finds her balance, it suddenly becomes so easy — for both of us! Suddenly I feel like I’m sitting up tall like the queen and all my body parts are where they belong. And Doozy feels like she’s floating along, continuing to unlock stride length and suspension. 

slicked with mtg… #pray4us

The trick, I think, will honestly come down to management. Doozy is so sensitive, she has such big reactions, I suspect even the littlest issue or discomfort or complaint can morph into a giant problem in the added pressure and atmosphere of a big show. 

clever biscuit knows how to customize her hay nets for a perfect fit

Her saddle fit situation, for example, has kinda been a nagging low grade issue for a couple months now. I don’t think anything is wrong with the saddle itself — it looks like it was made for the horse. But we think it sat unused for probably a couple years, and the flocking keeps doing weird things. 

My local rep has been super helpful with frequent visits for ‘micro adjustments,’ but we haven’t quite resolved a somewhat specific issue. So we’re gonna squeeze in to an appt at trainer C’s next week with a very established longtime fitting professional who travels the region, and see what he has to say. 

ta da!

Another management area I want to shore up revolves around gastric health. Doozy doesn’t have any indications you’d associate with a classically ulcery horse — except the extreme tension and reactivity (at times). And, obvi, her lifestyle of frequent travel and training. It’s not hard to believe she may have low grade inflammation at the very least, and probably maybe more than that — even if it’s not a raging case.

post-lesson, feeling like a princess <3

So we started another month long treatment of omeprazole, and will continue to supplement with the sucralfate — which I rely on heavily for routine management. Ooh and that Triple Crown Stress Free fortified forage — that’s just so so so useful to have on hand for keeping bellies full of forage even in stressful situations (like at a horse show or while trailering).

Personally, I *do* expect to see a positive difference from the treatment. And hopefully from there, a positive difference in her ability to cope with stress or tension, fingers crossed lol.

and so it goes, on and on!

Presumably a better rider than me would have more tools or abilities for getting Doozy unlocked when she’s as tight and explosive as she was for dressage warm up. IMO, tho, it’s a helluva a lot easier to not let her get that dialed up in the first place. 

And if that can be accomplished through management practices? All the better lol. We’re all happier when Doozy is happy!! Plus, there’s still so much more fun stuff ahead of us in the coming months, and maybe even this weekend! So we’ll do what it takes. Hope y’all have a good one too!

ww: not again

Two big* concerns this week, guys. Ugh. 

First up: surprise surprise, it’s mid August and the mare has early signs of rainrot, again, ughhhh

 

i really thought we were past the worst of the season, but am determined to not be caught flat footed — so we did another chlorhex scrub-a-dub

 

lol, only did half the mare tho bc natch the *day* after our big show, the weather turned mild and cool. cross your fingers for us that we started treatment quickly enough!

 

ooh and Item #2, perhaps, in the grand scheme, a *slightly bigger deal, ymmv, my (un)trusty craigslist #redneckmobile started making HORRENDOUS noises on the way to Waredaca this weekend…. The drive home was, uh, stressful to say the least. 

 

mechanic literally heard me pull into his lot and met me at the door with a quart of power steering fluid. all things considered, not as bad as I feared. hopefully we can keep the voracious beast quenched with topping off the fluids until we can get in for our scheduled repair appt! 

That’s my drama for the week…. anybody else got any carnage going on?

horse trials @ Waredaca!

Doozy and I made it to our second full 3-phase event of the season this weekend, woo hoo!! And another recognized show bc #yolo I guess haha. 

why is it that show days are always the hottest days??

No real rhyme or reason at this point between choosing rated v schooling shows, just kinda doing what I want bc I can. Sure sure, some might argue that, just bc you can doesn’t mean you should… Especially when you consider our dressage results haha. But. Eh. 

semi-related — new gear! added the ThinLine Perfect Fit half pad to try to resolve some nagging fit issues… more on that in another post!

We had a good lead up to the show, including another lesson with our new 5* trainer that finally included actual jumps, multiple in a row approached in canter omg. And our ride times were pretty pleasant, all things considered, tho it would be a long day with jumping scheduled right for the hottest part of an already-very-hot day.

snapped a quick braid pic in between spinning / rearing / sniffing while on walkies before dressage

Doozy was better on the grounds walking around than she had been at Loch Moy last month… Tho, she was worse in the warm up. Which was disappointing given how notably relaxed she’d been at this venue last fall. 

This tension issue remains immensely challenging for me, and clearly for Doozy too. It’s like this impenetrable iron wall between me and whatever actual training I’ve managed to impart upon the animal. When she’s that worked up, legit none of that training is accessible. 

post-dressage expression lol…. me too, mare. me too.

Some how, some way, we need to work on the ‘wall’ itself, developing some sort of key or method for backing her off the edge instead of ricocheting off every sound / touch / sensory input in a chaotic doom loop. Ahem. 

Anyway, tho, as it was, we were in the chaotic doom loop in dressage warm up. And given that I don’t currently have particularly useful exit strategies, I accepted our fate and entered trotting cantering at A determined to at least stay present and active for the full test. 

slowly getting ready for the jompies

‘Twas not a good test, with a few 3s earned presumably for cantering through all the trot work… Still got 6s on our walk tho, go figure lol. The actual canter circles flew by in a frantic flash, geometry was iffy, and the mare was just basically #NotHavingIt. Womp. 

jompies!! they were… not our best LOL

And that feeling stayed with us through to the show jumping warm up too. Tho, notably, the mare was stellar for all the intermediary time, including going back on the trailer for a spell to escape the intense midday sun. It’s just the ridden part, she’s consumed by explosive anticipation. 

the course did not suit us — this crazy line bumped you into two different jumps before even being able to present the intended fence (and this was after they’d removed more jumps from higher levels), but honestly that was the least of our problems lol

Tho in my defense, the warm up ring at Waredaca is a little tricky and she had trouble with it last year too. It’s lined on one long side by food trucks and vendors (all of whom always seem to have loud buzzing generators), and on the other side the actual show ring (divided by string). 

They only permit 5 horses into the warm up at a time since the space is so narrow, and this tricks riders into rushing thru their jumping bc nobody ever seems to realize how long 10min actually is for jump warm up. So then horses end up clustered and congregating at one end, rendering the already-small space even smaller still.

jumping straight into the string divider for warm up, yay

That’s legit all excuses tho LOL. Bc I’m pretty sure with the horse I was sitting on, none of it really made a difference anyway. Doozy was explosive and bolt-y, and I opted to be satisfied with a couple decent enough efforts and just wait our turn with the rest. 

good shot over the last tho <3

And our turn was… Well. More of the same. Less like Thornridge last week or Tranquillity last month, and more like St Augustine earlier this spring. It was a weird course with unintuitive turns that tempted the horse into locking onto the wrong jumps, then only seeing the *right* jumps at the last moment, lots of weird turns, oooh and one super long straight related distance.

i’m never sure how well the ‘frantic feeling’ comes thru on helmet cam

We went ahead and got it done, tho. Clobbered the first rail for no real reason as far as I can tell, tho took the 2nd too when we rushed up underneath of it. Didn’t touch anything else after that, but were sorta all over the place.

onto the ‘easy’ part — xc!

Not gonna lie, I was tempted to call it there… Except history tells me that cross country is Doozy’s strongest phase — lots of opportunity to settle into a rhythm and work together. Plus, she was honestly jumping reasonably well in her body (rushed distances aside, obvi) — no crazy deer leaps like at St Augustine. 

i really liked this course! really flowy from one jump to the next — you can sorta see our next fence to the right on the ridge

And guys — this cross country course looked fantastic omg. It looked like **exactly** what I had hoped for from this well established multi generational eventing family farm. They have tons of terrain, but not so aggressive that lower levels end up squeezed onto unfortunate lines (which was sorta the case at Loch Moy last month) — so every track gets its own space and character. 

trotted the little road crossing mostly to prove that i could

They also rotate the direction of the xc courses, so this event’s track started at the opposite end of the farm out by where they hold the steeplechase for the 3 Day Classic, then looped back around the pond in the opposite direction from what we did last fall. And like last time, they seemed to ‘pair up’ the starter fences to keep you focused and riding in between jumps.

cute little bending line from bebe ditch to coop! 
also for some reason all the screen grabs are super low-res compared to the video, sorry

All that to say — this was what we came for. So off we went to go do it! Doozy left the box a tad, uh, explosively, but settled decently to the log at 1. But then rushed a bit underneath 2 and I got more serious about enforcing a pace and rhythm. 

Which naturally meant the lovely little midfield cruise they built for us went swimmingly, even tho 4 was at the top of a ridge and 5 was after a sweeping downhill turn. We trotted the road crossing anyway, tho, mostly just to get a nice 90* turn to the ditch option— animated above.

properly stout for starter!!

Then came another nice sequence of fences turning us back toward the pond, including a chunky table that definitely wasn’t on last fall’s unrecognized course. We got a great shot, tho Doozy landed in basically a dead run downhill toward the pond and our little up bank (straight ahead in the pic above, same bank we came down toward the camera last year). 

trotting the dam… probably overkill but also probably the most trotting we did all day LOL

Idk what triggered that little episode, but I definitely over corrected for it by making the mare trot across the dam. In retrospect, I wasted a fair amount of time with the trotting and Doozy maybe would have gained more from being allowed to continue cantering, but c’est la vie. 

look how friendly this water was flagged!! can pass thru the flags on dry ground, then school as you like without penalty (aside from time)!

As it was, up next was a lovely little water option that let us walk through the flags clearly on dry land, then ease into the water no muss, no fuss, no risk of 20 penalties. Again, I probably took more time here than was entirely necessary — tho, again, schooling these features is literally why we came, and imo Doozy definitely benefits every time she passes pleasantly through a water feature without stress or drama. 

actual pillows on the bench lol

And with that, we were just about to the finish line!! First with an adorable and nicely sized bench — with actual real pillows on it omg. I worried they’d be spooky but obvi Doozy couldn’t have cared less — she was up and over and already on her way up the hill haha. 

barns at the finish line!

Then came back to a properly pleasant canter balance to finish the course in good style, good mare! A few little blips in there, but basically all decent jumping efforts and A+ navigation of our bebe ditch, bank and water! A few time penalties too but, eh, that’s on me and my choices right?

the day’s highlight <3

All in all, another lived experience lol. We certainly did it. Didn’t, uh, do it particularly well, let’s be honest. But I’m still glad for it. 

There’s plenty to unpack in terms of takeaways, homework, planning next steps etc. For example, it’s increasingly clear that a lot of what we work on in lessons seems entirely unreachable when Doozy gets so worked up. Whoever put “rhythm” as the foundational step before “relaxation” on the training pyramid has clearly never met Doozy lol. 

We also have some routinely scheduled wellness appointments coming up too, so I’ll have a chance to pick more holistic brains about anything that might be triggering poor sensitive Dooz.

looking serene among her ponies the next day <3

In the meantime, tho, I’m allowing myself to continue feeling proud and grateful for this tricky little mare. Bc at the end of the day, there was literally never any doubt whatsoever that we could get around and probably enjoy ourselves while we’re at it. Which, we did!

And at this point in my riding life, being able to 1) do the thing and 2) keep learning while doing basically sums up my entire horsey pursuit <3 <3