happy feet

It was exactly this time last year, under extremely similar circumstances — extended periods of frozen ground and exclusively indoor-only riding — that we first observed a strange mystery NQR-ness in Doozy. It started off as a suspected bruise, but kinda spiraled from there.

happiest hand grazer <3

My immensely practical vet has an established method (almost, perhaps, scientific?? lol) for assessing this sort of thing, including evaluating and eliminating normal / common causes and solutions first before proceeding with more complex diagnostics. 

As such, over the next ~4 months we did a bute test, took time off, reintroduced work while limiting tight turns or small circles (tricky to do in a narrow indoor while sharing space), did multiple lameness exams with flexion tests, nerve blocks, rads… injected a fetlock, added hind shoes, put the mare on equioxx…. 

“but wait, wtf is that??”

And probably other stuff I’m forgetting too… Alongside, naturally, typical holistic wellness type activities like chiro / acupuncture, magna wave and saddle fittings. 

Throughout it all, the NQR-ness would come and go somewhat mysteriously. Either there or not there. Never getting worse. Not increasing over the course of a ride, nor would Doozy ‘work out of it.’ She was either taking lame steps, or not. Until, eventually, it disappeared entirely by mid spring and the mare remained consistently reliably sound ever after. 

friggin cats gettin their paw prints everywhere!

Until. Ahem. Midway through winter, after an extended period of frozen ground and exclusively indoor-only riding for a while now. In a recent ride, Doozy again took a couple of those same exact characteristically NQR steps.

being stalkerish in the hopes of being fed lol

Throughout all our diagnostics last year, my vet never felt like we could fully eliminate the possibility that the main issue was essentially a bruised hoof. My farrier seconded this opinion, with observations of a chronic pressure point in Doozy’s sole, most likely attributed to her imperfect forelimb conformation.*

(*In other words, homegirl has some significant twisting and crookedness in both front legs.)

anyway, onto the real point of the matter:
Doozy’s chronic pressure point, a result of her imperfect forelimb conformation

Doozy’s legs are not straight, and therefore her hooves are… well. Not exactly textbook. But she has a clean, sound way of moving — and my farrier has worked hard to ensure a level even footfall. Rads from last year confirmed that basically everything about the feet are healthy even if the ‘shape’ isn’t classically correct. 

But this little pressure point is basically always there. Well, not always always. It apparently becomes more pronounced in winter. After extended periods of frozen ground, when we’re riding mostly in a narrow indoor whose footing is fine but not exactly the most modern stuff in the world. And when maybe the hoof isn’t growing as fast as it would on summer pasture.

pictured: two imperfect forelimbs. the chronic pressure point is on her medial left front sole, so the hoof on the right side of this picture, on the inside closer to her midline. 

Adding pads was on our list of things to try last year, but with how her shoeing cycle intertwined with our other tests, it was never quite the right time to try. We wanted to do one thing at a time — like adding hind shoes! — to try to see what worked. And obviously, once she became reliably sound by mid spring, there didn’t seem to be much wisdom with continuing to tinker, ya know?

When I felt that funny feeling again tho, literally days before our recent farrier appointment, pads seemed like as good as any place to start. 

oooh Doozy’s gettin her own fancy boat shoes!!

Doozy doesn’t really react to the hoof testers on that pressure point. Which… Realistically she’s probably had that spot, or something like it, for most of her life. And recall, our nerve blocks from last year were inconclusive on whether her discomfort originated in the hoof or higher up. 

farrier likes using R.A.T.E. Hoof Packing under the pads, and generally prefers using natural materials vs synthetics like dental impression (tho it depends on the use case). past farriers have used magic cushion too

But our current hypothesis is that some combination of repeated and cumulative exposure to frozen ground + hard footing + exclusively small turns + limited hoof growth = exacerbation of her existing conformational flaws. 

one shoe!!

Other factors in support of this hypothesis include the intermittency of the NQR-ness, literally from one day to the next. And the fact that whether it presents or not seems to be related to where we are — as in, what ring, what footing. 

two shoes!!

All of this makes me hopeful that adding a little cushion via leather pads can mitigate the issue entirely. Sure, I might be rationalizing the known facts, rearranging them to fit this new narrative. But. Eh. It makes sense to me, my farrier and my vet, and seems like a worthy trial. 

As always, I am NOT a professional on ANY of this stuff. If you have similar concerns or experiences, it’s best to confer with the trusted members of your own team and circle. And also as always, unless I’ve remitted payment to you in the last 12 months, you are not among *my* trusted circle. Feel free to disagree with our approach as you like.

time will tell but i’m optimistic!

Realistically, Doozy is a thoroughbred with generations of human-engineered selective breeding. She’s pretty explicitly far from the typical adaptations you’d see in nature, where “survival of the fittest” drives gene selection. As such, she may require throughout her life various interventions to comfortably live out her days. 

and anyway. cats.

And that’s before we even consider the realities of what she needs to be successful in sport. Which, by “success” I don’t mean actually literally winning, I just mean being comfortable, capable, and resilient to the training, conditioning and exercise of it all. 

Especially with all her extra, errr, expressiveness… It’s integral for my confidence in our approach to training that I can reasonably rule out discomfort as a source of the behaviors we sometimes experience, know what I mean? Ymmv, obvi. 

So I’m honestly pretty excited by this little experiment. There was only one ride where I thought I felt the funny steps, and we basically immediately made this change in shoeing. If the funny steps never reappear again, I’ll be a very happy camper. If not, that’s fine too. Well. Not “fine” but you know what I mean. We’ll try the next thing on the list lol. 

At least we know from last year that… the mare never got “worse,” and in fact eventually became completely 100% better for all of late spring, summer, fall, and early winter. That’s a pretty confidence-inspiring history, so we’ll see what happens!

another wild ride

Happy Monday, friends!! Anybody else staring down the barrel of the first full work week of 2026?? I enjoyed my time off for the holidays, don’t get me wrong, but ya know. Nobody would argue with another week or two… or three, lol….

any day can be a beautiful day when trailer snackies are involved!

Anyway, we made good use of our weekend with another jumping lesson with local legend Sally! This time at a different farm south of us, Cheshire Run. Long time readers might remember we came here a couple years ago too, tho we’d shipped out from the last boarding barn. 

spotted this tesla cyber truck outside annapolis L-O-Fucking-L

I also hadn’t driven that night, and for some reason kept confusing in my head the route with other barns in the area, so was curious to see what it would actually be like as a commute from our current boarding barn. And verdict? It was a super breezy straight shot down a couple highways. Granted, not necessarily super fantastic highways you’d want to drive during weekdays, and definitely not in rush hour… But was fine on a Sunday afternoon!

the welcoming committee at Cheshire Run bites lol. might pee in your trailer too!

This farm is so pretty, too — especially the indoor. It can be a bit impressive to horses, especially silly snowflakes like Doozy, bc there are windows everywhere, all looking out at different vistas. Doozy actually coped ok enough, tho, more or less!

“buckle up, butter cup!” — doozy, probably

Like, not perfectly, obvi. Never perfectly… Actually, ok who am I trying to kid — she was a bit of an explosive firecracker. So I kept our warm up relatively brief. Which, eh, may or may not be the right call. I never really know what the best approach is since we really haven’t done ‘normal’ jump lessons in… ever?

we did occasionally achieve “normal” moments 

As it was, tho, it was another gymnastics session! Which I didn’t know when I signed up, but obviously was super happy about all the same. And, realistically, with how chaotic Doozy was being, I’m not sure how a normal lesson on course work would have gone anyway.

just ya know. heavily sprinkled with Doozy’s patented wraith maneuvers….

On one hand, Doozy *hates* being made to constantly trot into everything, and has zero qualms expressing her dismay. Add that to the stark reality that she’s got an enormous amount of pent up energy after weeks of just sorta lounging around the round bale on nasty frozen or slippery ground… And yea. Much expression. 

but ya know. proceed, amirite??

On the other hand, tho, while the mare was as likely as not to turn herself inside out and upside down both before and after the grid, she mostly kept a pretty decent technique throughout each trip of the exercise. Which naturally — is the whole point. So perhaps this was exactly what the doctor ordered for her!

nothin to see here!! just normal grid things!

In retrospect, I wonder if maybe lettering her canter a circle or two before each trip would have helped take the edge off. Just to like, let her go a bit more forward first rather than just sorta immediately trying to contain her or hold her back? 

this arena is significantly larger than kealani,
so we had a lot of room to “victory gallop” at the end lol

Maybe next time I’ll give that a whirl. Tho ya know. It’s even odds she’d have been just as wild and explosive regardless haha. As Dom Schramm once said, you could power a whole house off this horse. There’s no getting around all that electricity coursing through her veins…

Emma: Lookin where i wanna go!
Doozy: that’s cute.

As it was, we more or less just proceeded with taking our turns down the grid. And fortunately neither of our group mate’s horses were particularly wigged out by Doozy’s antics!

gotta love it tho — she legit almost drops me,
then waits more or less patiently while i retrieve my stirrup

Sally’s main advice was mostly to just ignore the drama. Don’t get baited into it. Don’t indulge it. Just… proceed. No big deal. 

and then straight on directly to the grid again!

And it did get better as we went! Especially as the grid started getting built up and Doozy had to pay more attention. As far as Sally was concerned, we should feel good about continuing since Doozy was focusing in on the exercise — vs completely blowing us all off, giving it the finger, checking out, etc. 

only got two clips from our trips down the line, tho the grid stayed relatively simpler than our last lesson at kealani throughout 

Naturally, tho, Doozy loves complicated stuff haha. And this grid — even tho it was definitely a bit easier than our last time at Kealani — actually asked some interesting questions of Doozy. Particularly, the final element (which eventually finished as an oxer) was two strides from the bounce instead of one. 

doozy had to think pretty hard about fitting in that second stride!

And the distance was short. Like, not insane, but shorter than Doozy is generally inclined to do. But she did it! Every time!! Again, not perfectly — it was always a bigger first step and slightly squished second step. But she did it herself, and kept a decent shape while doing it, good girl!

anyway. back home again. the intense direct eye contact here kills me LOL

So overall, a good experience. We got off property, got to a “new” (sorta) place. Jumped some jumps. Didn’t get anybody killed. And practiced a new skill! Who doesn’t love that?? 

the actual silliest

Tho, Ms Thing was still pretty freakin fired up even after all that by the time we got home… and wasn’t quite ready to be put in her stall for the night. So here’s a gratuitous post script of my wildest child, getting in a quick pre-bedtime frolic LOL…

ridiculous critter

Warmer weather and better ground can’t come soon enough for either of us LOL! In the meantime, tho, it was nice to get out to a new place and especially to figure out that the drive was honestly pretty smooth! Hopefully it’ll be something we can do again in the future!

Happy Monday, folks!

2025 foto finish

Happy New Year!! Whatever your feelings on the matter, 2025 is well and truly over. As such, I’d like to do one last flush of ye olde iphone and post the final few photos from the year. 

according to the jockey club, this wild child is 8 now! somebody should let her know lol….

You’ve already heard me whine about being confined mostly to the great dusty indoors for our December rides. And… Well, that ain’t super likely to change in the immediate future. C’est la vie!

anyway. the holiday season is dead. long live the holiday season!

I still followed through on my traditional holiday limbo routine, tho — polishing off the last of my ‘use it or lose it’ PTO for the week between Christmas and New Years.

weather has been wintry this month

Idk what exactly it is about this week, but I always find it super peaceful and restful. Sometimes, depending on conditions, we can be really proactive about scheduling fun adventures — like schooling Loch Moy’s derby course! 

lots of time spent indoors for sure

This year was a little less hustle-bustle with the horses, tho, instead favoring quality family time. (And the lesser-quality associated driving time that entails…)

the snow never lasts long tho, and it dried enough for some hacking!

Tho actually — I DID get out to Loch Moy before Christmas. Less for high octane, jump-all-the-things schooling of the derby course, and more so just bc it was a convenient meeting spot for erstwhile longtime coach Dan, who’s located down in Northern Virginia these days.

woods are so pretty this time of year <3

And it was good! I didn’t write about it bc 1) zero media; and 2) it was more of a sorta reintroduction for us all, plus obvi his first time* seeing Doozy. Plus I was actually a bit of a hot fucking mess, not gonna lie, for reasons you’ll understand shortly. So Dan asked to get on Doozy for a little session — putting her thru her paces and over a couple jumps before handing her back to me to do the same. And again — it was good! 

Rest assured, tho, if I get my way, and my 2026 intentions hold true, there will be more to come in the near future!

(*If you ignore the time we almost accidentally murdered him when he was coaching in the warm up at Doozy’s first ever event, oops)

my sweet new shelter kitty Jojo was such a wonderful addition to our little household, even if it was heartbreakingly brief <3

And anyway. About the whole ‘hot fucking mess’ situation… The night before that lesson, my sweet beloved new shelter kitty Jojo, who had only been with us for about 4 months, suddenly went into significant respiratory distress. I took him to the hospital, where x-rays confirmed he was in the final stages of heart failure. We made the only possible choice and let him go right then and there. Ugh. My heart is broken <3

The Original is carrying on tho <3

It feels like a lot of beloved animals lost just in the last year or so, with Jojo’s predecessor Martini passing from cancer this past summer. And obviously losing Charlie a year ago now, if you can believe it. I still think about him and miss him every single day. 

my mom visited!! doozy was #obsessed

Part of the beauty of the holiday season, however, is making space for bringing family and friends together to remember and celebrate those who aren’t with us today. 

Doozy had only met my mom once before, but basically immediately picked up on her strong “Cookie Lady” vibes and was instantly smitten <3

also made time to ride with friends!

Really, tho, the year closed quietly. Well. Ok. “Quiet” is probably not the right word to describe Winter Doozy, Queen of Chaos. Ahem. 

experimenting with the KK again to see if maybe doozy has actually grown up

She’s been an absolute handful in our schooling sessions. Explosive, touchy. Sad if we’re alone, but also sad if we have company, but the vibes are off. It’s been a LOT.

really tho, so much time indoors. sometimes with bounces!

And it’s been a bit frustrating, not gonna lie. Except… Actually, the quality of the work (when we aren’t turned inside out spooking at the sound of clumps of dirt pinging off the walls…) has been quite decent! Relatively speaking, obviously.

the face of a horse who is more than happy to make her own excitement

We even made it out to a lesson with longtime dressage trainer C* as a fun limbo week to-do, and she felt like Doozy has developed and changed so much just in the last ~6 months, and even since she last saw us in September. 

(*OMG if 2026 is the year of ‘getting the gang back together’ I’ll be over the moon!)

ooooh we finally made it out for some lessons again!

Obvi Doozy was still a hot touchy explosive diva in that lesson too. Like omg she almost straight up Lost Her Shit, Ma’am, when we arrived as the last horse was finishing their lesson with practicing flying changes (in a slightly thunderously forward manner). 

“New Year, new you. *I*, however, make no such promises!” — Doozy, 1,000%

But overall, it was a great lesson and great to get that outside perspective that, sure, yea it might feel like I’m sitting on a barrel full of TNT, but the moments that are good? Are good. 

Regardless, it’s so good to get out again, after a somewhat prolonged cautionary period of mandated isolation. Doozy is always at her most civilized when she’s routinely getting off property. Plus, getting into new and different spaces can make our at-home indoor feel more boring and familiar (and therefore perhaps less exciting lol). 

A girl can dream, right? And isn’t that what January 1 is all about anyway?? We’ll find out, I guess. In the meantime, happy new year, folks!

2026: What we pay attention to, grows

I’ve been reflecting recently on Doozy’s and my year together in 2025. It was, on the balance, pretty excellent — even with lots of lessons and learnings to carry forward into the new year.

And for whatever reason, that’s where my thoughts keep landing: the time ahead of us. Perhaps I’ll still get around to reviewing the past year in formal posts (it is winter, after all, with every reason to predict more snowbound doldrums lol), but for today I wanna talk about what’s on my mind and set my intentions: I want 2026 to be about showing up well — mentally, physically, and structurally — and creating conditions where positive experiences can happen often, with clarity, sustainability, and repeatability.

To dig into the details a bit, I’m breaking out three key elements to that intention: my mental space, physical capacity, and structural design + approach.

it ain’t always the easiest partnership, but i’m excited to see what comes of it in the year ahead!

Mental Space

I want to continue being intentional about mindset, emotional approach, and overall framing of how I participate in this sport. Realistically, anybody who’s been reading knows this has already been a major focus in recent years.

It’s been a real journey realigning my mindset to a process-oriented vs outcomes-focused approach. To release myself from the idea of “failure” and instead embrace that every experience is just more data. And that nobody will care more than I do.

And all that work paid off in tangible ways in 2025 — especially when it came to just getting out the door, doing the things, and actually enjoying myself in the process.

pictured: enjoying myself <3

That doesn’t mean it’s easy, or that the hard days disappeared. It’s honestly a constant effort — especially with a horse as uniquely challenging for me as Doozy. Sometimes it looks like pushing myself past my existential dread, but sometimes it’s also about adjusting expectations or even scratching when that’s the right call (Plantation being a recent example).

In 2026, I want to keep paying attention to how I show up: staying focused on process over outcome, and feeling present rather than pressured. I also want to leave myself some space — for fatigue, burnout, or the realities of life outside the barn. What we pay attention to grows, and this is something I want to keep growing.

Physical Capacity

On the flip side of the same coin, I want to bring more attention to my physical wellbeing and health in 2026. It feels like one of those universal jokes that as decades of horse experiences really start translating into a deeper knowledge (dare I say, wisdom?), the body…. Miiiiiight be heading in the opposite direction.

just trying to keep up with this spitfire mare!

Between age, accumulated wear and tear, old injuries, and the double-edged sword of a fulfilling career that keeps me hunched over a computer for long hours each day, it isn’t getting any easier to stay physically well, strong, whole, and present in the saddle. My strength, flexibility, and stamina aren’t what they used to be — but they also don’t feel gone entirely. Let’s say atrophied dormant rather than lost.

It’s been easy to rationalize that I’ve historically been sufficiently strong and fit just as a byproduct of my normal horsey habit. And ok, things slipped a bit in recent years as Charlie eased into retirement… but surely I would snap back as Doozy really got going, right? Ahem, cough cough. Perhaps I didn’t give enough credit to the fact that my horsey habit was “enough” when I was 10 years younger, taking 2+ lessons a week, AND doing barn work LOL.

literally the prettiest mare <3

So. In 2026, I want to be more proactive in building my strength and stamina outside of saddle time or lessons. Not in pursuit of some ideal version of fitness, but to be as strong and effective a partner for Doozy as I can be, and to make sure I’m getting the most out of our lessons. What we pay attention to, grows — and at least in this moment, my willful blindness to this reality is over.

Continuing Education and Lessons

I say this every year, and I always mean it: I want to keep learning, developing, and pushing my skill set. A big part of that continues to be lessons with qualified professionals.

perhaps we’ll go back to Area II champs again next year??

I still catch myself pining for the setup we had in 2015 — weekly lessons with a 5* rider at home, plus regular ship-outs for jumping and dressage within <30min drive. That was a halcyon age I didn’t fully appreciate at the time. These days, especially this winter, getting to a proper jumping lesson generally means shipping 1-1.5hrs each way.

In 2026, instead of dismissing that reality as “unsustainable” and rationalizing that “I can get by well enough on my own!” I want to make it work. That means more planning ahead, and obvi all the associated time / energy / resources of travel, but it’ll be worth it. At the same time, I’ll keep looking for creative ways to bring good education a little closer to home.

Competitions

I want to keep competing in 2026, without attaching that to specific goals around levels, qualifications, or results. The focus instead is on staying present and producing predictable, repeatable experiences — especially in the dressage, but also in the show jumping.

ideally we’ll have more to show than just being super shiny in our dressage tests LOL

Some of that should come naturally from continued education and better preparation, but it’s important enough to name explicitly. Last season reinforced the value of early, low-pressure, bite-sized outings as a way for both of us to dip our toes in, build comfort, and set ourselves up for success. That’s definitely a lesson I want to carry forward.

Equine Management

This also ties into Doozy’s overall management, obvi a fairly critical element of overall program design. I’m really happy with how she responded to the care and management choices we made over the past year and hope to carry on as we have been.

That said, nothing here is static or fixed or set in stone. She’s an animal, and her needs shift — with the seasons, with workload, and especially with changes in grass and pasture. In 2026, the goal is to keep paying attention, stay flexible, and continue adjusting her wellness routines in ways that support her soundness, comfort, and mental freshness.

literally the sweetest mare, just gotta keep the hamsters all running in the same direction!

Setting Doozy up for success starts long before we ever get on the trailer, and this is an area I want to keep approaching thoughtfully and proactively.

Seems straight forward enough, right?? Or maybe that’s all a little vague and woo-woo and lacking the specificity necessary to be accountable, as far as you’re concerned. And maybe you’re right LOL. But eh, it’s horses. Anything can happen. For now, tho, this feels like the right course to chart. Anyone else starting to think about goals for the upcoming year?