an attempt was made

Happy Monday, folks! In what is likely to become a recurring feature around here, I’m gonna do another deep dive into a recent schooling ride, recorded with the benefit of my new favorite device, the Pivo!

warm up walkies!

Don’t worry, tho. It’s mostly just a lot of screenshots, not too too many words. I promise! Sorta! Plus there’s video to keep me honest — virtually the whole ride, minus the walk breaks and the first 2-3 minutes of trotting.

if you’d rather just skip to the video, here it is!

I recognize that going super micro on a ho-hum run-of-the-mill schooling ride can a be a little… hm… inaccessible or less relatable to the average reader. But for me, it’s like extracting triple the value from a single experience.

representative picture

Bc I just have the one horse, ya know? This ride clocked in at about 26 minutes total (edited down to ~18min of action in the video), and let’s say I do that 4-6x a week, more or less. It’s just… not actually all that much time properly practicing, right? Especially if you believe the whole “it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill” thing…

Brett Parbery says most horses banana better to the left than the right. doozy agrees!  

So the more I can learn from each experience, the better, right? Maybe? Sure. Let’s go with that haha. The ‘data,’ so to speak, includes how I felt about the ride - either in the moment or from memory; what it looks like on video (which I may or may not watch multiple times); and then finally what comes through in this act of putting it all into written words. 

legit cherry picked so hard to find one decent canter snap, and in the interest of honesty: my butt is only even really semi-seated bc i’m about to ask for a down transition

As nice as it would be to hear, “you’re doing that wrong,” and suddenly be like, “Aha! Amazing! Telling me that fixed everything!” Well… Sadly, it’s a slower accountability loop around here. 

I’ve got to do the thing (probably badly), study it, try again (very likely still badly), study some more… on and on and on like this for what I can only hope will continue to be many more years of horsey pursuits.  

meanwhile. youtube’s ai thumbnail generator is like, “pshaw, girl, you sit the canter great! also, your mare gelding has two hind socks now. just go with it!”

So in today’s episode ride recap, we get to see how things went when I focused on two main priorities: 1) prioritizing riding forward, back to front, into contact; and 2) working on the canter.

back in the real world, here i am totally bending my elbows 

A sub-component was to try to stay intentional about lateral suppleness throughout. Which, natch bc I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, I'd completely forgotten about for the first few minutes whole haha. As one does. 

i will say, tho, pole work and transition practice go hand in hand!

Oooh, and I also set up a long line of poles spaced 9’ and approachable from both directions, with the idea of using it to help organize* our canter stride.

*Foreshadowing: It did not.

and here we are, trotting our poles! ahem, cough cough, i said **trotting**

To be honest with you all, I’m not totally sure we’ve got the whole “riding forward” thing fully calibrated yet either. It was equally clear both while I was riding and watching the video that we’re definitely a bit strung out and running at times. 

ahh, see, there we are! totally trotting

Notable, however, was that things didn’t seem to ‘escalate’ as we went. Doozy was honestly pretty relaxed, all things considered, and stayed that way. And it didn’t feel like I ever really got into a pulling match trying to slow her down.

halt straight at the strategically placed block!

In the grand scheme of all the various ways we can go, this feels like a promising direction. The hard part for me is, as always, trying to find that good balance between riding forward while still maintaining an elastic steady contact that keeps the energy and impulsion contained.

lather rinse, repeat, amirite?

In the video, it’s clear that — as usual — my reins are too long and my tendency is to drop my hands and straighten my arms. And tip forward, obvi. 

she legit loves being told how smart she is

There are times, tho, when the pieces get a bit closer to what I’m trying to achieve. The feeling right now that seems to work best is to think about having an “alive” contact. Something about that word for me helps me remember to be more following and steady vs sorta dead and hanging (or allowing gaps of slack into the contact).

most moments don’t look like this, but there are decent moments!

Remembering to be intentional about lateral suppleness, with lots of inside leg and correct bend, helps make the message clear for Doozy too. Tho we currently still have a lot of lateral asymmetry here — she’s really happy to overbend to the left (while her right shoulder careens away— see gif below for example!); while we have a much harder time not falling in while tracking right. 

 

oooh and we did canter the poles on purpose too!

All things considered, tho, I was particularly happy with how things came together in our canters for this ride. Not bc it was perfect or whatever — obvi— but it definitely was NOT a disaster. Small steps, y’all!

it, uh, generally did NOT go to plan OMFG LOL

Tho… Ha. In retrospect, the ground pole exercise I set up was perhaps a bit aspirational. And despite a lot of careful thoughtful repeated practicing of the pattern, with halting straight and all the things, well… I’m not sure the ground poles added much value LOL.

sure sure it doesn’t look that dramatic in motion… but still, c’mon

In my head, I was thinking back to what Boyd and Peter were talking about at Windurra camp, about how they like to use bounces to help improve a horse’s flatwork and to sorta reorganize in the middle of a jump course…

this is why we practice tho, right?

But I think that idea is gonna have to go on ice until Doozy is ready for elements with actual height haha, bc her freakish ability to sorta just skitter and skate over the surface of these poles rendered the whole thing a bit laughable, whoops!

“my way was better.” — doozy, nonplussed

It wasn't a total wash, tho. At least imho. In particular, the pole exercise was set up with a corresponding block to help us remember to halt straight… so we ended up doing a TON of transitions. Like, WAY more than I’d have done otherwise. 

 

was pleased to still be able to trot around even after the drama tho!

And not a ***single one*** of those upward transitions was hectic, frazzled, sideways, inside out, pogo-y, explosive, or any other word of choice. 

lol, tho obvi the drama continued anyway

Which… Actually, is kinda amazing. Possibly a fluke, since that sorta behavior generally happens in our jumping lessons when we have to pick up for our turn, and this ride didn’t necessarily have exactly the same feel or flow to it. 

“your attempt at influencing my stride length amuses me” — doozy, reinterpreting distances as she sees fit

But it IS interesting to me. My initial thought is that by prioritizing riding forward first, Doozy therefore has less anxiety or annoyance about being immediately slowed back down again. 

ZOOM ZOOM

Which, like, duh haha. But it’s historically been hard for me to let off the e-brake when Doozy is so hard to slow back down again, ya know? Except going back to one of my first observations in this post: by starting the ride with a forward commitment, we seemed to actually avoid the whole escalation / snowball sequence. Well. Mostly, haha, the above picture notwithstanding! 

good girl, but whoa dammit haha

For real, tho, I think that’s the trick tho — always trusting the forward first, even when it feels a bit running and strung out — bc Doozy seemed much more relaxed and reliable with that approach. You can see it in the video too — I interspersed a few random sequences of just trotting around in between trips down the poles mostly just to see if we could do it, and she totally could!

finished with a little quasi baby stretchy trot, good girl <3

AND! She finished the ride with a nice genuinely honest attempt at stretchy trot. Not perfect, obvi, but trying. 

So even tho it was sorta a ho-hum ride, with plenty of obvious low-hanging fruit in terms of “room for improvement,” I’m actually really pleased with some of the incremental gains. Small steps, y’all!! Plus a little #PivoAccountability haha.

ww: scenic strolls

The recent break in the weather meant basically errybody at the barn was trying to get out into the fields and woods to soak up the pleasantness. And naturally Doozy was super jazzed to join the parties!

I’m sometimes a little hesitant to take her out in very mixed company bc she’s so animated and energetic I worry she could trigger a nervous horse or instigate a race to the front. 

But that hasn’t happened yet! Most of our riding buddies either share Doozy’s electric joie de vivre or are satisfied to mosey along and occasionally trot to catch up LOL,

Doozy, for her part, doesn’t really seem to care one way or another what the other horses are doing.

Tho she definitely seems to generally prefer company.

And actually I think she likes following too. We often end up in front on the narrow paths in the woods just bc she’s the fastest walker, but if there’s a horse who wants or needs to be in front, she’s happy to relinquish the spot even if it means being stuck behind a slower walker.

There are a couple trees down in the woods right now actually that look like they’ll be fun to jump - hopefully they’re still there when Doozy’s ready!

Once we’re back out into the hay fields tho it’s easier to sorta mosey along as a group vs single file.

And natch, easier to get pictures of everybody LOL!

Doozy is so funny too… she obvi knows the route bc we take the same loop more or less every time, but she’s often her slowest when we turn toward home.

The happiest clam, I think she would have strolled along behind these horses forever haha.

Tho obvi it’s nice to be back at the barn too bc that’s where the #snax are lol…

“garçon! my snax!!!” - impatient mare

But there’s always another day, esp when the weather is this nice!

Doozy was super happy to go strutting off into the woods all proud of herself the day after her grand return to horse showing at Tranquillity haha.

Honestly, what a gorgeous day!

Tho Doozy was slightly sad that they’d been thru to cut and bale the hay already, it made her “grab ‘n go” snacking technique a little more challenging on the steep hills haha…

All good tho, obvi we stopped often anyway esp for pics!!

All my friends have phones with cameras so much nicer than mine, it’s insane.

Like honestly LOL… I knew my phone was old and clunky but maybe it’s finally time for an upgrade so I can return the favor of getting such nice pics (odd outfit choices aside!) haha.

As it is, tho, ain’t a bad way to spend a summer day, amirite??

post-injury IPO

Doozy made it back to her first horse show since April this weekend, yay!!! Tho don’t get too crazy haha, it was a very modest affair for us. Tranquillity was hosting the July running of their summer Mill Series hunter jumper shows, a super fun and popular local show opportunity that’s got a little something for everybody. 

this pic makes it look like we’re alone in the field, but actually there’s trailers on either side and all down the driveway in front of my truck too

Lots of classes, three rings running, absolutely minimal rules re: dress, tack, equipment etc. And from what I can tell, basically anybody can enter any class for whatever reason. Really truly, it’s just a super inviting horse show for everybody.

And you might actually remember I brought Doozy here in June of last year, after we sorta bombed out of our first intended horse trial of the year. Basically, I learned the hard way that maybe both Doozy and I benefit from lots of little opportunities to “dip our toes in” vs “jumping straight into the deep end.”

can literally not emphasize enough HOW NICE 64*F is for showing in JULY omg

So ya know. When the forecast looked **legit perfect holy mother of god after all the awfulness this is absolutely lovely**, ahem, I decided to more or less repeat our experiences from last year. Except without the jumper class, obviously, since Doozy isn’t jumping yet. 

One of the rings starts with a couple sets of hack classes, so I figured I’d catch a couple of those and see how we felt.

you’re nice too, doozy <3 <3 

So we arrived about 45min before the show started — enough time to check in at the office and tack up at an unhurried pace before heading over to the ring for pre-show schooling, natch pausing every few trailers to chitchat with random friends and acquaintances. 

Doozy was, not to put too fine a point on it, the epitome of civilized. Perfect princess. Relaxed, patient, alert but unbothered, and happy to go wherever I pointed her, or pause as needed, whatever. Perfect. Good girl!

she looks like she’s being tall or up in this pic but she was honestly just taking in the sights

Which ya know… lol… She should be civilized at this point haha, she’s 8 and has been haunting show grounds for three years now. But ya know. This was literally the whole point of us being here: reestablishing that, “Yep, this seems normal!”

Ymmv but from my perspective, so much happens on a show day long before the bell rings or the announcer calls out, “you are now being judged at the walk!” And with Doozy, so much of that “so much” was often **extremely** challenging for us, that we were kinda just clinging to the edge of some semblance of composure by the time we were actually doing the thing. 

i’m pretty sure she’d chill at the in gate forever

Anyway, she continued to keep her shit together once we started schooling in the ring too. For those unfamiliar with the local hunter circuits, basically riders can show up early to warm up and jump all the jumps before the show starts. So it can be a little chaotic, especially in this particular ring bc the jumps are all kinda snug against each other, making options for cutting across the ring somewhat limited. 

There’s basically open areas on either short end of the ring, a way to get across the middle, the gap you see in the picture below, and that’s it lol. Especially with a horse like Doozy, I’m not trying to crash into anybody in a tight spot, ya know? But it was all good, she kept a lid on anyway.

was overall a very solid citizen in our classes

Still, tho, I’m pleased with myself too bc we were here for a reason: pressure test the buttons in public. I didn’t want to just sorta delicately jog my firecracker around, handling her with kid gloves etc. I wanted to ride as if we were at home, building on some of the concepts and findings I’ve been writing about. 

Specifically, my pivo-induced ‘aha!’ breakthrough about how I’ve been trying to fix rideability problems by taking away speed, when really I need to just get my leg on and ride more forward into contact. So that’s what we did!!

zero photographic proof of us doing any of that, so here’s a recent shot from a trail ride instead lol

And spoiler, it totally worked out for us!! Not like, in the sense that we won our classes or anything haha. No no god no lol. We did the pleasure hunter W-T and W-T-C hack classes, each with about 6 other riders, and placed 6th and 4th respectively lol. 

Apparently the pleasure class judging is along the lines of, “Would you want your grandma to ride that horse?” and… ha, yea, no. Doozy is not that type! Again tho, she honestly was great about all the things (except canter). Tho I sometimes got stuck on a circle — Doozy covered twice as much ground as any other horse in the class so it was hard to stick to the rail.

But I felt good about our contact and bend, and was able to keep my legs on and ride the mare forward the whole time. Canter was… eh, far too wild. Mostly just fast, but there admittedly were a couple steps of that quintessential racehorse “flattening” which turned into a bit of careening around corners oops.

or alternatively this AI slop thumbnail suggestion from youtube for last week’s video hahahahahaha

But. Eh. All things in time, right? We only just recently started cantering on purpose again. And it’s taken this long in the rehab to just get the trot back to “normal.” Our canter was never that good anyway, so it’s no surprise that it’ll take more time and practice there too. 

Notably, tho, even after the somewhat chaotic canters, Doozy was able to return to her trot and walk to finish the class nicely. So it’s not that she unspooled or was getting worse or more tense as we went… Nope. Just normal run-of-the-mill sketchy flatwork LOL. I’ll take it!

back home + unloaded by 10:15am

Honestly I couldn’t be more pleased with the horse after those two classes. Canter needs work, sure, tell me something I don’t already know LOL, but actually the rest of the day went a bit better than I expected. And best of all, the “rest of the day” was still like, morning haha. Who doesn’t love an early show day??

Feels exciting to look forward again. Obvi I’m still paranoid about Doozy’s leg and recovery, but every day she proves her resilience. And days like this, she’s proving to be actually the “go everywhere, do everything” horse I hoped for! One step at a time!