geese + grace + gorgeous skies (+ gushing)

AND. The the highly anticipated return of shoddily edited video and screenshots to 'Fraidy Cat Eventing!!! Because it's been way too long since we've seen some low-quality riding video and pictures!!

"who are you calling low quality?!?" - Charlie

Ahem. Sorry if I'm a little excited haha. One of the unintended consequences of changing barns is that I lost my carefully cultivated cadre of videographers. So fresh riding media have been hard to come by. But I managed to get a little in-hand video from Charlie's and my exploration of the mare's field the other night.

#ready4rolex

While this may be an h/j farm, they happen to have a smattering of xc jumps scattered around the premises. Including this adorable little bank they built into the mare's field last summer. I knew the moment I spied it from a distance a week or two ago that it would be seeing some action from Sir Charles.

And the moment finally came late last week, when I arrived before turnout and giddily pulled Charlie out of his stall to hand walk him up and down and all around the bank. Honestly? He cared more about sniffing all the mares' manure piles than he did the bank.

video here

As evidenced by his, erm, less than graceful attempts at going down, caught on film. lol. And please to note - he had already been up and down a few times before I snagged this video.

Oh well - honestly I care more about his nonchalant attitude about the whole thing more than I care about masterful technique at this point.

so sad about how early it gets dark :( love the pretty skies tho!

Anyway, things have been good on the riding front too. He's still a different horse every day - tho his "range," as it may be, is narrowing. His spectrum of soreness levels is narrowing (except when he whacks one of his legs with another, ugh c'mon buddy!) and his various responses to the aids are becoming more consistent too.

blurry watercolor-esque skies partially help mask the inverted disengaged race horse lol

He hasn't actually gotten so stuck that I've needed the crop in quite a few rides now. The occasional nap is in there, but it's more halfhearted and he will eventually go off the leg (sooner rather than later, too).

He's also been reliably forward off the legs enough that I've been practicing working on the brakes. I kinda didn't want to focus too much on halting if it was going to cause a fight to go forward out of the halt, know what I mean? But that's been a nonissue so we've started lots of walk-halt-walks and trot-walk-trots. The downwards are still very slow to develop, but they happen. Small steps y'all.

still cute tho :)

Mostly the growing consistency just makes me hungry for lessons. It's been a month since I rode with one of my trainers, and I miss it terribly. I'm eager for help in developing a better contact with Charlie, since our current de facto way of going is inverted, disengaged, heavy on the forehand, and against my hand. Typical off the track stuff that will take time to sort... but yea. Lessons can only help!!

In the meantime we keep chugging away. And actually Charlie's canter has just been freakin' fantastic lately. God I just love it. Could ride it forever! He has both leads more or less easily enough (usually, tho sometimes he can be picky about one or the other) but tends to go a little nicer on the right lead. Especially when it comes to finding the ground poles. Which he canters like a goddamn professional.

target acquired!

We haven't actually cantered any jumps yet - preferring to trot our little cross rails - but I suspect it'll be a highly pleasant experience. Bc damn, I typically hate trotting fences but this guy just makes it so easy and fun!

yup i'm pretty much in love

Charlie hasn't figured out to try to rush to the fence yet (tho he can get a little strong in trot) but he definitely perks up when we start popping over stuff. And he always gives these tiny cross rails a cute little effort! I mean, obvi he's not really using his body very well yet but I still love how he snaps his little knees up :D

video here

It just makes my cold dark little heart happy that Charlie's showing an interest in this jumping thing! The first ride where we hopped over some cross rails he could be quite wiggly on approach - but this second night (from the video) he was just about as straight as he ever gets lol.

so many pets for a good boy!

Part of me kinda wants to defend or explain away or rationalize why everything isn't really perfect or whatever right now (like I've already done a little bit in this post)... Really tho, I just couldn't be happier with this horse. Sure we have a LOT of work ahead of us, and I could use some professional guidance lol... But until that day comes, we are having so much fun and Charlie is learning the ropes!

workin hard and figuring it all out :)

Ahhh I just feel so much like a 12 year old talking about this horse lol. My plain but promising little big ol' bay ottb. It's about goddamn time.