youthful wisdom

I'm coming to really appreciate the company of the talented junior who has started riding Charlie a little bit. She has... just this really fresh clear perspective that is wise beyond her years.

hacking up to the jump ring on a beautiful spring day!

A few months ago, as I was tying myself in knots trying to prepare Doozy for her first jump lesson, that clinic with Hadden Frost... Her sage suggestion was to "maybe underthink it a little bit" haha. Gen Z, amirite?

ooooh and charlie was with us --- with talented junior enjoying the ride!

We rode together again this week (she's on Charlie bc her own horse is laid up with a pretty significant soft tissue injury, ugh), and her latest observation was.... "I think it feels a lot different to you than it looks."

selecting screen grabs for posts is always entertaining lol, bc we often kinda look like this 

Which like. Yea. I BELIEVE that haha. 

lol and then there are millisecond frames like this, the "profile pic" screen grabs

Who among us hasn't looked back at video footage and felt that sorta defensive pang of, "Wow that doesn't look as fast / intense / chaotic / out of control / {insert whatever feeling here} as I felt in the moment!"

first jump of the day! we did this one a few times

It's been really really helpful to get so much video footage this week, too. Like, superficially I'm asking for all the videos to help evaluate the saddles (this is the Amerigo again!), but I'm getting so much more out of it. 

lolz and every time was different!! pictured here: an attempt you won't see on the video haha

I had kinda laid off begging for video all the time bc realistically we're kinda at a normal plateau in the training. Doozy can more or less do the things, now we just need to go about the business of doing them again and again, hopefully refining our practice along the way.

 

this one made the cut tho ;) 

But now I have an excuse to ask for videos again, haha, and what media junkie would pass up that opportunity!?!

the video is so so helpful for me bc it does NOT look how it feels

So. Here we are with our third video from this week's training sessions with Mondeuse, wherein we skip around a couple small verticals in the jump ring. Eventually I'll pull on my big girl pants and actually dismount to set proper jumps for us (to include oxers), and measure out distances in the lines etc. But for now.... we kinda just work with what's already set up.

tho ya know, it never really does, right?

Which, in this case, worked out well enough to be mostly a bunch of small verticals. Tho the two related distances were close enough together that I opted not to get to experimental with jumping into a mystery distance haha. 

Like, sure sure there was that time a few months ago when I rode in blind to a two-stride... But I was pretty confident it was set at about 30', and Doozy was so green I didn't worry she'd bolt through on the short distance. And that was all fine. But eh, for this ride, we stuck to singles.

cantering small verticals!! from a variety of take off points LOL

Anyway, it was a good ride! Instructive both in the moment, and also in watching the video. Doozy is a very good girl who definitely wants to go to the jumps, and I'm (slowly) getting my sea legs back after not really jumping at all for the last year.

charlie ears <3 <3 <3

Doozy is definitely raring to go, tho. Like, sorta the same thing with not wanting to trot -- when she's thinking about jumping, she's thinking about cantering. And the second you push the reins forward, she's going. 

more gratuitous charlie ears bc c'mon what a shot!

I spent the first few jumps trying to be more disciplined in "make her trot!" But, eh, eventually I kinda just gave in and allowed the canter. Still tho, it's kinda the same thing. The mare goes as forward as I let her go, which is sometimes more forward than I want her to be at the fences. 

the mare is super cute even when i can't tell the difference between too forward or too backward LOL

In an ideal world, we'd never really want to be shortening in the last step or two to the fence -- but would rather prefer to be in a forward uphill balance with hind legs stepping up and under. 

another takeoff distance you won't see in the video haha

In the real world, tho, sometimes fences come up funny, and sometimes I pull, and sometimes Doozy runs past her distance lol. C'est la vie, tho, right? 

much happier jumping from this balance of canter

But going back to my wise young riding buddy's advice above... There are probably more moments where I can allow more of that forward balance than I'm currently utilizing. Like, Doozy feels a bit faster and more chaotic than she looks. And actually, she has a nice forward cruising canter that is definitely fine and appropriate for these jumping exercises.

nice boring jump from a nice comfortable distance -- that's the ticket, dooz!!

So my homework is to just keep looking for those moments, right? And ya know. Remind myself to maybe don't make it harder than it needs to be, give the horse the benefit of the doubt lol. She's green, I'm an amateur, but we're having fun and that's what it's all about, right?

link to a couple quick efforts here

So it was a solid ride just in terms of logging more practice over fences. Plus the junior rider had a ton of fun with Charlie too -- including a little jumping!! She might actually be the first person ever to jump him other than me, and they looked great. Charlie had that glint in his eye that makes me so excited!!

charlie had to lead the way home bc there were scary sticks omg

All in all, a pretty great way to end the week -- esp with the mild spring weather that's finally rolling in after what feels like ages and ages of rain. 

Hope you all had a great week too!!