princess mode

Doozy has been an absolute princess this week, and lucky me — there’s actually media to prove it!! Jumping media, woot woot!

nbd just casually being a total princess <3

Tho, me being me, I’m still going to try to combine a couple recent activities into one post, so feel free to skip ahead to the video if that’s your thing.

obligatory “snacks at the trailer” pic

Anyway. We’ve kept a full dance card this week after last week’s travel — esp in preparation for another upcoming go at Loch Moy. So earlier this week we had our regularly scheduled dressage lesson with trainer C, followed by a routine chiro / acupuncture appt, and then an easy breezy jump school at home.

did a drive-by of our vet’s office on the way to our lesson to get a microchip number!

The dressage lesson was another good one — focusing on the same areas we’ve been building on with trainer C. In particular, more and better leg yields and spirals, and trot and canter loops. The canter loop I think is from test 1-2 or 1-3 maybe, not sure, and introduces counter canter.

smartest biscuit can smell the future flowers

I’ve always loved counter canter — Charlie was legit the best at it, plus it was the #1 exercise to get him straight, in front of the leg and on the aids without making him fizzy or pissy. Doozy’s proving to be pretty decent at it too, tho her left lead is stronger right now. She seems to like the complexity of needing to focus on it and it’s useful in the same ‘proactive’ way I’ve been writing about already.

obligatory picture of the latest in stabby jabbies!

It was an interesting lesson tho bc we continue to peel back layers of Doozy’s insecurity. She’s learning to hold a lovely tempo — and particularly learning to find that tempo again after a gait change or disruption or whatever. And she was able to be softer in her overall posture within that tempo too. 

ooooh and actual action shots omg!

Tho it’s almost like she feels a little more vulnerable in that soft open balance, vs the tight rigid ‘on-the-muscle’ feeling she so often has. She almost got a little more spooky and ADHD while we were cantering thru the loop exercise, like she’s less sure of herself. But she held it together and did nicely, and was able to regain the soft balance again if we lost it. 

look at us trotting a crossrail all casual and low key <3

It’s really an exciting feeling, like she’s really thinking and learning. Doozy is such an overachiever, it can be tricky when she’s like, ‘I KNOW we are going to canter, so can’t we just get on with it?’ but it’s like some of these exercises — like the spiral — are turning into almost cheat-codes, where she’s like, “OH, ok, I recognize this pattern, fine.”

and the little boxes too!

Truly amazing what regular lessons and practice can do, amirite?? LOL…

*pats self on back for setting up an oxer lol*

Speaking of which!! We also had a lovely jump school! With media omg!! Our first jumps after Loch Moy were in a lesson with Sally about a week and a half ago, then I jumped a few little things at home too — again just really trying to reestablish the whole ‘routine practice’ thing. 

when the horse lands more organized than you expected lol

And then this week I knew I wanted to fit in a schooling session once the ring dried out. Most of the jumps were already in place but I reset the heights for our purposes — including giving myself two oxers, something I don’t always do LOL… And also shifted one combination into a 21’ in and out of verticals.

she has the sweetest expressions
(and giantest nostrils!)

Overall a nice set of singles to catch off both leads from various straight or bending approaches. Plus a set of 3 ground poles at 9’, and a cross rail with trot pole at 7’ for warming up. 

still gave myself a placing pole into the combo

Of particular interest to me was our gear for the day — I’m experimenting with Charlie’s saddle again since it didn’t sell after a year at consignment, and it’s truly my favorite saddle in the world. Our County is lovely, don’t get me wrong, but this l’Apogee is just… ugh, my favorite <3 

I might look into re-panelling it for Doozy, actually, since perhaps it’ll be easier to sell the County anyway? Idk. We’ll see. 

#GridSavant

I also am trying out a new bit for our jumping too: it’s a knockoff verbindend mouth piece with bevel cheeks. My intention is to give myself more reliable braking power so that I’m more trusting that it’ll be there when I need it, vs needing to hang on to the ‘e-brake’ nonstop. 

ooooh and a second oxer too, go me!

And so far I really like it!! We actually first wore it in Doozy’s first ride back after my trip last week, and I tried to be really clear about establishing a pattern of a big clear whoa into down transition (not necessarily a heavy aid, but aiming for a faster more crisp response), followed by a big clear release. It seemed to work, and Doozy didn’t seem at all offended by it. So far so good!

full video of our jump school!!

Tho to be honest, Doozy was on a whole ‘nother plane of perfection for this jump school. Idk what was in her wheaties this morning but she was just like… The happiest fucking camper in the whole universe omg! Literally perfect, no notes. 

Like, ok, sure, notes for the rider, obviously. Always. Like, Emma, please stop jumping the left side of every fence, for fucks sake, ok? 

the best biscuit <3 <3 <3

But the horse?? So good <3 So perfect <3 Who knows why LOL, she’s a mercurial critter, it’s hard to understand the rhythms and currents of her tension vs relaxation. 

Rides like this, tho… It’s like, “OMG Holy Shit, she IS getting trained!!” Slowly but surely, amirite?

spring dun sprung

It’s kinda hilarious because I was in Minneapolis for most of last week, where it, ahem, SNOWED OMG. And then right back to 80*F here in Maryland… Well, ok, it’s 60*F again after a little spring showers, but still.

pictured: NEON GREEN OMG
(and also a fox that you can’t see but doozy sure as shit can!)

We’ve had enough warmth and strong sun that it’s officially green around these parts! Sorry if you have tree pollen allergies lol bc even just these pictures might be enough to make you sneeze!

the big trees are still mostly bare but all the smaller blossoming types are in full bloom!
from here we’ll travel down the central valley crease all the way to the right before going into the woods to eventually emerge again by those top left trees

Obvi with the aforementioned spring showers, our outdoor ring closed again, but it would be a crime to ride indoors on a day like this, so Doozy and I snuck out for a little wander around the hillsides and neighboring woods <3

woods are not super green yet

I personally love capturing the changing of seasons through familiar photos of our favorite hacking haunts… Tho for those of you who feel like once you’ve seen one “between the ears” shot, you’ve seen them all… Well. Feel free to skip ahead to the cat gif at the end of the post — that one’s just for you!

ooooh but we made it all the way down to the stream bottom!! doozy was not as excited about it as i was LOL

Anyway, tho, obvi with my travel last week, Doozy got a bit of time off. Maybe not ideal, but also not really any sort of deal — let alone a ‘big’ one — these days either. Doozy’s first flat school after 5 days of no riding was… perfectly normal, no antics, just a nice little wtc ride! 

as you can see, this path is often blocked by fallen trees

Maybe the horse is finally growing up a bit that she can just be normal after a little time off? Or, maybe more realistically, I’m doing better about setting expectations for myself and riding proactively?? Like, Doozy probably isn’t going to be the type of horse that you can just say, ‘eh let’s just have an easy relaxed ride!’ Not that it can’t BE easy and relaxed, it just can’t in the absence of clear and proactive guidance.

climbing back up again

Doozy will fill whatever voids or vacuums you leave her, and usually not the way you would have chosen! 

verdant green fields are like a siren’s song

She’s been good, tho. Our last couple rides before my trip were solid too — including another lesson with Sally from which there is exactly zero media, sorry. It was at a new to us farm, too — one that was slightly more convenient driving traffic-wise for a week day.  

ooooh but first, doozy’s favorite sort of target LOL

And Doozy was good! Slightly wild, since it was our first time jumping since Loch Moy. Wanting to call the shots a bit. Tho we incorporated a lot of trotting cavaletti at the start of each exercise, and I tried to stay consistent and steady without getting totally in her face. 

i call this “reading the news” haha

I wouldn't say she really got ‘better’ tho until we finished with slightly larger jumps and more of them strung together in courses vs ‘one-at-a-time.’ The starting and stopping is the hardest part for Doozy, well. Especially the starting. She likes to try to turn herself inside out and get really inverted and hopping with anticipation. 

popping back out by those pretty blossoming trees again!

Sally mostly wasn’t worried about it, tho did advise that I do my best to keep us straight. It’s her experience that once a horse starts going sideways it can be a really difficult habit to resolve. This feels like a timely bit of feedback for us too, especially as I continue to experiment with ways to let Doozy travel more fluidly forward with less restriction in the bridle. 

it’s like an emergence metaphor or something <3

One approach has been to integrate more intentional lateral work into especially our canters — as you may recall we practiced with trainer C in our last lesson. The benefits are twofold with this exercise: 1) it keeps me focused on intentionally telling Doozy what to do, where to go, vs reactively just holding her back; and 2) it reinforces the leg aids as a balancing, organizing tool vs just noise and “omg it’s touching me!” 

back out in the big hay fields, next stop will be by that pink circle

My longer term hope is to get schooled enough with the intentional lateral work at all gaits that we can almost get the feeling of replicating the in and out spiral feelings, but even just from one step to the next. And that this lateral work, more rapidly (but also on more miniature scale) suppling from side to side, will make it easier to break up Doozy’s longitudinal nose-to-tail tension and tendency toward inversion so that we can actually stay straighter. 

as promised, heading back to the barn yard

It doesn’t sound like it should make sense — using lateral work to stay straighter vs risking running sideways as an evasion… But in practice it feels like it works — feels like it helps prevent Doozy from shortening so much in her neck? 

doozy! look pretty!! i want people to notice what’s different!

Idk lol, the trick is to remember the approach when we’re actually in the moment while jumping around a course! 

doozy, c’mon!! i want ‘Vanna White,’ not “living in a van”

Soon enough, soon enough. Well. Hopefully VERY soon lol… And in the meantime we’ll have another dressage lesson with trainer C, possibly right at the very moment you’re reading this! 

“what did you just say to me??” — doozy

And also hopefully soon another lesson with Dan… As is predictable, rallying the troops to schedule something at home is hard to do in the best of times, so we’ll see. It may be that we travel to him next time instead.

it’s cool, virtual cookies to anybody who notices what’s different in these pics

Basically just trying to get all the lessons all the time right now LOL, but gettin done what needs doing in the meantime as needed. 

and anyway. cats. 
it’s important to note that Ol Geezer is growling basically nonstop here LOL

That’s the nice thing about Doozy getting more grown up — it’s getting easier and easier to plan out predictable practice sessions to make the most of our time between lessons. I’m also experimenting with a few equipment changes too, tho more on that later. 

In the meantime, spring is here. It’s lovely, and we’re 100% getting into the swing of it! Hope y’all are enjoying it too!! Or at least not suffering too much from allergies!

what’s in a name?

Kat wrote earlier this week about all the various names and registries for her sweet Butterball, and I’m shamelessly stealing the idea too — because as we all know, names and nicknames can be steeped in memories, lore, and love. And who doesn’t love getting into all that?

Mondeuse on the backside, circa May 2023

Doozy is registered with the Jockey Club as Mondeuse, a New York born Big Brown filly out of Toga Tiger (Hold That Tiger). There’s nothing obvious in her pedigree to say where that name came from, other than it’s actually a French red wine grape from the Savoy region. Perhaps they looked at her rich deep color with no chrome, and felt it fit?

my Pépé, also circa May 2023

Regardless, I’m notoriously not fantastic at choosing names for animals, so it’s generally my preference to stick with what they got. Especially with thoroughbreds, for whom so much of their lives is searchable via the various internet databases etc. 

And anyway, I happen to like the name Mondeuse and its link to French heritage. My grandmother was French, and the whole family lived abroad while my mom was growing up. So it was actually quite a fun little exercise to browse the Mondeuse wikipedia page with my oenophile grandfather looking for nickname ideas.

one of our earliest rides in the outdoor dressage court

Somewhat shockingly, there was nothing super obvious jumping out about the wine grape itself — neither a descriptor or alternate name or appellation or region or anything — that seemed to lend itself as a suitable nickname for this precious mare. 

But meanwhile, my grandfather proved quite useful in helping me with the correct pronunciation of Mondeuse: said like Mun-Duzz. Which… would not have been my first instinct, as a non French speaker… and is absolutely not what usually comes out from announcers either. Most common is something like ‘Mon-Dooze,’ although every now and again someone will try to be fancy with “Mon-Doo.”

lots of hacking out in the first month together!

Naturally, you can see how ‘Doozy’ then comes from all that (Duzzy doesn’t quite have the same je ne sais quoi!). ‘Monde,’ as she was called at the adoption facility, sounded a little too pedestrian imho despite its high society translations.

Which then gets into the litany of various nicknames… Most common among them being Mamacita or Señorita (I’ve been credibly informed that she does, in fact, speak Spanish!). Tho sometimes it’ll be “My-Dooz,” obvi. And naturally, Princess, Ms Thing, Ma’am, or MARE! when I really mean it LOL. 

looking formidable in one of our earliest off farm adventures!

It was perhaps a questionably bold call to name this fiery little critter “Doozy,” what with all the associated connotations etc… Google AI informs me that:

A "doozy" (or doozie) refers to something extraordinary, outstanding, or unique of its kind, often used to describe something very large, severe, or impressive. The term frequently denotes something "a real doozy" (e.g., a massive storm or a significant mistake). Synonyms include stunner, beaut, knockout, or corker.

february 2024, already starting to grow into her elegant frame <3

Not sure how “corker” fits into all that LOL but it did seem clear that this very sweet, pretty and highly engaging little lady needed a slightly nicer name for when she’s on her best behavior — thus, she can be, on occasion, a sweet little Biscuit <3

Tho lol… There’s also the name bestowed on her by the resident barn kiddos: “Troll,” because you have to pay the toll to cross the bridge pass by the mare in the crossties. Consider yourself warned!

Big Dooz News!!!

Some of you already know this, but back before I made the final decision about buying a young thoroughbred, I was actually in discussions with friends and partners about possibly breeding my next horse instead. 

Obviously at the time we still fully believed that Charlie would be with us for years to come. Although, eventually, uncertainty around his soundness won out and we determined that the timeline for breeding didn’t quite make sense with my goals.

a classy mare with a classy pedigree!

It was such a fun idea, tho, and as one does, we spent countless hours musing about how that particular fantasy could play out. My longtime equine chiro / acupuncturist had a good mare available, and there was a lovely local stallion standing at Hilltop Dressage from which friends of mine have produced very nice and universally useful babies.

As it was, I shifted gears and you all know how the story went instead: with Mondeuse coming home to me in August 2023!

GK Calucci stands locally and has been on my list for a long time 

But I dunno guys, there’s something about that dream that just won’t quit, just won’t stop nibbling away at me. I’m not getting any younger, ya know? Bringing along young horses isn’t going to be the easiest thing for me forever (well, real talk, it ain’t exactly easy now, it’s only just going to get harder!).

And meanwhile, news broke last month that after 35 years, Hilltop Dressage would actually be closing up shop — the end of an era! 

champions like this only come around once in a lifetime!

That news was a bit of a shot across the bow around here — it got ALL of us talking! Especially considering Doozy’s recently minted status as Champion mare… We started wondering if it made sense to just pause for a minute, and really think this through, game it out, ya know?

And after much soul searching, we decided… What the hell, let’s go for it! And we’ll do it the old fashioned way too — with Doozy still able to continue on for most of the competition season early in her term so we can keep building on the momentum from this winter and spring. 

so what the hell, let’s give that black dot a shot! 

And then, right around this time next year — we should have a little bebe Dooz! How exciting!! I know it sounds kinda crazy — you might even say foolhardy — but it really just feels so right!!

So get ready for it, and for ALL the foal pools!! Take your bets on all the things — what color will the bebe be? Any markings? Will it be a giant, or a fine boned elegant little thing?? Will Doozy pass on her crooked legs?? 

Be sure to mark your calendars for April 1, 2027 to see what happens :D

mdht pro pics

Happy Tuesday, y’all! I’ve been fighting off some nasty weird little head cold for the last week, and still feel like my head is plugged full of cotton stuffing…. Foggy fuzzy and fatigued. It’s lovely, lemme tell ya…

loving the fiery mane here <3

Life goes on, tho! We made it out for another jump lesson with Sally, and I spent a lovely day this past weekend volunteering at Morven Park. Plus Doozy has been working hard and well in our schooling rides!

opinionated but #dointhething!

Maybe I’ll write about all of that! Maybe not! We’ll see!! In the meantime I’m about to head out of town for a quick work trip (blergh), so instead of trying to arrange any sort of deep thoughts, let’s just look at the pretty pictures that arrived this week from our season opener at MDHT!

halt, salute

Purchasing the prints care of Erin Gilmore Photography continues to be the best deal, and not gonna lie — I kinda not-so-secretly love having an ever growing collection of actual physical images that I can rotate thru my albums or stick on the fridge or give to my mom. 

aaaaaand they’re OFF!!

And the photographers caught some nice ones, too!! Unlike Doozy’s and my first foray at BN, wherein I endeavored to manifest cool calm collected vibes via an extremely causal outfit, we actually wore our full normal show gear this time. Including one of our pretty blue coats for dressage!

a little launch-y at the first

For whatever reason, I usually don’t bother… But also for whatever reason, I felt like it this time. Go figure. Makes for nice pictures tho!

fully into the zone by seven!

We got some decent shots from the jumping too!! Especially compared to last time! I don’t always feel fantastic about Doozy’s and my combined technique in the jumping, not gonna lie. 

so nice i liked it twice lol

But ya know. We did a lot of gymnastic practice this winter, and we’ve been getting more serious about jumping lessons in general too… 

pretty mare <3

And a funny thing about practicing more is that… ya know, it usually helps LOL.

stepping just on the edge of the ditch rather than inside…. #progress

The photographers also caught most of the action from the second half of the xc course too — out in the big main field. 

ping!

There was that lovely little series from the ditch thru to the water and then to the finish line, although sadly none of us actually going thru the water. 

we admittedly did not get the best shot at this boat, but it was nbd

And also slightly sadly, this was the place on course where we had our little miscommunication — we jumped the boat out of the water a little awkwardly and landed way off the line to the next jump, had to do a circle to get back on track, but then had a stupid runout bc I apparently lacked sufficient conviction lol.

i love her expression here — this is right after our oopsie runout

Nbd, tho, Doozy obvi jumped it just fine on second attempt — with this picture being a good reminder for me to not take anything for granted!

easy peasy thru the finish!

What a sweet expression she always has in the jumping tho <3 <3 <3

Obvi the pictures, like the scoreboard, only ever tell part of the story, but it’s a part I’m grateful to have captured!