important milestones: doozy's quinceañera

Ok ok, it's not Doozy's birthday, and she was born in New York, with both parents from Kentucky. But you know what I mean, c'mon --- we celebrate all important milestones around these parts, big and small. 

And to cap off a big week, we're marking Doozy's 15th ride! And 16th and 17th, lol.

assembling the squad!

For the 15th, Doozy's third in a row, naturally, we embarked on a little hack ride with a few barn buddies -- one of whom competed over the weekend, and the other who had just done an xc lesson with Sally. So both their horses would be nice, quiet, and tired. Bingo!

gotta love a nice group of babysitters! 

Doozy has already proven to be quite nice for little walks around the farm, including out in the fields and whatnot, but ya know. It still all feels very new and unknown to me. I admit to being nervous. That's the nice thing about riding daily tho -- helps feel more secure!

happy with how this saddle's seat fits. flaps aren't perfect, but maybe also not too bad?

Once we get farther into fall, all the gates and whatnot in the big xc fields will be open for easy long meanders. For this ride, tho, nobody really felt like dealing with gates (or the herds of horses still turned out), so we stuck to a few smaller unoccupied pastures. 

"smile!"

And natch, Katie got a couple shots of me in the trial saddle!! 

Overall impressions remain positive. Tho it's definitely not a forever saddle. I'm reserving judgement tho, and plan to request a trial extension. I wanna keep pushing myself in the saddle, plus give Doozy a chance to surface any sore spots.

doozy doesn't really understand hacking yet lol

I'm inclined to like it, tho. Overall, Doozy is such a different horse to sit on from Charlie, she's so much narrower thru her barrel. So my legs just hang in different ways (tho obvi I still tend toward wanting to cling). Plus, my position can definitely be described as a bit 'defensive' right now. 

but she's a good girl!

In my experience, it's best not to try to make too many excuses for the saddle tho. Like I want to be realistic, but I also don't wanna spend a few hundred dollars on something that'll prove to be not workable in just a couple months. So we'll see. 

hacking down new paths! 

We basically kept up the same momentum for our next ride, which won't have too many associated words bc 1) hallalujah, we are approaching redundancy from ride to ride. Heck yes, routine consistency is finally happening!!! Also, 2) zero media lol, the fuel that powers this blog. 

from the 16th ride, and no i still haven't dusted off the mirrors lol -- but you can see our slightly larger cross rail in the background!

It was a very good ride tho. Almost the same exact routine as our previous indoor ride, except I focused more on the types of figures you might see in a dressage test. For example, we practiced walking a few center line turns. And I tried to be a bit more precise to the letters with our passes across the diagonal. And we started doing more circles in the middle of the ring vs in the ends. Small stuff, but important. 

pictured: slightly larger cross rail!! she was SO GOOD, tho may or may not have landed "bucking" from both of our little efforts. eh, we'll take it (for now) 

Tho obvi we also still played with the same ground pole set up, and finished again with another little cross rail --- slightly larger this time, and slightly more exuberant Dooz. Wasn't perfect, but I definitely liked it!! And also felt super comfortable and secure in the trial saddle!

from #17, when we had the judge's booth opened up. this might be the nicest pic i've ever taken of her neck

Last ride to get us back up to present time: #17, OUR FIRST LESSON!! It wasn't like, a "real" real lesson, per se. Our resident FEI steward is starting up with her fix-a-test series now that the competition season is slowing. I seriously considered doing a test with Doozy, but ultimately decided it wasn't appropriate to squish her through a full pattern yet. 

So instead it was like a guided feedback session. Our judge is... a judge, not an instructor, but she had great feedback on how we are going, and set up a few ground pole exercises for us. And Doozy got the experience of... 1) having somebody in the center of the ring calling out directions; and 2) coping with her longest ride yet! 

oooh brown ears!! we had a bit of an equine emergency in the barn last week where the key players needed a little space, so charles and i led a little walkies trip with our younger barn mates to clear the zone for work on the horse in crisis (pony mare got trapped in a bee swarm, had a very bad day, is now itchy but recovering <3)

And Doozy really nailed it. We practiced lines of poles on the center line, vs the quarter line where I've been setting them up. So we got to practice those 10m half turns, plus alternating directions of approach. AND!! Doozy did her first on-purpose canter transitions, both leads! And NICELY!! Like, not perfect, and a little 'run into' the gait. And it took two tries to get the left lead, with porpoising. But. Yess, can canter basically on cue!! 

So... Guys, it's SO NICE to settle into a routine with the red mare. Five rides in a row!! Especially bc Charlie keeps doing Charlie things. 

walkies with charlie is always a nice time <3

After the little misfire with his most recent shoeing appointment, and resulting lameness... He started getting back to going on little walkies again -- woot woot! 

but, classic charles, then he twisted a shoe.... ugh!

Then immediately twisted a shoe again. Naturally, on his left front -- the foot of Apocalyptical Abscess notoriety... I suspect the shoe was already a bit compromised bc the farrier had to loosen a bunch of the nails to get that dental impression material out. 

 

stop breaking our hearts, charlie!

Plus the horses just changed turnout schedules -- meaning they spent about 24hrs out (just coming in for the meal, then right back out again. So now they're out during the daytime, and in the barn overnight for the winter. The horses always get a little unsettled when schedules change, so maybe it was the perfect storm for making poor choices with his feet. 

In any case, luckily the shoe wasn't so badly twisted that I felt like it had to get pulled immediately, and instead Charlie was able to wait a couple days in a paddock to get it reset. 

he is so loved tho, lookie at the little birdie hangin out with him! 

So ya know. Things are chugging right on along. It's nice to at least start to feel a little busy tho, esp with trying to keep up with updates here --- bc things are finally happening, yay! 

This was legit the busiest blog week around these parts in years... But I promise it'll lighten up -- my friend is in town to run the Baltimore Marathon this weekend so Doozy will get a little breather, and Charles will keep being Charles. 

Virtual cookies for all y'all who stuck it through this mega week of Mondeuse finally ascending to the role of le riding horse!