cleared for liftoff!

Doozy had what we hoped would be her final vet check last week to flex all the things, jog hard soft straight round etc etc etc, dot all the i’s, cross all the t’s, etc… And the vet was very pleased to declare Doozy completely cleared for full and unlimited work, including jompies omg!!

all screenshots and video today are actually courtesy of a real human riding buddy, not pivo!

Somewhat hilariously, it actually made it into the vet’s notes about how we needed to be really really certain the mare was ready bc she is an “all or nothing” sort of horse — there couldn’t be any qualifiers like, ‘well just take it easy!’ or ‘stick to trotting cross rails for a little while,’ ya know? Like, we needed either a green light or red, no in between. 

“is that jomp… for me?????” — doozy, the *most* excited

Doozy is who she is, right? And… Well. Doozy is full of surprises. 

The day came for our first proper jump school — the ring had been completely cleared, dragged and watered* (with *rain, but still) and I had permission to set up whatever I wanted. AND we had a friend to ride with, Doozy’s best bebe morgan friend.

eeeeee crossrail!!

And Doozy was, not to put too fine a point on it, literally perfect. Not like we didn’t make mistakes or whatever, bc we did lol. Obvi. It’s been four months, ya know? 

eeeeeeeeeeeee crossrail the other way!!!!!

But ahhhh it was just so fun! Doozy was in such an amazing mood, the feeling was there, actually I probably could have pushed her more in front of the leg, she was so relaxed. 

obvi i set up peter wylde’s grid from windurra camp, obvi

She was still forward and excited to the jumps, but not rude rushy or insecure — no going inside out or getting frantic or anything like that. 

literally what more could i want???

Honestly, I thought setting up the full grid from Peter Wyde’s show jumping sessions at the Windurra Camp might be a little aggressive… And therefore opted to keep the heights low for both trips, and only two trips obvi bc I’m not trying to jump the horse’s legs off the very first chance I get, right?

heights were appropriately conservative given, ya know, everything haha, but lookie how engaged she was!!

But Doozy was so ho-hum about it! She stayed straight as an arrow, actually respected the placing poles (spaced 8.5’ from each element) and never batted an eye!

like she hasn’t missed a day

Obvi I can’t predict the future. It’s horses, anything can happen at any time, right? Like, that’s how we kinda got into this whole summer-interrupted situation in the first place.

so proud of her footwork her first time through!

But I’m already kinda wondering if I won’t look back on this rehab-mandated reset period as a bit of a blessing in disguise. 

almost amazing that i actually ended up getting ahead of her by the end

Doozy feels and looks so good in her body right now. More important than that, tho, is the progress we’ve made together just in the last month in reproducing more consistently relaxed and pleasant rides.

lolz boxes #TooBoring after all that

That’s not to say that Doozy’s wild child days are behind her, winter IS coming, after all! It just seems like something is sorta clicking for her right now.

ooooh but this was exciting <3 <3 <3

She’s a happy sort of horse who likes doing activities and solving puzzles and answering questions — especially when she already knows the answer. But it’s been a bit of a trick trying to get her to modulate that over-achiever nature to keep her from getting anxious or ‘locked out.’ 

she was proud of herself too <3

And who knows, all the same old problems could (and probably WILL) reappear when we’re finally back into the big electric horse show atmospheres. It just feels like we have more tools right now.

last trip through the grid was less perfect than the first, but still honestly fucking fantastic <3

Regardless, it felt really good to shake some of the rust off and get airborne again. Basically all of our combined skills, strengths, weaknesses, etc, were right where we left them. We didn’t ’forget how to do it,’ nor did either of us magically like… tune up in the time off haha.

nbd just havin a good ol’ time!

But I feel good about my riding, more or less. I probably needed Doozy to be a bit more connected and in front of the leg at times, she def caught me slightly off guard with how blasé she was about it all! It felt, tho, like I was sorta already doing most of the right things, just needed to have slightly more support. Not a bad problem or feeling at all!

grateful for this mare who is so full of surprises

Maybe in an ideal world I should have gone back down the grid one last time to fix our pace after knocking a couple of the rails in the last trip. But… Meh haha. We can save that for another day. 

On this day, it was enough to just be out enjoying ourselves, having a great time jumping around!