loch moy PYT / blue ribbon rounds

So! Last we heard, Doozy and I would be embarking on more “bite-sized” adventures, with the simple goals of:

1) Get out and do the things I love doing! But,

2) In such a way as to help Doozy be a little more successful.

At the end of the day, whether you view it as drawing the ‘short stick’ or a ‘winning ticket,’ Doozy’s lot in life is with me. So. We persist lol.

the weird semi-feral barn cats stalked around wondering what i was doing at the barn so early lol

I opted to somewhat impulsively sign up for another one of those “Pick Your Test / Blue Ribbon Jumpers” days at Loch Moy. Recall we went to one of these last September in advance of our little Fall season, wherein Doozy scored a 42% in dressage and had two rails in the 18” class. Well. Two rails and also remember those weird kinda stuck moments she had mid course? 

Anyway, tho, that had been a great day for us to just get out and go through the motions at a big venue but without the BIG atmosphere. And this weekend proved to be more of the same! Sure, there were probably somewhere between 60-80 horses onsite by the time we left, but with our early times (by design!) we were just the third trailer to arrive and shared the giant warm up with maybe 3-4 horses.

my unsuspecting victim, enjoying the good grass from all the rain this spring!

AND! I asked new local 5* trainer to meet us there for basically a glorified lesson in warm up for dressage. A couple benefits from this: 

- Coaching might realistically prevent me from sliding into survival mode, while also keeping me more effective and timely in my approach and application.

- Also, it’d be a good opportunity for her to see what changes vs what stays the same for us in a show environment. 

finally replaced the little pop-in fender lights on my trailer! it felt so naked before lol

Realistically, Doozy is a funny horse to coach, I’m convinced of it. She’s hot and WILD, sparks fly, she whistles and sizzles throughout any given ride when pressure is applied. But — of critical importance — beneath all that is a very good girl who is trying to listen, trying to color inside the lines, and who has never yet pulled a single dirty or disingenuous move.

For as much as I call her a crazy pants psycho… She is NOT mean, and NOT disinclined to… do the things, per se. She just… wants to do everything as fast as possible lol, nbd.

waiting for woodge in the drizzle
(i feel like that sounds like some sort of weird slang phrase my 13yo nephew would say LOL)

She’s a very smart horse, with a very amateur trainer. And as such, she’s maybe kinda learning the rules in a more disjointed manner than is ideal. In dressage, she doesn’t try to leave the ring, she lets me steer her. Goes through the pattern etc. Just ya know. Seems to want to canter the whole thing lol. Almost as if she thinks she can win by getting through it fastest lol.

dressage video: hilariously (and accurately) complete with real time coaching commentary for all of our reviewing pleasure 

(and no, i wasn’t wearing ear buds, it was just for future study purposes lol)

This test was far from our best, and not quite as good as our warm up. Tho, the warm up itself wasn’t our best either. But also far from our worst. It’s all about perspective, y’all. Media is super limited, tho, so I’m plopping the video up first bc we got bare bones from show jumping. 

So go ahead and watch, and draw your own conclusions, and also maybe have a giggle or two at the video commentary — which basically is exactly how the lessons go. 

pictured: a rare shot of us *NOT* cantering during our test

Right off the bat in our warm up, I was relieved that the new trainer’s approach was basically that — this is NOT training at home. We ARE at a show, and there IS a clock ticking. So we need to help the horse be ready for that moment, vs taking however long we’d need to achieve the best results in training. 

I think there’s still room to optimize the approach to prioritize relaxation… But let’s be real, that’s the holy grail today, tomorrow, next week, next year, forever with this mare. She was not relaxed in the warm up, but we did have a few really solid moments, it got better as we went, and the coaching helped me figure out some better techniques for physically guiding Doozy into balance vs just spooling out. 

ok at least we are cantering on purpose here

For me, the most exciting bit was that there was not a *single* little explosion or dance move — the entire day. No running and leaping, no fireworks, and also none of those weird “stuck” moments. Just run of the mill… tension. Still gonna call that progress!

Doozy definitely got a bit away from me in the test itself, and slipped into unintentional canter at least 2-3 times. Then, somewhat hilariously, almost missed our first proper canter depart, on her good lead at that LOL. We got it tho, just in time. 

Down transitions were, uh, slow to develop — at one point we literally went nearly from canter to free walk, tho natch in free walk I always try to make it a big point to chuck the reins at the mare like, “Look I swear! I can let go, she can walk” lol.

the real-time coaching voice over in the video is priceless, not gonna lie

But anyway. It was a test. We got it done. Doozy wasn’t relaxed, but was maybe better than at St Augustine? Idk. We actually talked about whether I should be doing multiple tests in a row on a day like this, but she wasn’t sure… This is kinda just how Doozy goes right now, it’s not going to be better inside the boards than out. Doing a bunch of tests in a row could be likelier to mentally blitz the horse than anything else. Instead, she agreed with the frequent ‘bite-sized’ outings approach for now.

cantering on purpose again! hilarious in the video when she’s like, “oh that was an ok transition! don’t get too excited tho!” lololololol

So. Anyway. The test was done. And for once I gave it the proper attention, preparation and coaching it deserved. Not that it made a difference necessarily in the day itself, but perhaps will serve us better in the future. 

Next up: show jumping! We had about an hour’s wait before our height class went, so we just chilled out at the trailer — plus got to meet up with frequent volunteer and local reader Meredith, who has made various appearances over the years and had an absolutely ADORABLE palomino in the same jumping block. Spoiler for them — they had a great round and it was fun to watch!

mare goes from 60-0 in 3.2sec. just don’t try for like, 60 to 45 — that’s impossible

Y’all might remember last year when I went to this event, I didn’t feel like waiting around for the 2’3 class so we just sidled over to the 18”, got our round done (with two rails and those weird stuck moments) and went home. 

The way this event works is that they schedule time blocks for each height, with a fixed number of entries for each block. Riders are expected to arrive during their jump times, and obvi the whole thing is pretty casual and flexible (as evidenced by me just jumping in the earlier block last time). This time, tho, I was determined to be more patient and see the plan through. 

So we arrived just in time for the last few rounds of the earlier class before they reset the height. This was a nice opportunity for Doozy to just chill in the environment, even as the atmosphere increased around her with more horses arriving and beginning their warm ups. 

“not the worst halt”

Then, when I felt like it was time to start moving and the ring traffic level was favorable, we set off for our warm up. It also wasn’t perfect — but wasn’t far from our ‘normal good,’ tbh. Sure we were fast and rushing at times, but there was none of the inverted bolting to a deer leap like we had at St Augustine. Each warm up jump came up decently. So off we went for our full course!

I had walked the course upon first arriving and decided it was favorable for Doozy. Long bending lines, interesting short turns that weren’t hard but would keep us occupied, and plenty of room to just get out of Doozy’s face and let her find her balance.

helmet cam of our sj round. wasn’t perfect… but WAS completely devoid of the psycho crazy pants deer leaping we experienced at both SAPC + Thornridge. woot woot!

And that’s basically how it rode! I made a couple oopsies along the way — kinda needed too strong of a “whoa!” to jump 2 and got a scrubby distance as a result, tho she jumped it fine. An improvement would have been to use more bend instead of pulling to avoid shortening the neck so much. 

I was also too ambitious in the long straight line from 3-4 after watching Martin Douzant take some giant gorgeous floaty WB thing down in eight strides… We ended up with a flat puke-y 8.5, whoops, I should have just asked her to wait more. 

But, after that, it more or less kinda flowed together. And we had an interesting feeling — esp to jump 7 — where in the last few strides to each fence I actually did feel like I could soften a bit without Doozy accelerating past her distance. Good girl, that’s the feeling we’re after!

“did i win????” — Ms Mondeuse

And holy mother of god — we JUMPED CLEAR!! And not for lack of trying, LOL, we rattled at least half the poles on our way around omg haha. But these are ‘blue ribbon rounds,’ so clear rounds get a blue ribbon. Something we only seem to get in this type class or when we are the only entrant… Ha, haha… But we’ll take it!

just kidding, don’t get too excited y’all — that 4th place ribbon is for our dressage test, scored using the Danish method, if that helps, uh, contextualize. and the blue ribbon was because i’m pretty sure they super-glued the poles into the cups for our jumping round, there is no other explanation for how we got a clear round LOL!

So, overall, a good day with what were hopefully more positive and additive experiences. And all wrapped up and ready to go home by 11am — who doesn’t love that?

Not gonna lie. I’m much happier to write about opportunities for improving overall performance in our outings, vs writing about only barely managing to get through it at all — as in our last couple events. And obvi, much MUCH happier to be at events at all, compared to this past winter of NQRness. 

Here’s hoping for more (and better) to keep coming lol.