Doozy is such a lesson in patience, guys. It is slow going with me and this horse. For a lot of reasons, to be honest --- mostly having to do with just... who we both are, our respective strengths and weaknesses.
arrived early for a little hand walkies + grazies (amidst Loch Moy's iconic broken bridge, natch)
Realistically, we have a lot of important work to do just schooling at home and in lessons.... Buuuuuut.... Y'all know me, lol... A big part of my horsey habit revolves around getting out for fun adventures and horse shows and what have you. Doing the things!
I rationalize to myself that, for Doozy, getting out and about is kinda a skill unto itself too. That even as we work on just the basics of our training, she still has to learn about things like crowds and warm up rings and unfamiliar sights too.
So, as you may have noticed, for the last couple weeks we've been nibbling around the edges of that sort of exposure -- with the idea that maybe / hopefully we'll get around another horse trial or two before the year is up. And maybe even be proud of our performance lol. Maybe.
chill about the neighbors!
For this week's edition -- we attended a very low key affair at Loch Moy, one of their 'Pick Your Test / Pick Your Time Dressage Shows & Blue Ribbon Jumper' days.
Not really a horse show, per se, but also not a meaningfully different experience for Doozy either. Except from an atmosphere perspective -- just a fraction of the entries we'd expect to see at one of Loch Moy's starter trials.
survived (the very quiet) warm up ring without too too much drama!
So basically the perfect opportunity to familiarize with the venue and go through the motions of what essentially amounted to a combined test. My dressage time was 8:24, just the third horse in the ring, so we got to enjoy a very quiet (but not entirely vacant either!) warm up ring.
entered nicely enough! tho still got an error for forgetting the weird broken center line in this test
Doozy was more settled than she'd been at Swan Lake (which had a lot more buzz, obviously), but still very tense. No explosions tho!! We only really walked and trotted in warm up, and I tried to be disciplined in asking for more suppleness and all that... But you know how it goes.
got all of our leads in this test!! including in our accidental canters lol
And the test was fine. Like, obviously objectively not good. Doozy remains very tense, stiff and inverted. But I can also objectively see the slowly (so slowly) ripening fruits of all our labor.
oh-so-very-slowly growing up
The horse is much better about her line of travel. Starting to show bend that isn't just flinging the outside shoulder overboard. More balanced in her transitions (even the downward!). Better about canter leads. And overall a more consistent rhythm -- even tho we still break to canter accidentally on occasion.
free walkin
Fortunately / unfortunately, my phone storage filled up halfway thru our test, so only the first half was recorded (by a very kind bystander, thank you!!). And it was absolutely the better half. Things unraveled a bit by the end, but overall still a good effort. Still another notch on the belt, I guess!
oh mare.... one day!!
So we did the test and it was fine. Then went back to the trailer, where Doozy was an absolute civilized super star all day. Got brushed off and untacked and even hung out unsupervised for a little bit while I ran over to walk my show jump course. Good girl!
Like, for real, if behavior outside of the show ring was part of the final score, Doozy would absolutely be champion LOL.
Anyway, tho. The jumping rounds were set up in blocks, such that you basically just showed up for your preferred height's time block. I opted to jump in the first block, 18", mostly bc... Honestly the height doesn't seem to matter for Doozy and I didn't really wanna wait around another hour for the 2'-2'3.
Plus, this block had the benefit of being quite sparsely attended, so we actually got the whole warm up ring to ourselves!
no pics from sj, but here's Doozy #nailing the related distance that gave me heartburn!
Maybe that's sorta cheating in terms of trying to prepare Doozy for her next horse trial... But, eh. I was honestly happy for the quiet ring! The mare warmed up well enough, too -- again I tried to be deliberate in bending and suppling on the flat... Then we basically just hit the X and vertical each twice, then headed down to the in gate!
and also slamming on the brakes randomly throughout.... Ms Thing is tired of being made to trot, kthxbai
Doozy was great for the round. Not spooky at all about the ring (tho, you might recall she spent time in this ring last February for the arena xc schooling day), and quite good to the jumps.
Tho she is absolutely getting sick and tired of me making her trot to everything. She wants to canter, wants me to let her go, and is starting to put her foot down (literally) about it. I haven't made a big issue of the behavior yet, bc it honestly does not feel naughty -- but rather like she's just trying to figure out the rules and her feelings and all that...
In her defense -- the jumps I let her carry a canter to were all honestly quite nice! Like, not all perfect -- sometimes a little flat or funny on the distance, I think she had two rails again. But definitely better than this past spring.
And she was absolutely brilliant down the outside line from 2 to 3, which walked in exactly 4.5 strides and I expected to do in 5 trotting in. But she cantered in instead, and stayed straight as an arrow for an honestly quite pleasant 4 strides! And I was proud of myself for not panicking and getting her in face or anything too, yay me lol.
tense... against hand... crooked.... sigh. yep!
Like actually... It's been quite a few jumping sessions now since I've had one of my classic "pearl clutching" moments at takeoff. Which, let's be real, isn't bc I've suddenly gotten any better at riding to the distance or whatever lol... But rather Doozy just... has that natural forward-thinking desire to jump that makes it that much easier to just.... go with her.
she's a good girl tho!
So ya know. We'll take it! Another good learning experience in the books. And a great feeling to be back actually competing at Loch Moy again (first time since Charlie's final 3 phase <3 <3 in 2021) -- even the organizer and judge were excited to see me with a horse instead of just as a volunteer LOL!
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