lookin for that fresh feel

It still seriously feels like I'm digging out from all the travel I did at the end of April and beginning of May -- obviously with our epic trip to Kentucky for the first official CCI-L 5*. Which, ya know, was awesome haha.

But then just a few days later I was off again, this time to Minnesota for my firm's biannual team meetings. It was a short trip, but busy. And combined with the time away in KY, it was enough to really sorta throw us off our rhythm around here lol.

gosh i just love this handsome goofy face haha, esp with that dapper shiny new patent noseband!

Luckily, the last couple years I've wised up about planning Charlie's schedules around the trip. The Fair Hill starter is always hot on the heels of Kentucky, but esp with the MSP trip there was just no way that was happening.

And in a very real way, it was nice to not feel like I had any actual pressure about getting back in the groove ASAP after the trips. Charlie enjoyed his time off, and we've been making up for the lost time in a fairly low-key manner. Lots of light dressage rides and hacks etc.

oh but the many faces of charlie!!

I've been using the EquiLab riding app for the last few months to track my rides and it's been pretty useful, in a limited sort of way. Primarily - I use it the most during the actual ride itself, specifically for measuring time spent in each gait. I keep saying I'll do a more complete, thorough review of exactly how I use the app.... but that hasn't happened yet haha. We'll see lol.

In the meantime, I've found it most useful for my dressage schools. I always like to walk Charlie for at least ~10min as part of our warm up, generally on a loose rein. That's easy enough to do with a normal wrist watch tho, obvi. But as the ride goes on, it's interesting and useful to see how much time I spend in each "session" of our work, if that makes sense.

the flash is an improvement tho, gives a little more balance to that ridiculously long snoot

Like for our trot warm up, I've learned that I usually spend roughly 7-10min in our first warm up trot cycle too. Then maybe 2-3min in our first canter, tho that will grow to 4-6min if Charlie's feeling really warmed up and I want to do a big canter session all at once. Which, if that's the case, I'll usually have done another cycle or two of trot first.

Overall, I end up spending somewhere between 10-14min in trot and 3-7min in canter in any given ride. Then probably 15-25min in walk. I would give you screenshots from the app to reflect this information, except the graphics are basically useless so.... uh, Sorry?? haha.

It's interesting to me, tho, bc the time spent in actual "trot / canter" work is usually only half (or less) of my total ride time. Information is power, tho, so now that I've got a reasonably good gauge on average time cycles, I've been able to plan our cycles in the rides more effectively.

tho the snackamore might be both our all-time favorite bridle HA

Especially considering Charlie's been kinda a tricky horse for me to figure out in some ways. His warm up is often unmotivated and blah, and his best trot frequently comes after the canter. BUT. He lacks work ethic, so once he gets tired it's almost like he deflates. His wither drops, he flattens and disengages, then just kinda starts running.

So maybe I spent the first part of the ride chasing after him to get him going, but then the end of the ride I'm hauling on him to slow the F down. It's.... not a great balance lol. But it's also something I *must* figure out, esp in a competition setting. I need to optimize the warm up such that Charlie's entering the ring right at that perfect point where he's loose and swinging in his back, tracking up and moving forward, but not flattening into a freight train.

The app is helping a lot with that, esp in terms of helping me improve his condition so he doesn't get tired so easily. Thank god for #thoroughbred tho bc that's one of the easiest problems to fix haha! Even just getting him out for easy going 2.5-3mi walking hacks helps in a huge way there.

bc sometimes nothing beats a leisurely stroll through the woods!

Another thing that helps tho? My own personal discipline lol. While our schooling at Shawan this week was overall pretty freakin awesome, there were a couple moments to the fences that felt like shades of Plantation from last year.

And actually, I realized it was basically exactly a year ago where Charlie felt sorta similarly lethargic and slug-like, and I ended up backing off of him wayyyy too much. Resulting in catastrophe when we didn't have enough oomph and forward in competition.

So... Idk. Maybe it's just the effects of the spring grass and warming weather? Regardless, after Charlie was kinda doggin me at Shawan, (as evidenced by all his ridiculously lazy canter transitions that I edited out of the video...), I got a bit more serious about the flat work in our normal rides.

i took pictures of most of the MCTA training course combinations, but am only posting what i jumped. like this big ol' rolltop just like the one we have at home, that's finally starting to look "right sized" to me. don't ask about that B element tho ugh

Is it really true that Charlie's best trot can only happen after some canter? Or is he strong enough now to start out right off the bat moving forward? Like, who's training whom here? Possibly I've just become conditioned to letting him slug around for the first little bit.

Turns out, actually, that when I insist on getting the proper amount of forward right off the bat, the horse will actually do it. And, on top of that, he'll do all the other things even better the first time I ask. So that I don't need to keep drilling, keep having that fight and drawing out the whole ride to the point where he tires and I lose him. Lol.

Now if only that lesson would stay learned, Emma.

walking up from a distance i thought this was just our normal red N coop repainted brown. NOPE. it's quite a bit larger - full T height. but.... ya know. still just a coop, it turns out! again tho, don't ask about that B element ramp outta water HAHA(sob)

This becomes increasingly important as we dial up the technicality in our dressage tests, like those 10m half circles that show up in First-1 and USEA Training-A. Which, incidentally, I signed up to ride both those tests at an upcoming schooling show. We miiiiiiight embarrass ourselves haha, but it's time to at least try! (oh god what have i done.....)

It's also useful to approach some of the problems in our jumping from the dressage ring too. Basically my entire impression of our current work is that Charlie needs to sharpen up, and I need to raise my expectations a bit. And we probably need like 8,000 more dressage lessons in addition to all the xc lessons I'm jonesing for. Ya know, details.

that helmet cam video again, for reference

But really tho.... The jumping is where the rubber meets the proverbial road, right? It doesn't really matter if I can compel Charlie into a big beautiful forward canter in the dressage ring if I'm still gonna freeze up when faced with a big jump lol. Or if I can execute the most flowing 10m half turns but then end up pulling around a scary bending line instead of kicking through it.

In the video above, our jump into the training water (1:12) was fine enough with it as a single jump. But it's not exactly convincing enough to say whether I'd have been able to make out over that full size T ramp on the other side.

Whereas in the Novice water combination (1:39) where the out jump was just a small log, I was much more accurate and committed in my riding. So that's pretty clearly a *me* thing too, right?

(**tho in my defense, the T water was wayyyyy deeper lol)

ooooh it's the season's hottest trend! just for the transition to grass, to help charlie feel a little fresher and less lethargic as he gets used to the spring grass. don't worry tho -- this was just temporary, the skinny TB will get his grass/dad bod 

The nice thing about all these findings from my latest rides, whether from our dressage schools or our jumping sessions, is that solving the issues via lessons is probably one of my favorite parts of riding, right?

It's also kinda nice that it really does seem to be just one unifying thread showing up in all my rides, whether on the flat or over fences. Just needs moar forward. Which, in its simplest form, is a function of me just needing someone to sit there and yell at me until I finally put my leg on the horse haha.

That's always the answer anyway, lol. Needs more leg!!