shawanderful pre-school

Buckle up, y'all! And brace yourself for like two dozen pictures of jumps that.... if all goes well, you'll see again very very soon. 

it's the most shawanderful time of the year!

Because Amy and I took our horses for a cross country schooling session at the iconic Shawan Downs yesterday! 

This is important for a few reasons. First of all, our local association, the MCTA, only runs 2 events at this venue each year: a recognized HT and then a starter trial on back to back weekends. Natch, with schooling open the full week between events. 

itsy bitsy spider ground pole

Shawan Downs is such a cool venue, and I have a lot of really great memories here, including my earliest outings as a volunteer in 2015! Plus obvi a lot of riding memories... Charlie's last outing was here too, tho just as a babysitter...

jump 1: welcome to the doll house!

I also started designing the lower level xc courses for their events here a few years ago, but with all of Charlie's soundness issues never actually rode anything I set before now.

lot of pictures today bc this was a ride for the memory bank with one of my best barn friends! hopefully not the last hurrah, but a good one for sure!

Maybe most important, tho, among all the reasons why I was excited for this ride... Was that, ya know, it would be another special outing with one of my longest and bestest barn friends --- Amy, and her gelding Punky <3 <3 

jump 3: mojo dojo casa house
(jump 2, apparently not screenshotted, was the man behind the tan)

Guys, the feelings about moving barns are extremely strong. In every direction, everywhere, all at once. Our current barn is BIG, I love big boarding farms. And I'm nosy AF and in everybody's business and have strong attachment personality traits... Plus, ya know, I have a trailer and have been eager to cultivate friends over the years who wanna share adventures with me. 

jump 4: "beach"... just... beach

But Amy is an OG around here. We've been through a LOT together. Ups and downs for both our horses. And... As soon as it became clear that I had to move on, my focus shifted to having the best possible end run with Amy -- including lessons and xc schooling, and, hopefully (ugh so superstitious these days) an awesome grand finale at this weekend's starter trial.

punky <3's beach!

So. Obviously we'd go schooling together! Actually we were supposed to go the day before and catch a lesson with Sally... But, eh, timing got tricky... and then a goddamn thunderstorm from hell blew thru, complete with all manner of tornado warnings... And, eh, we opted to just wait another day LOL.

jump 5: get in the box, you jezebel!!
for real, tho, this was maybe the biggest seeming fence on course but it rode great at the event, probably bc horses were just relieved to have a plain brown jump LOL

And I think it worked out perfectly. We had the place to ourselves, the footing was soft after the torrent... And ya know. After all these years, we both have a good feel for what we need to do, what we want to do, and how we wanna get there. 

jump 6: weird splits
(it's split rails, guys, c'mon, we tried hard with the names!)

So we proceeded in a fairly straight forward manner to essentially school the full course. Which, it's worth noting, is not really a "normal" thing in this area.

girls night water option, woot woot!

Actually, it's downright RARE around here to be able to school a venue's jumps from start to finish in advance of a horse trial. And, not gonna lie, it kinda felt a little bit like cheating. 

nice little stack-o-poles if water ain't your thang

But, eh, fuck it, right? It was fun! And that's the whole point lol... Plus it made me feel confident!

jump 8: just allan...

Doozy was, obviously, a super star. Don't tell anybody my secret but... When I set the course, I did it with the explicit hope that I'd ride it with Doozy. Not to say I made it easier or harder, per se, but I did set it hoping to ride it. 

jump 9: it's better than bad log, it's good log!
(yea yea not a barbie reference but iykyk)

Most of these starter jumps are brand new too -- and omg SO CUTE!! The gal** who built us 9 new starter fences this year absolutely slayed in the construction --- straight up well built jumps, and also each of them unique in profile and style. And all built exactly 2' dimensionally -- perfect for setting to fit!

(**Fun fact: it's a very female-forward event, with lady organizers, ground jury, designers, judges, and even one of the builders now!!)

punky knows!

Doozy hasn't actually done any 2'3 classes yet... But, eh, I figured that these are very nice jumps, and should therefore jump well. And ya know, she's brave and seems to enjoy the job!

not gonna lie, it was really useful to FINALLY get to actually ride jumps i set

So we went out and jumped 'em all. Doozy had about a month off from jumping after Thornridge, when she got kicked a couple times, and we've kinda eased back into it. I haven't really let her out to go canter courses again yet. 

jump 10: stereotypical bench

And I didn't for this schooling, either, even tho she made it a bit clear that she felt somewhat constricted at times. But actually, weirdly --- I like the way she's telling me she feels constricted. Bc she's being so honest. So genuine. Even as she's like, "ugh this fucking trotting everything is bullshit!1!", she's .... still getting better at it!

jump 11: barbie dream house!

Which, honestly, is the whole point. I want her to keep getting better at arriving to her fences. And patience is a key to that. I expect that at the actual horse show, I'll let her roll on a bit more. And hopefully it'll mean we can find a good rhythm together... But at least with this "pre-work" she should have a good idea about what we're doing out there!

link to helmet cam video here

Anyway, virtual cookies if you read all of this lol.

the best time <3

It was a great ride with a great friend, and I'm so grateful this special little mare of mine was game to play!

my sweet little dream doll <3 <3

Wish us luck for the weekend that we can hold on to this feeling of really just enjoying and appreciating the ride together!