red rockette

Happy Monday! Happy Holidays, Happy Week Before Christmas, Happy Oh My God Am I The Only One Not Done Shopping?!?!? Ahem...

did our most recent lesson in Charlie's jump tack, MP declared it not perfect but better than the Beval

Sorry, guess I've just been busy at the barn. Well. And all the other things too.... Ya know. 

sweeping ribbons of grackles fly over the farm twice daily, at sunrise and sunset

Y'all know the drill, tho. Gotta get the updates off the phone before I completely lose track of all the things. Tho I'm going a little bit out of order bc... Well. We had another dressage lesson. 

scribed for another on-farm fix-a-test this weekend!! little lord of mischief Loki won the high score award, and also tried to steal my gas station coffee

And it was GOOD. After a couple lessons of struggle. So I want to unpack that a little bit, get into more granular detail. Reference ye olde notes and such. Tho, sadly, not a lot of pictures. 

***and i jumped my red mare and she was just so good***

But pictures have been, and will continue to be, the engine that drives this blog. And so today, we get the post consisting of fewer words and MOAR pictures yas! 

Pictures, it should be noted, that are snapshotted from legit the 8sec gif also included below... Bc media junkies will milk any little snippet of media for all it's worth, amirite? Ahem, anyway. Dressage lesson recap later, for now --- jompies!

expression + concentration in a single frame

I get the distinct sense that Doozy quite likes the jump ring at our farm, but have still not been quite brave enough to venture there solo. 

Plus the weather conditions have been a bit unfavorable -- like having a lesson scheduled on the 'nice' day of the weekend, then being free to roam at our leisure on the rainy days. Not quite right, ya know? And that's all before we consider my concerns about riding during lessons and in varied company, etc.  

ok ok ok, i wasn't holding mane in case she got squirrelly and i needed to course correct. silly me, maybe one day i'll learn!

Fortunately, the stars aligned this weekend for an absolutely perfect, and absolutely brief, cavort around the jump ring with our regular riding buddies Katie and Rosette. 

I'm convinced that Doozy just likes this ring. Maybe she just likes riding outside? I dunno. I like it tho. Like, sure, there are random spooks when birdsong erupts much closer than expected (lol), etc, but the space is nice, and Doozy seems to appreciate the raised level of external stimulus.

bc homegirl was GOING MA'AM!!!

Seems to make each intentional object of attention somehow less interesting in all the right ways. You just present her to the little pile of poles, and she just walks over. That jump that blew over in the wind? Nbd to pick her way thru the rubble. 

And that cross rail? Suuuure, let's trot dead nuts over the center of it!

legit a video of a video on a phone screen haha, but look at her go!!

The ring was arranged into a series of gymnastic exercises that were all set at very inviting heights (including the verticals and oxers), but so close together that it was nearly impossible to thread the needle to many 'singles.' 

Tho you can see the pink X (with red standards) in the background above that was easy enough to get to off a bending line, so we started with that. There's a similarly positioned jump outside of frame to the right that was a low vertical with a half cross pole (if that makes sense) too. These two jumps allowed us to get nice repetitions in both directions, and Doozy was essentially perfect.

i might not make the most convincing jockey, but this little race horse is having FUN

So.... I opted to go for one of the gymnastics. Which... is always a bit of a gamble if, 

1) You haven't walked the distances yourself, or 

2) You didn't build up the exercise progressively through the ride, and

3) Oh, it's bigger and a vertical with panel...

But, eh, I liked my chances. It looked for all the world like one of Trainer P's classic 30' in-and-outs, a schooling 2 that's easy to trot into, and nicely comfortable for a horse like Dooz who hasn't ever seen this question before.

getting almost relaxed about life at a large farm haha

And ya know. That's exactly what it was! This mare, guys. She really is something. I've been semi-religious about ALWAYS holding the neck strap when jumping her, bc y'all know my struggles with pearl-clutching while jumping. 

But, going into that line she kinda teetered a little bit (you can see it sorta in the gif before the X) and I thought I might need all my steering tools to get from the first to second element.... 

obligatory charles wound pics -- looks, actually pretty good, right? it's dry, doesn't smell... skin tissue at the top of the flap is necrotic but the coronet parts look like they're holding on maybe????

Boy was I wrong, tho. She just.... proceeded. And like, easily. 

Honestly, this mare is full of surprises. She challenges me in a lot of ways. She's going to demand that I learn a lot of new tools, techniques and tactics to bring her along. But then, suddenly out of nowhere, She'll also be like, "Oh it's cool boo, I got this!"

somehow some of these staples are still doin their job, keeping the coronet tissue happy and stabilized!

So we're keeping at it, and keeping it fun. The indoor ring will definitely continue to be our 'safe space' for harder training rides... but it's nice to be able to get outdoors during daylight at least a little bit!! Slowly but surely expanding the bubble lol...

Anyway, more updates to come soon. Hope y'all had a nice weekend too!