points for consistency

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope you had a nice weekend! Doozy and I have been busy gathering the ingredients and starting prep work for a nice little fall season (touch wood for us) — you saw last week’s xc schooling already, and there’s been another lesson with longtime dressage trainer C. 

Sadly I haven’t gotten around to writing about it, and without compelling media may not ever… But it was a good one, with Doozy really starting to understand the work. At least, ya know, when I’m under direct supervision of a coach who instructs as if by puppet mastery lol.

idyllic morning with almost a light chill in the air!

Regardless, it was a good lead up for our favorite combined test series at Thornridge! I really love this venue, the vibes, the schedule, all of it, and also was somewhat eager to prove that our less-than-stellar experience here last May truly was a rusty fluke. 

Verdict? Mare was absolutely back on her best behavior this time, good girl!

less idyllic: pic taken from within pasture, taken of pony without pasture, oops
fortunately he was recaptured without too much fuss or delay! 

I opted to stick with Starter level (2’3) for the CT bc, to be completely honest, that height feels so comfortable and easy for us, and I really appreciate not stressing about it. We still haven’t accomplished much in the way of jumping in lessons, and I’m reluctant to push too many boundaries on my own at this point. That’ll likely come up in conversation at a lesson in the near future, wish me luck lol.

safely arrived!!
also: when #hoarding pays off: she’s wearing an old stained trailer saddle pad bc somehow i legit forgot to pack a nicer one, oops.

Regardless, tho, I also opted to add a second dressage test to our dance card — with a request to ride the tests back to back, or close to it. Idk about you all, but sometimes I get halfway thru a test before realizing that.. Hm, but what if I considered being a more *active* participant in this exercise??

Plus, so much of Doozy’s tension seems to come from anticipation. She’s so smart, she knows what’s coming, and she just gets so fizzy when she thinks she’s being held back from the inevitable. 

rode through the test twice in a row, back to back, trying to help her understand that it’s just a game

So I figured, we’d go through the first test and do our best, but realistically just do whatever Doozy was gonna do. Then, take a deep breath, reorganize, and go right back in and do it all over again. Like maybe if Doozy better understands the pattern, she’ll better understand why I make her wait to canter?

she’s got the ‘free walk’ trick figured out, tho!

Who really knows, honestly, except that I felt a lot better about our second test. Sure sure, it’s virtually indistinguishable from the first in allllmost every measure LOL, we are (for better or worse) extremely consistent. 

But there were a few key moments in the second test that made me feel it’d been a positive experience to do two in a row. 

trotting the other way, i swear i’m trying so hard to bring my shoulders back, sigh

For example, Doozy slipped into our right lead canter in the first test a fair bit early, tho it was close enough that I let her roll with it instead of fighting her back down then pushing back up again. In the second test she was more patient and waited until I asked (at which point, I naturally biffed the cue and we picked up the wrong lead, oops!). 

trying to be better at cantering too

A few other times, it felt like I was able to soften and push my hands forward into the bend, and in the second test she was likelier to soften with me vs spurt off or fall out onto her outside shoulder as she had in the first. Down transitions seemed to come a little more easily as well.

remembering to salute, yay me

Overall, tho, the scores were very similar — with comments mostly revolving around tension, too quick a tempo, and the overall balance being against the hand. 

video of first test, 40.7%

video of second test, 39.3%

we are remarkably consistent LOL

You can decide for yourself, tho, since both tests are on video, yay! IMO, I’m happy with both tests and believe both are an improvement on earlier tests this season, even if they’re still sorta objectively bad. 

I swear Doozy is learning to soften her top line and come into a lovely contact in lessons, but as with all things with this mare and me, it’ll take the time it takes. And that’s all good!

click for full size. 1st test on left, 2nd on right

And anyway, it’s hard to argue when that same tricky tense beasty transforms into an easy, straight forward and fun horse to jump around! 

anyway, onto the fun part!

Like sure, she’s still tense and all that for the jumping — but I honestly believe she just better understands it. Like it makes more sense for her. 

And something about just letting her canter on in a rhythm is so much easier than the starting and stopping of frequent transitions or the “one jump at a time” type exercise we’ve done in lessons. Bc once she’s in a rhythm, all the bolting and chaos seems to melt away.

this course always features some slightly funny turns and angles, but doozy was aces despite some pilot steering errors

Anyway. I felt decidedly positive about the course after walking it in the morning. Nothing terribly technical, but a quite proper 3 stride uphill line, and naturally all the same eccentrically off-kilter terrain and turns we’ve come to expect in this charming little grass ring.

we had a funny little uphill 3 stride line so it was worth getting our shit together before approaching

And Doozy warmed up like a super star! Like, was hot and touchy and tense, but also just proceeded with trotting the X, cantering the small vertical, cantering the large vertical, like she absolutely understood the assignment. Good ‘nuff, let’s go do the course!

she’s got such a great stride length, esp when i can trust her to travel forward

And she just… did, lol. Literally every jump was perfect. No notes, good mare. 

Well. Ahem, maybe a note or two for the pilot, uh, *me.* Namely: I was super careful to get deep into the corner past the in-gate for that weird off camber turn to the black and white vertical at 3 — the tricky ground often makes this an awkward jump. We got a good shot at it, tho, except that even with all that space I’d given myself, I hadn’t planned a good line to the next jump and ended up needing kinda a big readjustment to get straight to 4. 

locked ‘n loaded!

Doozy made it over 4 just fine, but all that disruption meant that we landed too disorganized to make the turn to 5 (the far end jump). Like we allllllmost got there, I think if I’d asked Doozy to jump she would have, except that the combination was coming up next so… 

Eh, I just accepted that we’d missed the turn — technically you’d call it a refusal but I don’t think Doozy ever really had a chance, let alone realized she was meant to get there — circled around, caught it on a lovely balanced stride, then proceeded in the perfect rhythm to walk up the 3 stride line easy as pie.

nailing the final jump, easy as pie

Final little arc to another left lead end jump, and voila — a beautifully jumped course! As far as I’m concerned, the only mistakes we made were my own, which is my favorite type of mistake. There are other nitpicky details beyond steering that I’d love to fix in my style of ride too… But ya know. That’ll be part of the future conversation re: lessons.

video of show jump round

And in the meantime, I remain so pleased with this critter, in the face of what could be understandable temptation to be frustrated by the flat work. But ya know. The sport is hard anyway. And we have extensively documented history that dressage is not exactly my personal strength… Plus, Doozy has proved to be a bit uniquely challenging for me overall.

But!! We are doing things!! And things are my favorite thing to do!! So, we persist lol.