12 Days of Doozmas

Hope you are all feeling festive and enjoying the holiday season!! And hopefully with minimal family drama lolz......

will stand still for #snacks

If there's one advantage to Charlie's wound, it's that his daily bandage change requirements make for an excellent excuse to insist on escaping to the barn each day! 

i don't get to observe farrier appts very often, but was nice to see her behave herself nicely!

And I've been trying to really maximize my barn time, too. Each year I burn up the remainder of my PTO with a nice little #staycation the week between Christmas and New Years. Late December in Maryland is frequently still pretty mild, so it's awesome to enjoy so much daylight at the barn during what would otherwise be very short days. 

marching toward the unknown

Doozy and I started the #staycation with a lesson on Thursday afternoon, but I'll write about that some other time. It was GREAT, with a lot of really good feelings. But it's all pretty micro stuff that I want to unpack a bit in our focused schooling rides to understand how to write it all out. 

only big field that doesn't currently have horses turned out

Bc in our rides since the lesson, we've been pushing the envelope in different directions.... More, wide open directions. And I'm not gonna lie, it's been kinda riiiiiiight on the edge of my comfort zone, even as Doozy has really impressed me. 

#NotBolting despite heading toward the gate, good girl!

It's weird bc... I want to do these "scary" things... But I also kinda don't LOL. Like, one of our talented juniors (who is home on break from her freshman year at college, omg they grow up so fast!) invited me to hack out with her and her saintly little lord of mischief, Loki. 

And I was like, Ehhhh I dunno. I had a million reasons why it might not be quite the right circumstances. Luckily for me, tho, Sophia had a million and one solutions for each of my worries. Gotta love that gentle but ultimately stubborn perseverance! 

getting pretty good at the micro-hacks!

So we just did a nice little jaunt around a New-to-Dooz field that contains some of our farm's best hills for conditioning, but that is also fenced and relatively safe. It was good. Dooz was good. Sophia was like, "Wow she didn't even need Loki!!" To which I obviously exclaimed that **I'm the one** who needs the babysitter LOL let's be real here. 

oooooh made it to the dressage ring again!

Anyway, our next ride continued the same theme of pushing my comfort zone a little bit in riding Doozy outdoors in places that have challenged us in the past. This time with the dressage ring! And our friend Amy was already up there schooling Punky when we arrived, already in the thick of cantering and riding figures and going this way and that way and all that. 

coped with varied company, including trotting and cantering horses

Our buddy Rosette accompanied us for a couple laps just to make sure I had my head on straight... And in my own defense, Doozy did pull a funny little dance move lol. But she was honestly fine. So Rosette peeled off to do her own thing, Punky kept going doing his on thing.... And Doozy just.... Ya know... went around like she goes around. Good girl!

and was even able to do a little trotting herself too, good girl!

I wanted to use my time constraints as an excuse for not pushing for more.... Except eh, Emma. Trot the friggin horse!! Lol... So we went ahead and trotted a few little circles. And it was fine, obviously lol. Like, tense and spurt-y, and I rode a bit more rigidly than I do in the safe confines of the indoor. But gotta start somewhere, right?

speaking of things that kinda scare me lol

Last big ride of my 12 Days of Doozmas 3 Days of Scaring Myself, we took another big step toward independence: we rode out alone from the barn up to the jump ring, did a little bit of work up there, and then rode back again. All alone!! Including starting to learn about opening and closing the gate!! (Tho couldn't quite latch it this time, so it sorta blew open again lol)

And Doozy was honestly the best for this ride! Like, our "little bit of work" wasn't particularly good. But it checked off enough boxes for me to feel like we accomplished the bigger task of "Doing The Thing" --- riding alone to the jump ring.  

barn panther Icee!!

She was super relaxed about the whole process tho --- the hack up to the ring, and also the hack home. Sometimes with this horse, my worries revolve around all the sorta "in between" or "incidental" moments, ya know? Like, point her at a cross rail and she's a super star, but everything else can be a little iffier haha. 

he's tricky bc he generally wants something, and will eventually bite if you don't meet his demands

Except... She's learning! She's getting used to it, more familiar with the whole farm, more familiar with the rhythms of a ride. I think she trusts me more, and lord knows I'm trying really hard to trust her. At a certain point I need to not focus so narrowly on "protecting her" and curating her experiences... and just, ya know, trust her to rise to the occasion, trust the training. 

sometimes, tho, all he wants is water. at least he's communicative!

One little step at a time, right? In the meantime, tho, I might return to the indoor again for our next ride just to make sure we get in our more freely forward moments and that I give us both a chance to release some nervous tension in a safe space. 

In years past, my friends and I have often tried to get in one last Year End Adventure --- usually to school the arena xc at Loch Moy (like last year! legit the day before Charlie's injury sob). That's not in the cards this year, but that's ok. I'm honestly really happy with how 2023 is closing, after what was otherwise a pretty monumentally shitty horse year. 

Anyway. Hope you all had a nice Christmas and are getting to enjoy some nice time off with your ponies for the holidays too!!