shakin the rust off

So! With the mare settling into what seems like consistent soundness over the last ~3 weeks,* we decided to test the waters with a fun low-key outing to our most favoritest summer CT series!

(*Maybe it’s the Equioxx kicking in? Or the changes from the shoeing? Regardless, I’ll take it!)

d’aww, somebody is excited for breakfast <3

And boy oh boy, it was a day!!

Let’s start with the good: We did it, yay! The mare pulled through when it counted (sorta!), in what were, ahem, undeniably tricky conditions.

The bad: those conditions, oof. It rained about 2” overnight and everything was completely water logged, including the grass jumping rings.

The ugly: A whole contingent of barn mates entered the show too — which is awesome! — including 3 of Doozy’s current or former field mates. Doozy straight up melted down, and threw ALL her toys out the pram when she realized her friends were there. Which, natch, was just as we went up center line for dressage. She also never quite recovered from the shock and was legitimately a nightmare for the rest of the day. Fun!

being her sensible + polite self at the trailer, pre-meltdown 

All these weeks months I’ve been stressing over her soundness and avowing that she’s such a cool horse, the horse that I want, the horse I’d do anything to keep sound! And whoops, here we are and she’s sound and I’m like, ‘wow ok maybe she kinda sucks* sometimes tho’ lololol….

(*Don’t worry, guys, I still love** her even if she was a straight up violent psychopath.)

((**I reserve the right to change my mind at any time tho!))

staring *directly* at the camera bc it was attached to OMG FRIEND

But ya know. In the grand scheme of things, it was always going to be a hard day. Bc Doozy is… not the super easiest horse, at least for me and my skills. But of all the days, of all the places to sorta get out there and shake the rust off — however rusty we may be — this was basically ideal. 

I love this venue, the vibes are so positive and chill. Doozy has been here plenty for lessons plus a couple CTs last year. And sure, it’s kinda embarrassing to be among so many familiar faces like, “Yea I’ve had this horse for almost two years now and she’s still totally crazy and maybe kinda occasionally dangerous…!” But eh. Who cares, right? 

hard to tell but the ring was pretty mucky after 2” of rain overnight

We know from last fall that Doozy can settle down and behave herself, we just kinda gotta work through the process again. I had really hoped to just keep the momentum going through the winter — with our Sharon White clinic, some eventing derbies at Loch Moy, a few other clinics or jumper / dressage schooling shows, and then bam! right back at it in March. 

But ya know. Obviously none of that happened. And instead most of winter and spring have passed by quietly, with just a few little outings to show for it. C’est la vie!

why yes, it IS another picture of us walking around lol

Our most recent little outings, tho — lessons with the new local 5* trainer — have been paying dividends. We’ve mostly been working on what blogger Which_Chick referred to as “remedial trotting,” staying almost entirely on 20m circles and working on the finer points of shoulder control and micro-yielding in and out. And it’s working!

For our dressage warm up at this CT, I really focused on holding myself accountable and riding as if this test was the most important part of the day. As opposed to my normal habit of sorta shrugging off our suckery by dismissing the dressage bc “we’re here to jump!” No no, for Doozy, the flat work needs to be front and center, always.

ridiculous critter

The warm up wasn’t perfect, tho. Doozy definitely felt more tense than she’s been at home lately (like for instance, in that video y’all watched a couple weeks ago). And then of course she saw her friends on the way from the indoor to the show ring and… yea lol. All bets were off. 

I’m still proud-ish-sorta of how I rode, tho. Like, sure, I did slip more into survival mode than I’d intended. But eh it’s going to take a lot of practice to keep riding strongly and intentionally even when the mare gets so fragile and tight. 

here’s video of the test bc… eh. it exists. 

The parts that went well, tho? Go figure, it’s the stuff we’ve been working on in the remedial trotting lessons! Sure, I kinda lose her shoulders toward the gate in our first trotting circle, but it’s not terrible, and not so bad that she was able to slip into canter. By and large, most of our circles stayed mostly on the tracks I intended (vs kinda just whipping the mare around the figure), and even our final center line turn was fine!

click to see full size

The transitions were fairly prompt too! This is the BN-B test, which calls for canter in the corner going into the short end, with right lead coming up first. Especially with Doozy’s BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WORLD standing off in the distance from that corner, and given that the end of the ring is demarcated only by small little white poles, I had what felt like realistic concerns about unplanned ring exits. 

But no, Doozy was fine! Stayed on the lines I rode her, stepped into canter when I asked, and actually the down transitions were more or less in the right spots too. So. Ya know. Cool, we executed the pattern. The relaxation and steadiness are absolutely worlds away from what I know they can be, obviously, but eh. For now I’ll take it. 

we are both slightly surprised to have gotten to this point

And anyway, all hell broke loose basically immediately anyway. Doozy’s friend wandered off after we saluted at X, and the meltdown began in proper. Doozy screamed and skittered sideways like a crab and threatened to rear the whole walk back to the trailers. 

We had a super short gap to jumping, so my plan was to pause at the trailer to change bridles, then get back on and go straight down to jump. The changing bridles thing… proved to be a mistake anyway, tho. I’ve been riding Doozy more in the hackamore lately and she’s been so quiet and steady and wonderful in it — including with the little bit of jumping we’ve been doing. But… In retrospect, I probably should have predicted that it’d be the wrong answer for when Doozy is in full blown tension mode, behind the leg with a tightly retracted neck. It wasn’t the end of the world, but the nathe would have been better I think.

she jumped the first 3 fences with basically just her front end, and kinda either bunny hopped or stepped over with the hind end, oops

Tho. Lol. Bridle choice was pretty far from front of mind for…. uhhhh, about the next hour lol. Bc Doozy was, again, not to put too fine a point on this, completely psychotic by now. 

It was clear that I wouldn’t be able to get on again at the trailer after changing bridles, so instead I hand walked her down to the jumping area. With her screaming and dancing, and at one point rearing up and threatening to strike. I don’t **truly** believe she wanted to hurt me at any point, but she definitely was UNHAPPY with me being in charge. And plus. Whether she “means it” or not doesn’t really matter when the behavior is that dangerous. Sigh. 

she got better as we went

The next hour kinda unfolded in much this way. We got into the warm up area, close enough to the other horses for Doozy to get distracted enough to rage eat some grass (but still far enough away to hopefully be as minimally disruptive as a screaming horse can be). 

Eventually I was able to climb aboard, and we loitered around the in gate watching the BN class go. I tried to get Doozy over to the warm up zone but the footing there was completely torn to shit, and Doozy’s agitation about going back to the trailers seemed stronger over there. So, eh, we stuck around the show ring while they reset the course to 2’3, and finally in a moment of quiet, with no other horses immediately around, I asked if I could just take her in to the ring. 

finished strong, good mare!

It was funny, too, bc Doozy took a giant deep breath once inside the ring. Almost as if the ‘limbo’ of being out in the open loading zone was more stressful for her than being inside the contained ring where we do our work. Which… I honestly kinda expected the opposite from her, but hey, we’ll take it! 

So… I picked up the trot and just jumped the course. Our first three fences were pretty squirrelly, with the mare kinda pogo-ing over them, all front end and no hind push. Which I’m attributing to the hackamore not really giving her the freedom she needed when we’re both riding so tight. 

the last four fences were the best

Plus Doozy was maybe a little surprised to be jumping, and was possibly weighing her options at fence 2 and then definitely at fence 3 — a funny little off camber turn downhill past the in-gate. We made it over them, tho, and then over 4, which happened to be in the boggiest portion of the ring. Bc again, reminder, the footing was totally water logged. 

It’s easy to watch the footage and think I should’ve let her go more forward. And, ya know, maybe I should have. But… with the footing being that unstable and the distances in that triple line animated above being a bit unforgiving… Idk, the last thing I wanted was to slide into a fence. 

helmet cam video bc it’s kinda fun lol

As it was, the last 4 jumps were set up to be a really nice confidence building finish. I think if the ground was better, it would have ridden 3-3, maybe 4-3. And I actually wondered for a moment if Doozy would do the 3 on the way out. But she fit in the 4, and then was her perfectly locked on self to the final end jump. Yay, good mare, you did it!

this was literally the easiest part of our day LOL, siiiiiiiigh

It’s so funny to me how the “hard” part of the day (the actual jumping test) is actually the easiest for Doozy. Like, I just knew that as soon as I could get her mind on jumping, she’d forget about her BEST FRIENDS OMG and focus. And that’s exactly what she did!

Well. Briefly, lol. Bc then she was a nutter going back up the hill toward the trailers, and a complete spastic pest at the trailer for getting untacked and sponged off. Tho luckily at this point one of her friends was parked nearby and just chilling, so I took Doozy and her feed pan full of forage over to that trailer to just calm down and rage eat for a bit before going home. 

sweet* mare <3
(*pre-meltdown)

So ya know. It was a day lol. And we did the things, yay! And the training is sorta working, double yay! It’s just… all the everything else… that needs work. My hope is that repetition and exposure will do the trick. And in the meantime we’ll keep the actual ridden parts easy and accessible enough so that we can get around even in full blown meltdown mode. 

Tho, uh, hopefully our next outing will involve fewer of Doozy’s BEST FRIENDS OMG so she can maybe focus a little better lol.