gymnasties with Sally!

Y’all might recall that we’ve kinda uncovered a few gaps in Doozy’s jumping technique in recent months, and especially as the jumps have gotten a little bigger. 

skeptical about the literally zillions of crows clamoring around us

Height alone does’t seem to pose an issue, but a couple times over fences with more spread — think, oxers or tables etc — Doozy has sometimes made her job a little harder through poor use of technique and form, particularly in her push off. 

 

who remembers when mare took an actual full HOUR to settle in her first time here?

Which, ya know. Yea. Not hard to see how an extremely athletic bold mare who has been jumping predominantly 2’3 fences for the better part of 2 years might have grown a bit lackadaisical about technique. We haven’t exactly, uh, challenged her. 

trottin around all civilized and stuff!

Plus, I also just don’t plain jump a whole heckuva lot. For a variety of reasons etc etc etc, a different topic for a different day. But ya know. It became plain to me that we should start working on technique basically immediately in the off season.

i thought she’d get fussy picking up for each turn, but she didn’t really!

And somehow, for once, fortune favored us with a serendipitous post from local legend Sally about doing gymnastics at Kealani! Perfect!!

look at that face omg <3

Y’all might remember that Doozy’s first* ever jumping lesson was here with Sally. And her second lesson was one of these grid days too, also with Sally, at a different local indoor. So I had a fairly clear idea of what to expect, and guys — it was perfect!

(*ok actually her FIRST first jump lesson was a random pop up clinic at home, but y’all know what I mean)

so much concentration haha

Doozy impressed me with her maturity on entering the ring — she really held her shit together and acted like a horse who is in and out of new locations on the regular. Which, obvi, she is. Tho it also helped that we had a barn mate ship in with us for the lesson. Doozy is always happier with a friend!

the whole reason we’re here: learning that fancy footwork!

All the same, I kept the warm up to a minimum bc realistically, gymnastic type work is intense and exhausting for the horse. And it was almost certain that Sally would have a complete progression she’d want to put us through, so no excuses for trying to squirm out early lol.

oooh, the first final oxer — a ‘spread’ question

Naturally, Sally DID have a full progression plan. The thing about riding with her is that she maybe isn’t doing a ton of tactical in-the-moment puppet-master style coaching, like Woodge or even Dan (long timers will remember). But she sets killer exercises.

reach for it, mare!

Especially with the grids, she’s constantly tinkering with them. Each trip is slightly different in important but easy-to-miss ways. From how she builds up each individual element, to how she slowly replaces the poles from solid white to start, to checkered contrast poles as you go.

easy peasy!!

As she makes one area harder — for example, adding length to the grid — she might make another element easier, like making an earlier vertical an X again. So every time is slightly different in a way that asks the horse to tune in, pay attention, and use their bodies well.

slowly progressing more elements into verticals

And Doozy ate it up, omg. She loved it, to the point where she was more or less perfectly civilized each time we picked up for our turn. Which, you may recall, is sometimes a tricky thing when we’re schooling xc, for instance. 

i wanted a more forward thinking horse when i bought doozy, and by gum, did i get one!

Obvi things like straightness can get harder in a grid as more elements shift to verticals instead of Xs. But none of that mattered for Doozy, she drew thru the grid straight as an arrow every single time. And not because I was like, riding her particularly straight either LOL.

bounces graduated to verticals too — this is hard work!

Turning in from the left was particularly tricky on occasion since Doozy has such a strong tendency to lean on her right shoulder… But it legit did not matter. Once she was into the grid, even if we had a slightly crooked line in, she flew straight. 

final oxer got a little taller, but a little less spread
but loooookie at that strong square even push from behind!!!!

I thought she’d get trickier to manage when the first element became bounces instead of a ground pole, but honestly she seemed to pick up the game so quickly that even tho she was super forward every time, I didn’t really need to ‘hold her back’ so strongly getting into the line. 

she’s a quick learner, too!

For my part, honestly mostly the only thing I thought about was “chin up” (per our recent clinic with Allison Springer) and stay straight. Even when the final oxer started going up, and I was like, omg that looks big tho… Just… Chin up, stay straight, and it was nbd!!

i think she likes this game!!

Final height I estimated to be somewhere in Novice territory — maybe not quite 3’, but maybe quite close. Certainly the largest thing I’ve jumped since Charlie, no doubt about that!

video of our last 5 trips down the line

And it’s so funny bc my barn mate and other lesson mates kept remarking how laser focused Doozy was for each and every trip. How she seemed to relish the challenge, and got better as the exercise became more demanding.

and a gif of the final trip too, for those of you non video watchers lol

Which, not gonna lie, is so exciting to me. I’ve long suspected that the actual “action” of this sport was never going to be the hard part for Doozy. It’s… all the everything else. Like how she had to hand walk around this same ring for an HOUR her first time here, but once she actually started jumping in that lesson, all the bullshit kinda just melted away.

#ProudBiscuit

Still, tho, I had kinda worried that maybe we lingered a little too long at Starter level, worried that maybe Doozy would get frantic and annoyed if things suddenly got harder. 

I don’t want to rush this horse tho. I want her to be my event horse for a long time, and have zero illusions about ‘moving up the levels.’ Realistically speaking, Charlie’s and my barriers to moving up had everything to do with *me,* almost nothing to do with the horse, and there’s very little reason to think things have somehow magically changed in the years since. 

But I *do* want to keep learning and growing, and this mare is certainly proving again and again that, actually, she likes this game too!!  

So. We’ll keep giving her the tools to succeed, keep chipping away at it. And hopefully, in the meantime, continue putting together a super fun little off season!