Friday, May 22, 2015

just dropping these right here

We have a dressage lesson today, then a lesson at OF tomorrow wherein I intend to keep things light and easy in preparation for Loch Moy on Sunday. Should be a good time - hopefully the weather continues to cooperate with pleasant and mild temps in the 70s!

So in the meantime, I wanted to squeeze in these pictures from last week's lesson at OF, which somehow got shuffled aside to make room for Jenny Camp posts. 

It wasn't really much to write home about - hot and sticky and buggy. Plus we again intended to keep things carefree to avoid dulling Isabel unnecessarily. She was brilliant on the flat and P concurred that the time off did good things for the mare. (recall this was P's first time seeing Izzy since the bleh lesson indoors immediately preceding the flu diagnosis).

But the jumping brought out a slightly different creature. And you could hardly call it jumping anyway - it started with a line of trot poles that Isabel clearly felt were unimpressive. She was breathing FIRE. It slowly grew to a grid, ending with three low jumps (with placing poles) set at one stride distances. A pretty common exercise in lessons with P, and Isabel was just way too sasssssssssy. 

i think we cleared the fence isabel. it's, um, it's wayyyy down there, hon.
seriously tho - you gave it plenty of room
ah yes, our favorite porpoise strikes again
yep you sure are a fancy fish
So yea... pretty much every single round went this way. Way over-jumping followed by ridiculous shenanigans on the back side. Nothing dangerous or scary... just... eh not really what I wanted the day before a show, ya know? 

Fortunately we know that Isabel usually only pulls these moves when she thinks the course is finished, so finally I just kept pointing her at jump after jump (they were all right around ~2' or lower, so not enough to wear her out) until she cantered away like a normal broke horse. 

Ugh. Mares.... Hopefully the lesson this weekend will include less fireworks! Or at least hopefully the fireworks will be limited to Memorial Day type festivities :)

30 comments:

  1. I LOL'd at the "fancy fish"! Isabel is a hoot. Have a killer run at Loch Moy this weekend!!

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    1. Haha thanks - I was just trying not to laugh while riding. She's a nut sometimes and thinks she's quite the wild child...

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  2. LOL yup, definitely cleared it!

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  3. Oh my gosh fancy pretty porpoise. LOVE the overjumping!!! So excited to hear about how Loch Moy goes! I'm so ridiculously excited for you!

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    1. The prettiest porpoise EVAR haha. Of course it's fine by me so long as we make it to the other side lol

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  4. Love that last photo! Hahaha good girl Isabel!

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    1. Lol she really is the best girl, even when she's pretending to be wild

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  5. I LOL'd!! I am the proud owner of a larger, and equally exuberant porpoise :) Very fancy fishes!!

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  6. I knew she was a chestnut mare deep down :)

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    1. lol right?? she just wants to make sure we don't ever forget it :)

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  7. Your gorgeous Isabel reminds me so strongly of my own little dish-faced mare, Arwen. Also trying to make it up the grades in eventing (and she also likes to be a porpoise! LOL!) She is a real beauty! I love her pretty head. Just something about a dish face.

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    1. thanks! i was never really into arabs - and actually had zero experience with them before isabel. but she is just so neat, and her refined features are somehow so intertwined into her personality :) Arwen is gorgeous btw too! i love a pretty gray face!

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  8. All I can think of is "aerial dressage"

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    1. haha seriously... but really don't tell isabel that or she'll think it's a real thing lol

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  9. Hehehe love me a sassy mare. She's giving you the WINK WINK HINT HINT that she wants bigger jumps lol.

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    1. haha that's exactly what she was saying!! like, what is this nonsense emma?!? so sassy lol

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  10. Replies
    1. and there i was worried about wearing her out... silly me right?

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  11. She seems to have a lot of personality! I hope she's less sassy this weekend.

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    1. she's got so much personality! and i really think she'll be fine - she can be very businessmanlike at shows. but a little sass is fine if it means she's feeling good about things :)

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  12. haha I am familiar with that fishy dance! Fingers crossed all the fireworks will be in the sky and not on the ground!

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