evening xc

I work at a consulting firm full of type-A geniuses, each a master of something—and everyone’s got an analogy for everything. It's like a sport: who can pull the most perfectly relatable client story out of their hat, fastest. My boss, in particular, is fond of saying, “If you’re resting on your laurels, you’re wearing them in the wrong place.”

arrived just in time to enjoy pleasantly subsiding temps + humidity

And ya know. I admit to spending maybe more time than was quite necessary basking in the glow of our wonderful Loch Moy experience last month… But. Eh. It’s been hot, I knew there was work travel on the horizon (happened last week), and let’s be real: we’re allowed to be adult amateurs who can sit back and rejoice after doing a “big thing” every now and again, right? It’s all good.

the helmet cam always makes evening look so majestic!

Tho I’m also trying to really learn and understand all the various components that help create wonderful positive experiences in the first place. Namely, for us (and me and my mental demons in particular), it seems to be steady consistent “bite-sized outings” where everything feels easy and routine and mundane and normal. 

With that in mind, I spent some time calendaring the next couple weeks between planned lessons and other outings, with an intent to balance Doozy’s trailer schedule, and decided that last night was the night to pop back over to Tranquillity for a little trip around the xc course.

not a new jump, but a good one

By now we’re all kinda familiar with the routine, right? Tranquillity just makes it so darn easy to get out and do whatever needs doing. I actually decided to warm up in one of the outdoor rings too, more or less to try to keep myself as honest as possible. 

It wasn’t a perfect warm up — Doozy definitely knew what was up and was distracted by other horses (and deer) milling about the property — but honestly it was totally fine, and she popped over the little x-rails setup in the ring as quietly as she ever gets. Good ‘nuff!

brief interruption orienting the uninitiated to Tranquillity’s inviting layout: we parked next to the two big outdoor rings along the driveway, warmed up in the third outdoor (spiral), then basically made a circuit around the various fields (notably, the hay fields only ever really have jumps on the edges if at all).

Then we were off for a nice little jaunt about. Just trying to find the jumps nicely, reminding myself to circle and get balanced whenever necessary, and trying to keep everything easy breezy. 

We started with mostly logs, but honestly Doozy was jumping fine — if a little fast and excitable. Bc, erm, it mayyyyyy or may not have been our first proper jump school since Loch Moy LOL. All good tho. 

oooh putting this together is new for us, tho!

I knew from last time that as much as I like putting little lines together, Doozy sometimes seems to do better with single jumps when she’s feeling too hot to trot. Tho, interestingly, on this particular night, we actually had our very best set of jumps after what was a nice long straight run (the above gif) — just like what we’d see at an event. 

not a new bench either, tho got quite a nice little shot to it

So it’s not necessarily that she does better on singles vs related distances, but just that she does better when she has a fair amount of time to relax into a more forward rhythm and cover some ground. Which… Is hard to trust when the shorter approaches feel so choppy and explosive. But interesting food for thought, none the less.

ooh first time with this slightly larger ramp-y triple bar!

Anyway, in trying to process all that information in real time while also making snap judgments about whatever jumps happened to appear in front of us, I opted to finish the schooling with a little loop around three nice fences — two of which are familiar, and one that was slightly larger but also friendly, all of which would require some threading the needle thru the driveway trees. 

basic brown boxes are always good to us, even when i take a crazy tight approach LOL

And it was good! Tho actually I opted to throw in a last minute circle before the second jump (the new-to-us triple bar) just bc I didn’t totally love our level of straightness and canter, and preferred to circle, do a simple change of lead to Doozy’s left leg (just in case she found the weird water cooler jump on the left side a little spooky), and make it all a little more clear. 

walked over the little log bump

It obvi didn’t matter tho LOL, Doozy was fine, jumped it great, and then even jumped the final fence fine too even tho I turned wayyy too early through the trees and we weren’t at all straight. Oops. What a mare haha. 

omg there was swamp water for once!! we just snarfled through it, no real schooling

We stopped by the water mud puddle on our way back to the trailers just for the culture, more or less. Doozy was skeptical, as is natural — this ain’t exactly the world’s most inviting water complex. But she figured it out like the clever biscuit she is. 

link to quick helmet cam video here

In a way I’m kinda grateful to just have helmet camera lol, bc it hides so many imperfections and really just showcases the feelings and vibes of a ride. Which, ya know, are what core memories are made of, right? 

Like I could totally feel throughout the ride when my hands were misbehaving, or I wasn’t riding as straight as possible, or whatever other flaw you can imagine. But. Eh. That’s what the practice is for, I suppose! One little nibble at a time lol….