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!!
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.
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…
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.
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!!
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!
It’s honestly so great having a regular schedule with dressage trainer C this year. We found a mutually convenient bi-weekly time (that I suspect will be even more convenient when the horses switch to summer hours), and I’ve got my calendar blocked in perpetuity.
Perfect!
tyrannical red mare scatters her pony friends like pins in a bowling alley!
Well. Ok, haha, mostly perfect…. Since it’s still horses, after all! We missed last week’s lesson bc of Doozy’s lost shoe. Tho, fortunately with the bi-weekly routine we could make it up this week instead, and then hopefully get right back onto the normal cadence again next week. Love.
well. she tries LOL
Normally I like to just let trainer C have her way with us. She has so many students, has been teaching for so long in general, and teaching me in particular for more than a decade now… It’s easy to trust the direction of her coaching. But she’s exceptionally good at teaching ring craft and test practice too — so that’s what we did this week, with the new 2026 BN-A test!
perfectly pleasant for hill hacks tho!
Obviously basically all of low level eventing tests are some variation of training level dressage… Basically just showing your gaits in both directions on simple large figures and patterns.
They aren’t the most exciting or inspired patterns, and in fact often give the impression of being almost a bit of a formality anyway — like the test designers are trying to see how quickly they can check all the boxes to get horses in and out of the ring.
literally eating…. trash?
That’s great if you’re riding a half asleep school master who could do the low levels backwards on three legs… But actually can produce a slightly hectic choppy and frazzled tempo to the tests for our slightly, er, less established horse and rider partnerships. Like, ahem, me and Doozy!
anyway. cats.
The BN A test is plain enough on paper — enter using that weird broken center line so you don’t have to aim straight at the Judge’s Booth of Doom. Trot your circle basically immediately tho.
Trainer C’s sage advice: ride that first corner after the broken center line extra deep, then as you start your circle at C it’s easier to show a difference in your track. Same idea reversed for the final quadrant of the circle and the following corner, really taking advantage of making a first impression when you’re right in front of the judge.
absolute hooligan, squeakiest of ink blots, purveyor of random creepy lost baby cat teeth
Then it’s right into a circle at your middle letter — developing your canter on the circle sorta like in the Intro C test. Except after years of eventing tests using this transition point to send you on 1.5 rotations of the circle (one full lap at canter), the BN A test says, “ain’t nobody got time for all that! (and may dog have mercy on your soul if you misfire leads!)” and keeps the rotation at 1.0, sending you right back down the long side toward A, transitioning to trot before the corner.
ok ok, back to the horse!!
Then there’s actually a nice little breather for us, using the short end at A to hopefully get our shit together if the canter got us strung out, then crossing the diagonal, hopefully again utilizing necessary changes of bend etc to stay organized. Right into another trot circle in front of the judge at C — again with the strategic use of corners, showing a difference in track / line of travel.
handsome doozy, ready to ride some dressage!
Then, at least for me and Doozy, things get… potentially more hectic. We are already notorious for getting increasingly strung out as we go, but then we repeat again the same canter pattern — picking it up on the circle but only doing exactly 1.0 rotations before continuing toward A.
Except — sweet mother of jesus, you better be ready to trot asap, bc then you’re walking in the corner after A, then free walking the long diagonal, then trotting again by the time you are past the judge, trotting straight down the whoooooole long side toward A (and, presumably, toward the promised land, given how most shows are laid out), before whipping back up the center line to halt, salute.
aaaaaand back on the cats again… this time with denizens of the barn!
Doozy was actually quite good for the whole lesson, and particularly the test practice. Tho, interestingly, not “good” in like a classically supple soft round way… But an entirely new type of good for us: the kind of workmanlike good where she sorta kinda phoned it in, like “Yea yea I know my job, whatever,” but… actually did just go about doing her job. Which like… Cool?
Honestly, I appreciate that Doozy is such an overachiever most of the time, but that’s also a big part of her explosive energy and frequent tension. If she wants to show up to an actual competition and just be like, “Siiiigh, this again!” I’d be toooootally fine with that!
I digress, tho. Anyway — yes she was perfectly fine for this lesson, but the test definitely feels a little rapid fire for us, particularly that second canter into free walk, into exit. All the transitions feel kinda stacked on top of each other, especially given that we tend to be more in the “slow to develop” category for down transitions.
“I told him not to touch my butt… so we compromised and he’s touching my butt.” (the deep sigh of resignation at the end kills me LOL)
In a weird way, tho, maybe the test will suit us? My habit so often is to kinda shift into survival mode and sorta whip us through the pattern… But maybe this new version will force me to stay more present and ride more proactively?
Doozy seems to prefer the proactive approach, it keeps her more calm and relaxed to be constantly given clear directions vs sorta left an ambiguity. I’ve known this from the beginning, but the Brit Bot definitely confirmed it, and even Dan pointed it out in our last lesson.
So ya know. I just gotta remember that. And, ahem, cough cough, execute on that… A girl can dream, right?
Anybody who’s been along for the ride with Doozy knows we had a bit of a bumpy start to the year last year. For a couple different reasons — firstly bc she’d been NQR with suspected hoof bruising on and off the whole winter; but secondly bc I kinda incorrectly assumed we’d be able to just pick back up where we left off at the end of the previous season.
field trip with friends!!!
Which… lol. Is NOT how Doozy rolls, apparently! But we got our mojo back by breaking things down into more “bite-sized outings,” an approach that was also reaffirmed by none other than Boyd Martin himself. Tho ya know. Life is what it is, and we still haven’t really made it particularly far afield this spring other than a couple lessons.
doozy trying to act like the grown up of the group LOL
But this weekend we had the perfect opportunity to check all the right boxes: A barn mate has been eager to get her bebe young Morgan off farm for positive low key experiences. Obviously, renting the rings at one of our favorite local farms, Tranquillity, could suit that purpose nicely!
taking pictures of each other taking pictures of each other
AND it would be a nice venue for putting Doozy through her paces and jumping some “new” jumps, but without a full blown show atmosphere. Perfect!
bc having fun with horses is quite literally the whole point lol
Doozy doesn’t get to travel with friends all that often, but it’s always a good experience. Especially when that friend is a field mate and Doozy gets to remember that she can still focus on her own work despite maybe wishing she could socialize instead lol.
pictured: FUN!!
For our purposes, I tried to treat our warm up as if we were preparing for dressage at a show. My habit, to be honest, is to ride Doozy a little delicately at shows, just trying to keep an even keel etc, vs putting on a lot of pressure and amping up the tension. Which… ya know. Fine, right?
lol doozy is locked ‘n loaded
It remains true that our flatwork really is not good when the horse is very tense. It’s just a fact, it’s why relaxation is one of the fundamental pillars of dressage. Slowly, however, I like to believe that Doozy is learning to trust the aids, trust the connection, and hopefully learning to work into the contact even when tense, vs the two of us kinda just spiraling onto the doom loop.
wheeeeeee mare!!!
And honestly Doozy WAS super good throughout our flatwork! She stayed mostly on the aids, mostly in the correct bend(ish), and I was mostly able to stay present and active as a rider. We’re gonna call that a win lol.
ok i did actually set two jumps to BN height to at least say we did it lol
Because eventually it was time to play around with some little jumps!! I say “little” bc I only reset like three of them before getting on to ride, and only two to full height. But who cares, right? Certainly not Doozy! She’s just happy to be jumping lol.
we match the jump lol
We warmed up catching a couple little singles, then finished with a nice little 5-jump course. Nothing crazy, no related lines, just long sweeping turns to singles. Virtually all verticals, tho it is Tranquillity so there was plenty of boxes and filler etc.
video of our little course here
And Doozy was so good! She was nicely forward and had a good feeling to all the jumps — none of the little rhythm disruptions in the last few steps like we had at the lesson with Sally a couple weeks ago. And it felt like I could find a decent balance of not holding her too backwards if I could focus on letting the hind legs travel.
straight cheesin’
All in all, quite a nice little ride. Nothing earth shattering, LOL, not perfect. But fun, positive and productive! And that’s all it needs to be, right?
no hour wasted, amirite?
Especially since my barn mate had such a positive experience too! She’d already had her mare out on some off farm adventures last year, but they were always alone and the horse was often quite stressed — especially by the trailering. Having our two horses together for this trip seemed to really help, and both horses finished the day at the trailer, including loading up to go home, looking relaxed and confident.
good girl, Doozy
Slowly but surely, Doozy is figuring out the job, realizing that it’s not getting harder or crazier or anything like that, nothing really changes even when we go other places or other horses are around. It’s just the same old thing, no big deal, no muss no fuss. Well. Eventually hopefully it’ll be “no fuss,” lol. Maybe.
