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! 

pattern recognition

I wouldn’t normally schedule a lesson right after a horse show… but keeping the regular routine with dressage trainer C has been so valuable, not least bc it’s one less thing for me to hustle up. 

Plus, I honestly believe that Doozy thrives in consistent regular practice — that horses don’t really think about “time off” in quite the same way as us. Realistically, a one day BN horse trial is definitely a larger overall exertion than our typical day to day work, but it doesn’t exactly require “recovery” beyond maybe a day off or light hack, etc.

the sweetest biscuit, a true sport about getting literally just 10min of turnout before getting on the trailer

So off we went to our regularly scheduled lesson this week, and damn but I REALLY wish we had footage from the ride!! Doozy was absolutely fantastic!

Alas, tho, no footage, so you’re just going to have to take my word for it. And obvi, without any related compelling media, it’s hard to really write all that much about it either, so I’ll just try to capture the high level details.

“anything for carrots!”

Basically, we were back on the “let trainer C have her way with us!” approach to lessons, and the exercise du jour would be predominantly spirals. We warmed up with some walk and trot leg yields, but then basically went right into the spirals at trot.

She wanted us spiraling in super slowly, just only coming inside of our last track with each rotation (something that was easy to measure bc per usual we were laying down the first hoofprints of the day in that fancy footing!). Then, after arriving at maybe a 15 or 12m circle, slowly going back out again. Rinse repeat, about 3 times of a full in-and-out.

The whole idea was not just to establish that inside bend — but actually to help Doozy learn to trust that posture. Help her learn to soften into it and relax. 

And a big part was focusing on my own posture too, naturally. Trainer C wanted my inside elbow to be really pinned to my body, and really focusing on staying out of her way by keeping my inside leg long and heavy, and not collapsing in my inside core. Normal stuff for us, but obvi it’s always better with realtime in-the-moment instruction!

grateful for ol’ faithful!!

In particular, trainer C reminded me to make it really obvious with my releases and softening in the contact when Doozy got it right. Which aligns nicely with something Dan mentioned while warming us up at Loch Moy: That the whole point of working to get her stable on the aids is to be able to let go, and have her stay. In other words: self carriage. 

Which, notably, is something we REALLY need to develop in the jumping in particular. I need to be able to get around cross country without hanging onto the e-brake the whole time, know what I mean? But baby steps, obvi.

princess <3

It was funny bc after spiraling the trot circle back out to 20m after about the 3rd time, wherein Doozy felt like she was really understanding the pattern and posture, trainer C told us to canter. And Doozy was actually caught a bit surprised — actually a bit offended! Like she felt like she had understood the rules but then we changed them on her. 

It was an interesting feeling, and really highlights that so much of her tension comes from a place of insecurity.

In any case, it was nbd, we just reestablished the trot then asked again, and then worked for the spiral feeling in canter too. We repeated this in both directions, then took the trot large again to the full ring. Then repeating the feeling of the spiral at the opposite end of the ring — not the full exercise, just the feeling of it, before stepping into canter again, to now come down the quarter lines in canter, leg yielding to the wall. Then 15m circle, trot, change directions, rinse repeat.

all tuckered out, ready to go home again!

And holy moly, Doozy felt incredible. So on the aids, so steady in her tempo, uphill, round, all the things. Basically like Empress of the Universe, Knower of Everything lol. THAT is the horse I want to have at horse shows!

But ya know. This dressage barn has always been a slightly magical place, with mystical good juju that brings out the best in horses. 

For me, the biggest takeaways are obviously the exercises and posture notes (for both horse and rider), but also basically the reaffirmation of always having a proactive approach to our rides. For example, was it the spiral itself that got Doozy feeling so engaged on the aids, or merely me just being super intentional about riding each footprint? 

Who knows, it honestly doesn’t really matter either. Except that it’s nice when everything really boils down to the same fundamentals again and again lol… 

season opener at MDHT!

Happy Monday, friends!! Exciting news today since Doozy and I went to our first horse trial of the year this weekend!! And it’s so funny, I don’t think I’d ever won an 8th place ribbon before Doozy (at least not that I remember)… but for some reason this daughter of Big Brown and I are growing a bit of a Big Brown Ribbon collection lol. Must be kismet…

serenely unaware of the day ahead!

Anyway. I promise not to drag on and on (and on), but it was on the balance a really fun day! Tho, if you go by how things looked on paper… Well. It’d be easy to come to a different conclusion: our dressage landed us at the bottom of the class (per usual), we had a rail in show jumping (also per usual), and we had a run out on cross country — Doozy’s first xc jump penalty in competition. 

“oooh are we going to run and jump tho??” — doozy, interested lol

But ya know. The lived experience is something so different from the scoreboard at the end of the day. And ours was a good one, so let’s dive in!

poem by Morgan Harper Nichols, image source
yoga teacher shared this in class yesterday and it felt so fitting for how i’m trying to approach the year, so i wanted to share with you all too!

Dan and his wife were both competing on the same day too, so Dan was actually able to pop by dressage warm up to give us like 15min of coaching to start us off, and it was super valuable. Doozy had arrived to the property like a grown ass adult mare, but then wanted to melt down a bit once in warm up. And Dan just… wasn’t having it. 

He reminded me that this is the real world, I need to ride the horse, get her on the aids, be proactive. Now. And gooooo figure, Doozy responded well to that. 

sun bathing + snoozing post dressage

And she executed what I felt might actually be one of our top dressage performances to date! To the extent that I actually ordered multiple prints from our ride!! 

Doozy was on the aids, stayed in gait, was decently prompt for all her transitions, even the downwards, and was rideable enough that I was able to demonstrate those clear changes of track between ‘corner’ and ‘circle’ that trainer C coached us on.

click for full size.
good luck reading those comments

I was particularly pleased again with our transitions into canter, although scores were mixed. Well. Real talk, scores were a bit mixed across the board bc “Today quite tense,” as the judge notes. And that tension, the bracing and lack of suppleness etc, is basically the difference between a 6.0 and a 5.5.

tanking up before jumping!

Doozy, however, wouldn’t know that. She’s tense erry day LOL, that isn’t exactly something new for us. What IS new is her level of workmanlike effort. Staying present, staying more or less on the aids. Trying to understand, to be a good girl. It’s honestly a great feeling!

dropping in with an oxer at 1!

And I’m proud of myself for being really intentional about riding the dressage as if it was the only thing we were doing for the day. Too often I kinda wing it or tacitly dismiss the phase bc “we’re not good at it, and we’re here to jump anyway.” Which like. Yea, true. 

But while it obvi doesn’t seem to make a difference in scores or placings, it probably makes a difference to Doozy. And it’s my responsibility to help her operate within a consistent set of parameters and expectations: It’s always the same, nothing changes, and we can do this!

reason #1,367 why you should walk your course: i was so surprised by how “crookedly” folks were jumping into this line that i was super intentional about squaring my corner. turns out… the jump itself was on an angle, whoops!  no harm, no foul!

Anyway, tho, realistically we ARE here to jump tho lol…. So after about a ~1.5hr break that Doozy spent mostly snoozing, we got right on with it!! Doozy was actually pretty decent in the warm up ring in terms of explosiveness, tho I think we knocked down every single jump that we jumped except maybe 2. Oof. She felt ok, tho, just… not particularly careful, so I figured we’d see what we got in the ring.

another nice oxer!

The course looked like it might suit us, being mostly sweeping curves with turns just tricky enough to demand attention. And the two related distances both seemed to be riding very consistently, so I figured they’d be the same for us. 

omg wtf with the in and outs at BN!!!

And it was honestly a pretty great course overall! Doozy got a great shot into the oxer at 1, was tidy in the sweeping left handed rollback from 2 to 3, tho we did have the rail at 3. Then was good about staying out in the tricky looking right turning segment from 4 into the related distance down the outside. And if you’re getting the sense that we were maybe trending leftward, nice work, that is in fact foreshadowing LOL.

made much better work of it this time vs last time tho!

Anyway, the course finished up with another sweeping turn to a big oxer, tidy comma turn to a vertical that we loudly rattled but that did not fall, then finishing over the 2 stride in and out! 

Not gonna lie, I really don’t remember BN having in and outs… In fact, I DO remember being sad about that in the early days with Charlie since he was such a grid savant. 

full video of the course here!! it’s a good one!

But you get what you get at unrecognized shows, and in this case it worked out great! All our gymnastics practice over the winter paid off handsomely and Doozy was easy and confident to finish the course, good girl! This was definitely our strongest phase of the day!!

was a good girl at the start box

No rest for the weary tho bc it was straight on to cross country, where again Doozy was nicely civilized in the warm up, more or less, tho it did occur to me that we really have not schooled on grass or terrain in quite some time. I mean, c’mon, it’s only March and the snow has only been melted for a couple weeks…

our friendly chunky log roll from schooling a couple weeks ago!

As it was, the course looked really fantastic. Almost all the jumps were placed on nicely rising ground, and the designer gave us plenty to do for the level, even if the overall distance and jump count were on the low side. I figured it should be a good one for us!

the footing is still a little bare in places but didn’t ride slick or deep

Tho, truthfully, we actually ended up being just slightly out of rhythm for most of the jumps. I think perhaps bc of a combination of factors. For Doozy, she obviously hasn’t jumped on terrain in a while — and especially with the rising ground to most of the takeoffs, I think she may have had her striding slightly out of sync with her eye.

riding forward to the distance made for a great jump, go figure!

For me, I think I had the canter too collected for most of the time. The gif above is nicely illustrative bc I knew it should go in an easy 7 strides for us (which it did!) but in watching the video after the fact, the quality of the canter I had in that line above is better than the quality of canter we carried in between fences elsewhere on course. 

little brush coop that i forced myself to jump in schooling a couple weeks ago

It’s always a tricky balance bc Doozy will 100% still land in a bit of a disorganized heap, running off into the unknown distance LOL. It’s just a question of recalibrating and experimenting. Sometimes ya gotta let go a little bit to see what will happen! 

absolute professional into the water, with a nicely advanced line for BN — see our red boat hiding just behind the N blue boat straight ahead?

Anyway, tho, the turn to the brush coop was kinda a weird unintuitive downhill S, but Doozy didn’t care, she jumped it great. Then we had a lovely-for-BN line from that brush coop, to a ditch, to another coop, into the water, to the boat!

tho i still managed to land wayyyyyy off our line for the next jump, circled above

None of it was super close together, but it definitely felt like plenty to do! Doozy powered over the ditch without a glance, and was straight into the water super confidently! Tho we got a slightly awkward distance to the boat, which was one of the only jumps not set on rising ground, and landed completely off the line to the next. 

and was perhaps a little complacent given that i know these slightly narrow and vertical blue houses can ride a little funny. WHOOPS!

So I rode a circle to get us back on track, and honestly I think we had the canter and striding fine enough for this house, but alas, our day of drifting slightly left finally caught up with us, and Doozy squirted out at the last minute. Honestly I think she was tired and feeling like maybe she was having to work a little too hard. 

nbd, tho — regroup, jump it again, and keep cruising to the finish!

It’s all good, tho, we just turned back around, took a breath, and rode a more intentional and determined approach, and got over nbd. Actually one of the prints I ordered is from that effort bc Doozy’s expression looks so nice! 

helmet cam of the full course here!

I remember how with Charlie esp toward the end of courses I’d be thinking in my head, “you’re so close, don’t stuff it up now!” but I’ve been working so hard to remind myself to keep remembering in the moment that “this is fun!” that perhaps I lost a bit of attentiveness. Ah well! That’s what early season is for anyway, amirite? 

As it is, we just had two jumps left to go, then over the finish line!

good girl, Dooz!

And oh my word lol, Doozy was TIRED!! It was nearly 70*F out — not overwhelmingly warm, but plenty esp considering how cold it was just a couple days ago, and Doozy still has most of her winter coat. And obvi being out on the hills again esp in slightly sticky ground made a difference.

she was actually quite tired after all that!

I still opted to go a bit slower with washing her up, feeding her snacks and packing up to go home, to let her recharge a bit for the trailer ride. She was such a super star all day, she deserves a little pampering, right??

Anyway, again, I’m just so pleased with the horse. In a way, it’s kinda weirdly liberating to know that our dressage scores are so reliably bad tho haha, bc I feel like it gives me the freedom to really focus on riding our own ride through each phase, without being distracted by the end results. 

Tho, as it was, even with our poor score and penalties in both jump phases, we still managed to move up throughout the day, go figure lol. Turns out, this sport is just hard. Who knew? Feels good to be out there and doin’ it tho!!

friday flatwork finish

Happy Friday, guys!! If I’d known I’d have these video clips today, I would have waited to post yesterday’s dressage lesson recap, bc they’re fairly well representative of how we’re going!

Oh well, as it is, you got cat pics yesterday, and then my barn mate surprised me by snagging a bunch of nice clips while Doozy and I rode last night, so here ya go, more footy!

in case you wondered whether 3 months of yoga was enough to make me not tip forward LOL

And I am who I am, so obviously I like to pore over the videos and try to connect my feelings to how it looks. Bc it basically never looks how it feels. 

This ride was a little tricky too, bc I wanted to keep working on the test practice, while also continuing (as always and forever) to keep establishing “solidly on the aids” as status quo. Versus the alternative of just letting Doozy spin around at trot or canter for a few minutes each and calling it good. 

our combined biomechanic imperfections made tracking left a little softer in this ride

It’s easy to get suckered into avoiding a lot of contact at the walk, lest the mare anticipate and get tense or jiggly. And practicing a lot of transitions is a great way to make a fizzy horse boil over. Except, obviously, we have proof that when done tactfully and intentionally, the opposite can be true too. 

I don’t know that I totally succeeded in this ride with the whole “tactful and intentional” bit, let’s be real LOL, but it felt like productive practice anyway. 

i think i’m just getting greedy bc the soft moments feel so nice when they happen!

Doozy got a bit tense and tight at times, but mostly kept her shit together. I’ve been working on really exaggerated half halts lately — bringing the pace and tempo wayyyyyy down in trot. Mostly just to try to show her the pattern. Make it as clear as possible, vs kinda just hanging on at a dull roar while she flattens into a run. 

And I think it’s working? My hope is that we could in theory carry a little more forward tempo in an actual dressage test (well, real talk, I might not actually get a choice there!), but that by practicing and schooling in a more contained manner, maybe it’ll be less likely for us to get completely strung out?

trying not to throw myself forward at the mare the second she gives a little lol

I also am trying to be really aware of whether my posture really looks braced against the horse from the judge’s perspective. Which, in the video, it totally does in places especially when I’m tipping forward with my arms straightened down instead of elbows bent. Again, in theory it’d be a lot easier to mask how strong Doozy is if I don’t give it away to the judge with my posture. 

this is a better representation of the “workmanlike but not soft” feeling we have most of the time. 
still miles better than the totally tense and inside out feeling!

Then ya know. There are all the other normal observations we can make every time I get new media lol — I still collapse through my inside core, while twisting my seat to the outside. It’s like my body has this weird idea that if I drop my inside shoulder, that’ll magically get my weight down into that inside leg. Hasn’t been true yet, but for some reason I keep doing it LOL!

canter is still a bit of a hot mess, which is a shame bc she has such a nice canter naturally!
all things in time, tho, amirite?

Our canters in this ride were particularly rough around the edges, but kinda a little bit on purpose. And maybe in a productive way? The transitions I was quite happy with in general (tho none are in the video), which gives me hope that we really are more truly connected on the aids — since, recall last summer we were having problems bucking and kicking into the canter, which I attributed to being behind the leg. 

However Doozy’s a bit habituated to just kinda taking off once in canter, and in this ride I really tried to bring her back together, almost too collected, right from the very first stride. Like, right away, trying to get almost a “square turn” or “spiral” feeling with the outside aids. Again, I think in an actual test environment the horse will naturally already be traveling more forward — so hopefully we can find a happy medium?

about 2.5min of various clips from our ride

As always, I’m just happy to have the media. Mostly bc I like seeing where we are in general, but especially right now bc I feel like there are real glimmers of excitement in this work, real moments where things kinda come together. 

Obviously I’m biased, but I quite like Doozy’s natural gaits — she can have a very handsome way of going. It’s just dealing with the tension, which is obviously compounded / limited by my own abilities etc. Like she’s not just gonna magically go better than how I ride, right? 

But then again, thinking back to where we were last winter when we first got more serious about dressage saddle shopping… Ya know. Some things have changed, ahem, for the better. LOL. It’s not always easy to see in the day to day, but it’s nice to have the reminder!

Anyway. Happy Friday, friends! Hope you’re all looking forward to a nice weekend! We’re actually supposed to have our first show of the season (omg!) which I’m normally too superstitious to post about in advance… but eh, the only folks left on this platform are either kindred spirits or AI bots sooooooo there it is lol, wish us luck!