Happy Wednesday, folks!! I promise not to be too wordy, but we have a metric shit ton of media today, woot woot!! Doozy and I had another xc lesson at Windurra with local legend, Sally Cousins, fresh off her impressive finish with Wizard in the 3* at Fair Hill!
grazing serenely when we first arrived <3 (tho yes i promise she did get more amped after i got on)
Honestly I think Doozy and I really had a nice little routine going with our solo xc schooling trips to Tranquillity this summer and last fall. There’s something to be said about just going out and doing what you wanna do, without making a whole big thing of it.
warm up loggoes!!
But there’s a time and a place for everything, right? And now that Doozy and I have a relatively established baseline of experience and comfort, it feels appropriate to seek professional guidance to start fine tuning and adding more (level-appropriate + progressive) challenge.
oooh right away starting with the jumps we finished on last time
And Sally is such a pro at that. Teaching is a huge part of her business model, and for a very good reason: she’s good at it. She has loads of regular students, even more like me who flit in and out on a semi-infrequent basis over the years, and presumably countless straight up strangers riding in her clinics.
normalizing <3
Over time, she’s developed a keen eye for feeling out horses and riders, and guiding them through appropriate and progressive exercises. It also helps that she knows Windurra inside and out, she’s always super familiar with how everything is set up, and knows how to string exercises together in all the various ‘zones.’
sally is so progressive about introducing things like cut outs etc
My goals for this ride were simple: Listen to Sally. Don’t get too stuck in my head. Prioritize confidence and relaxation. Listen to Sally.
trit-trotting to the little bank!
And we totally did exactly that! Sally started us off right away stringing things together — first some small logs, then a line of starter jumps, then introducing those ‘slightly smaller than BN height, but definitely more spread than starter’ jumps we finished with last time, and then right onto actual BN stuff.
another nice roll top
Doozy was more or less being quite good. She gets a little stuck and behind the leg and snarled up in a pretzel every time we pick up for our turn, but I just did my best to kinda ignore it and just ride her forward, oozing into a flow as drama-free as possible.
omg a **real** ditch aaaah lol (still quite narrow tho!)
Sally’s biggest feedback for us was that I need to focus on straightness to the fence (sound familiar?), and that we need to be organizing **right away** on landing. She said I’ve got about 2-3 strides on landing before Doozy kinda bolts away, and that I need to act quickly in that time — the longer I wait to half halt, the stronger the half halt will need to be.
this was definitely the biggest thing we jumped, esp re: spread. caught us both a little by surprise
While technically this is legit the opposite of some of the work we’ve done with Woodge on exaggerating that big release exactly at the moment Doozy would expect me to pull, I think these two concepts actually can live in harmony. I need to practice the release so that the half halt works when we need it, like when jumping cross country.
doozy nailed the super fun mini course!
Mostly tho, Sally advised that I don’t over think it. Ride the horse forward, connected and straight. I’ll know it’s working when… I get the result that I want. It really is that simple.
last exercise of the day (tho we repeated once more to clean up the house)
Anyway we put a few fun features together — jumped a little ditch, and did slightly more grown up variations of the bank and water complex exercises we did last time, and it was good!
omg guys we are growing up!!
It was interesting tho, with the larger jumps (esp a properly chunky house by the ditch that I suspect exceeds BN dimensions at least in width but possibly height too), Doozy a couple times had to dig a little deep, try a little harder. And it kinda surprised her, I think.
lol went a lil’ extra there, dooz!
Not necessarily in a bad way, but just like, “Oh wow, ok I really do need to work a bit here!” And it led to a few more squirrelly efforts than either of us are used to — first at that chunky house, and then at a couple subsequent jumps when Doozy was maybe feeling a bit less sure.
a bit jittery at the house, but we cleaned it up to finish
It was a good experience for us both, tho, bc obviously… yes the horse can do it, but also yes we both need to stay committed and forward.
full helmet cam video!!
And it gave Doozy a chance to sorta keep pushing through after a harder-than-usual effort, and smooth it out and gain confidence. She was an actual super star through the little bank complex mini course, and honestly made quite easy work of that somewhat technically challenging line through the water.
sweet mare barely broke a sweat <3 <3
All in all, a really great experience for us both, I think. There are a lot of little details that are obvi still a bit of a mess, but I can also really feel a lot of improvements in the mare even just from all our work with the recorded ride guides.
Plus it’s just exciting to be doing this again!! It’s kinda crazy wandering around Windurra and gawking incredulously at some of the stuff I jumped a lifetime ago with Charlie… But equally exciting to be forging a new set of memories with this special little red mare <3 <3
Happy Monday! We had a relatively quiet weekend around these parts, but prints from last weekend’s show finally arrived — yay media!
i don’t usually buy photos from our dressage phase bc… well. let’s be real. it’s not our strongest phase lol. and these aren’t exactly perfect either, but they’re better than we usually see, plus omg braids!
might not be a ‘classically correct’ way of going, but you can tell doozy is really trying bc even tho her head is sky high, her nose is still down lol. baby steps, y’all
and anyway, she’s much more of a running horse haha, it’s her favorite!
this wasn’t our most flowy xc track together, but we had fun <3
and who doesn’t love all that exuberance with the iconic Sugar Loaf Mtn in the background?
also got a couple shots from our final phase of the competition — show jumping on saturday!
she’s not exactly, uh, trying, over these jumps (as evidenced by yet another purchased pro pic featuring a flying rail lol) but in a way, it’s kinda a nice feeling!
good mare, doozy, thanks for a fun experience and great memories!
life goes on, tho, and we’re right back to payin it forward by scribing the dressage at this past weekend’s starter trial. look how thoughtful the folks at Loch Moy are, tho — legit provided judges and scribes with heated blankets omg!
The shorter days (and looming rainstorms in the forecast) have me feeling eager to maximize our outdoor jump ring while we still can. Given that there are no lessons booked this week, plus a fresh course set up at home, everything felt right for a jump school!
sweet biscuit can’t be bothered to look at the camera lol
And naturally I opted to bring along my helmet camera to try to film as much of the ride as possible - including our Brit Bot facilitated warm up on the flat.
brace yo’self for more fence-mounted helmet cam snapshots lol
I don’t know exactly the dimensions of this ring, but suspect the width is around 40m (maybe slightly less). So it’s actually pretty easy to treat the far end, which is currently empty of jumps, as its own little 20x40m space, more or less.
i didn’t do a great job of positioning the camera, c’est la vie
Tho it proved a bit tricky to capture that space (extending to the left side of the frame above) AND the jumping exercises with the camera. So I ended up not making a video of the flat work portion bc it was too choppy with us going in and out of frame. It was still helpful to watch, tho!
working hard on ride ability at the canter
I felt **really** good about this ride, like we’re really consistently staying together on the aids. Doozy is able to maintain a much steadier rhythm, and isn’t ping-ponging off in every direction. I like it! And actually the biggest change from all this is being able to start actually pushing her up in front of the leg now.
proof that i didn’t actually break the right lead depart
Like we’ve made the shift away from “racing off on the forehand” and now I need to focus on not accidentally being too quiet.
look who’s learning to hold her own self together!
And Doozy is so smart, she’s starting to learn and anticipate some of these exercises from the recorded ride guides. Like the middle section of the longer session — where we do the trot-canter-trot-canter exercises on the figure-8 of 20m circles.
We’ve been practicing that recently and it’s been great — but now if she is anticipating, she’s actually more likely to suck back a bit and get braced and fragile feeling.
everyone loves walk breaks lol
Which, ya know, is a new and sort of exciting change, and a good opportunity for me to start learning how to calibrate pushing her up in front of the leg. Recall at last month’s starter trial at Loch Moy, our jump round was a little bleh for this exact reason — when she’s not so amped and dragging me to the fences, I need to be ready to fill that void and create the forward balance.
back to work!
In my head, I imagine it a bit like putting more air into a balloon. Just a little bit at a time, not so much that I risk popping it with tension — but enough to keep everything together and firm, vs sorta flimsy and noodle-y.
jompy time! this was our 4th jump in the video but is at the other end of the ring
And anyway, this felt like the perfect feeling to take into the jumping. I want to get back to consistently jumping BN+ height again — but without being frantic or racey about it. Just wanna keep working on that nice steady rhythmic canter that’s easy to find a distance out of.
our little grids are starting to look a little more formidable! distances are roughly 21’ to 33’
And Doozy was super! Especially considering the last time we really jumped was at the area champs show. She was super balanced and on the aids, again a testament I think to our little Brit Bot friend.
normalizing 2’7
We started with a couple X’s, including one with 9’ landing and takeoff poles that is a bit tricky to see from the video bc it’s at the far end of the ring. You can see tho the canter circles we do to prepare for that exercise, and how quickly (relatively) Doozy is able to adjust from a sorta racing-just-landed canter to the more gymnastic balance we wanted for that exercise.
easy breezy!
From there, I sorta just looped around, catching mostly single fences on bending approaches. We progressed from the X’s to that skinny set of boxes set to 2’6 pretty quickly, which just reinforces again for me that Doozy is (has been, let’s be real) more than ready for slightly bigger jumps.
didn’t even rush, good girl
And obvi that feeling held even more true when she was able to go straight into the triple combination (set slightly lower than 2’6 but still properly visually imposing!), then come back to trot for another X, then finish with the final vertical above.
video of the course
In a way, I’m kinda grateful that this year unfolded the way it did. It wasn’t what I expected it to be, and the set back this spring after so much time off in late winter really kinda caught me off guard. But on the balance, I think it’s been good for us to take things so slowly.
Doozy has always been a brave horse, but she feels more confident now — like she has more tools and awareness in the jumping, like speed isn’t her only answer any more.
cookies for a good mare <3
Tho ya know. It might also be time to start developing the next set of recorded ride guides haha. Gotta keep things fresh and progressive, right? Any special requests on exercises or formatting / style?
Doozy naturally got a couple days off after her fantastic weekend at the Area II Champs, especially after all that trailering oof! But life goes on, and we got back to it with a lovely evening hack with a barn buddy!
the days are noticeably shorter by now, with unmistakeable color changes in the landscape
especially out in the big hay fields!
i really love and am grateful for how pleasant doozy is for this simple hacking routine
often we end up alone, but the horses seem to love having company! and the riders too, natch
there are apparently other (and longer) trail routes, but i actually quite like our little routine circuit
doozy is a very bold horse, but she’s also a typical thoroughbred — she likes knowing the answers in advance
so i think she appreciates this predictable path. no surprises, no work. just… marchin around lol
i’ll be sad when the clocks change, tho
especially given that our outdoor arena doesn’t have lights, it’ll be hard to prioritize hacking on weekends when we might otherwise be itching to school outside
there’s still time, tho. so for now, we take advantage of the daylight hours when we can!
“yes yes that’s very nice and all, but #NeedsMoarCookiesPls” — doozy, 100%
Happy Monday, friends! Brace yourself for a marathon post of pics, gifs and videos (tho I promise not too too many words) because Doozy and I had a pretty big weekend! The Maryland Horse Trials at Loch Moy Farm hosted the Area II Championships, and despite our somewhat unimpressive record, we actually qualified!
lookie who completed their first big multi day rated show!! and with a top 10 finish!
Sure, sure, a rational argument can be made that, given our current performance quality, I could have saved the extra $25 entry fee (not to mention the extra gas and **fuss** associated with two days of showing vs one) and done the normal class — which was itself much smaller (meaning I probably would have placed higher / earned more year end points).
brace yo’self bc we spent a LOT of time just sitting around, meaning lots of random pics LOL
But. Who ever said there was anything rational about horses anyway? To me, it sounded like an exciting opportunity to do a ‘bigger’ class, get a little more dressed up, and basically just make a full experience out of the whole thing.
looking serene at the trailer <3
A way to challenge ourselves in new ways without meaningfully changing the parameters of the competition itself, ya know?
step 1 before dressage: fill the tank!
That challenge was most apparent in warming up for all three phases, since they were so spread out (esp for day 2 show jumping) that each really did need to be treated as its own individual ride, vs a continuation from prior phases.
proof that mare accomplished all her important responsibilities at the trailer
The new recorded ride guides kept working their magic, tho, and Doozy and I were able to execute one of our best dressage warm up sessions to date. Not necessarily our most relaxed, per se, but we were able to perform all the figures, transitions, gaits, etc of a normal ride with minimal explosiveness.
arriving at the warm up!
The test was more of the same too — it’s clear that these recent changes in our anpproach are helping Doozy focus and channel her tension rather than lose it completely. The test riding practice also paid off in showing improvements in the areas we’d practiced — including the entry, walk work, and final ‘Harmony’ collective.
click to read full size
We still biffed the right lead canter, and the whole second half of the test was worse than the first… But it was still a ~1.5% improvement from BCHC, AND a new personal best at a rated event, beating our average score by more than 9% points. Heck yes!
AND! It didn’t put us in last place in our giant division LOL… In fact we were all the way up in (checks notes) second to last place. #Progress y’all
moving on to phase ii of day 1 — cross country!
That was all good, tho. Like, nobody could have possibly expected more, right? I certainly did not! Altho, while cross country is generally the ‘easiest’ phase for Doozy, I DID expect that our warm up for this phase at this event might pose some, hm, unique challenges for us.
do we look ready?? lol
Cross country came after something like a 3 hour break, so we were well and truly ‘cold’ again by that point. I couldn’t just cheat by trotting a couple circles, jumping two things, and then GO. (Trust me, tho, I was tempted).
And holy mother of dog, guys, xc warm up amid that huge crowd was NOT easy for Doozy. We were a bit of a hot mess, 100% spiraling onto the doom loop. But the practice still definitely helped us anyway, even tho I didn’t have my phone in the warm up so obvi didn’t have the recording going.
trotting thru the box made for a smoother less explosive start
Both Doozy and I were able to channel enough of that recent practice to sorta kinda put together a proper flat school that did include actual trotting (vs tranter-bolts) and transitions, such that when we did move to the warm up jumps, the wheels stayed firmly on the bus. Whew!
I opted to keep her trotting around the start box when we were on deck tho, as she remained quite explosive and I thought we’d be able to ‘ooze’ out more easily from trot vs halt or walk. And it totally worked!
it was crowded in the woods, with all the different level tracks squished together. red circle is our jump 3, which required navigating around some stuff. this proved challenging for many in the class
Doozy left the box fantastically and instantly hit a good rhythm to the first couple jumps. I’m honestly super proud of that, and really wish the rest of the course was similarly flowy. Unfortunately it… uh, was not.
beware of the itsy bitsy garden gate at jump 5 — it’ll get ya!
Idk what exactly was going on with this course design — they ran tracks up thru Intermediate so maybe Starter just got squeezed onto whatever ground was left…. But jumps 3-4-5 were all lumped right on top of each other and kinda jumbled together in a bit of a mess for us.
Which, realistically, is mostly my error — I didn’t notice how close together they were when I walked the course, so I kinda just rode ‘one jump at a time,’ rather than landing with a plan for the next. So we had to have a fairly big “Whoa!” correction on the way to 5.
familiar water but from a new direction she was tentative (and spooking at all the crowding jumps) but good!
No big deal, tho, Doozy was able to find each of the jumps decently well, she just was landing a bit too unbalanced and fast. The track made a U turn to 6 that went fine bc I was ready for it, then another nice flow to 7 before leaving the woods. Then a screaming line downhill to a barely-there log that again was a tad wild omg.
at least one rider got straight up ejected from the saddle when their horse saw that Forestier finish arch!
But then we had a nice flow up hill before trotting thru the water. Doozy was a touch tentative which worked nicely in our favor as she backed off well enough to catch the next little downhill jump much more comfortably. Then a sprint to the finish — wherein she did not launch me while spooking at the crazy inflated arch haha.
**immediately** mugging for cookies at the finish lol
Personally, this course was an interesting lesson for me. My mental state is such that I tend to really fixate on the less good moments — being wild to 5 and that downhill log — while completely overlooking the good parts.
cross country helmet camera!!
So I was feeling a bit disappointed with myself while rushing to take care of the mare and pack up to get home before sunset (we ran xc at nearly 5pm). But after reflecting while driving, and then watching the video once home, I changed my mind.
Sure, those two moments on course were not great and I’d love for everything to be perfect… But also, basically the entire rest of the course was good — Doozy jumped everything nicely and easily, and started and ended well. What more could I want? Esp considering that the sort of wild ‘derby-esque’ feeling of jumps 3 to 5 proved to actually be extremely influential in the overall class, no wonder it was a bit tricky for us too.
same shit, different day!! mare cannot believe we drove allllll the way back out for a 70second show jump round LOL
Working on reframing my perspective has been… Hm, a significant challenge for me over the years. I tend to get really wrapped up in negative thoughts and this blog is literally littered with examples of me withdrawing prematurely from shows bc I didn’t want to keep going.
pro pics are in the mail so for today we just have shadow jompies <3
Except that I *do* want to keep going. For whatever crazy reason, I *do* want to horse show, I do want to keep learning and living these experiences.
So being able to shift gears after cross country, drive all the way home, and then drive all the way back out again for a single show jumping round at 4:44pm the next day? To me, that is proof positive that for all the ups and downs of the last 2 years, this little Doozy Experiment is working, y’all — and we are really doing the things!
eager beaver got redemption at this judge’s line where we had a rail earlier this summer
And again, the recorded ride guides featured heavily in warming up. I expected Doozy to be wild and she absolutely rose to the occasion haha. But guys. The practice is working: The Unfeeling Brit Bot, He of No Intonation Whatsoever, kept us on track.
We accomplished a proper ‘normal’ flat school as if we were at home, trotted (but really actually trotted) the X, cantered a vertical. Took a break until we were on deck, trotted (again, for real trotting) another X **perfectly** then went in for our round.
and a minor pilot error won me a face full of dooz ears, oops, but we made it to that blue jump anyway
Similar to XC, I got Doozy trotting right away. Historically since I’ve had so much trouble keeping her from exploding, I wait until the bell to pick her up. But actually things feel a lot smoother when I can let her be forward right away. And that proved to be true again in this course.
no harm, no foul, mare kept chugging along!
The track didn’t entirely suit us, given the whole “omg related distances” thing LOL… Doozy is getting REALLY good at finding her take offs, but idk if I’m just doing too much bc we do NOT land in the same canter we jump from lol. So related distances are tricky. But we fit the planned add in from 2 to 3, and actually made the step work from 4 to 5, tho it was a touch wild.
I got a bit lost on the turn to 6, resulting in that “face full of ears” moment above, but Doozy carried on anyway and basically found her way to a good shot at any jump I pointed her at, regardless of how crooked my approach lol (oops).
enthusiastic mare <3 had a silly rail at the last, but c’est la vie!
Our luck wouldn’t last forever, tho, and we did have a rail at the last. Again, it was a fine enough jump but we were just a bit too flat and strung out. To be honest, tho, I’d mentally prepared myself for at least 2 rails haha since… ya know, we are who we are. So just one still felt like a win!
show jumping helmet camera!!
Somehow, tho, even knowing that sure, it’s not perfect or whatever, I still left the ring feeling super proud — of both of us <3 Doozy obviously for doing this crazy thing with her crazy slightly unreliable pilot lol, but also myself for sticking with it.
she may or may not have eaten all her prize cookies immediately LOL
It’s so easy to get caught up in feelings about how it should be, what we should be doing, where we should be, or whatever. But honestly I’m just so happy to be back in the game at all after a few years on the sidelines.
raced the setting sun home to turnout before dark. good mare <3
And besides, nobody ever remembers all the driving and fuss anyway. All any good memory needs is that happy wash of endorphins, and maybe a couple nice pics / videos too <3
