another wild ride

Happy Monday, friends!! Anybody else staring down the barrel of the first full work week of 2026?? I enjoyed my time off for the holidays, don’t get me wrong, but ya know. Nobody would argue with another week or two… or three, lol….

any day can be a beautiful day when trailer snackies are involved!

Anyway, we made good use of our weekend with another jumping lesson with local legend Sally! This time at a different farm south of us, Cheshire Run. Long time readers might remember we came here a couple years ago too, tho we’d shipped out from the last boarding barn. 

spotted this tesla cyber truck outside annapolis L-O-Fucking-L

I also hadn’t driven that night, and for some reason kept confusing in my head the route with other barns in the area, so was curious to see what it would actually be like as a commute from our current boarding barn. And verdict? It was a super breezy straight shot down a couple highways. Granted, not necessarily super fantastic highways you’d want to drive during weekdays, and definitely not in rush hour… But was fine on a Sunday afternoon!

the welcoming committee at Cheshire Run bites lol. might pee in your trailer too!

This farm is so pretty, too — especially the indoor. It can be a bit impressive to horses, especially silly snowflakes like Doozy, bc there are windows everywhere, all looking out at different vistas. Doozy actually coped ok enough, tho, more or less!

“buckle up, butter cup!” — doozy, probably

Like, not perfectly, obvi. Never perfectly… Actually, ok who am I trying to kid — she was a bit of an explosive firecracker. So I kept our warm up relatively brief. Which, eh, may or may not be the right call. I never really know what the best approach is since we really haven’t done ‘normal’ jump lessons in… ever?

we did occasionally achieve “normal” moments 

As it was, tho, it was another gymnastics session! Which I didn’t know when I signed up, but obviously was super happy about all the same. And, realistically, with how chaotic Doozy was being, I’m not sure how a normal lesson on course work would have gone anyway.

just ya know. heavily sprinkled with Doozy’s patented wraith maneuvers….

On one hand, Doozy *hates* being made to constantly trot into everything, and has zero qualms expressing her dismay. Add that to the stark reality that she’s got an enormous amount of pent up energy after weeks of just sorta lounging around the round bale on nasty frozen or slippery ground… And yea. Much expression. 

but ya know. proceed, amirite??

On the other hand, tho, while the mare was as likely as not to turn herself inside out and upside down both before and after the grid, she mostly kept a pretty decent technique throughout each trip of the exercise. Which naturally — is the whole point. So perhaps this was exactly what the doctor ordered for her!

nothin to see here!! just normal grid things!

In retrospect, I wonder if maybe lettering her canter a circle or two before each trip would have helped take the edge off. Just to like, let her go a bit more forward first rather than just sorta immediately trying to contain her or hold her back? 

this arena is significantly larger than kealani,
so we had a lot of room to “victory gallop” at the end lol

Maybe next time I’ll give that a whirl. Tho ya know. It’s even odds she’d have been just as wild and explosive regardless haha. As Dom Schramm once said, you could power a whole house off this horse. There’s no getting around all that electricity coursing through her veins…

Emma: Lookin where i wanna go!
Doozy: that’s cute.

As it was, we more or less just proceeded with taking our turns down the grid. And fortunately neither of our group mate’s horses were particularly wigged out by Doozy’s antics!

gotta love it tho — she legit almost drops me,
then waits more or less patiently while i retrieve my stirrup

Sally’s main advice was mostly to just ignore the drama. Don’t get baited into it. Don’t indulge it. Just… proceed. No big deal. 

and then straight on directly to the grid again!

And it did get better as we went! Especially as the grid started getting built up and Doozy had to pay more attention. As far as Sally was concerned, we should feel good about continuing since Doozy was focusing in on the exercise — vs completely blowing us all off, giving it the finger, checking out, etc. 

only got two clips from our trips down the line, tho the grid stayed relatively simpler than our last lesson at kealani throughout 

Naturally, tho, Doozy loves complicated stuff haha. And this grid — even tho it was definitely a bit easier than our last time at Kealani — actually asked some interesting questions of Doozy. Particularly, the final element (which eventually finished as an oxer) was two strides from the bounce instead of one. 

doozy had to think pretty hard about fitting in that second stride!

And the distance was short. Like, not insane, but shorter than Doozy is generally inclined to do. But she did it! Every time!! Again, not perfectly — it was always a bigger first step and slightly squished second step. But she did it herself, and kept a decent shape while doing it, good girl!

anyway. back home again. the intense direct eye contact here kills me LOL

So overall, a good experience. We got off property, got to a “new” (sorta) place. Jumped some jumps. Didn’t get anybody killed. And practiced a new skill! Who doesn’t love that?? 

the actual silliest

Tho, Ms Thing was still pretty freakin fired up even after all that by the time we got home… and wasn’t quite ready to be put in her stall for the night. So here’s a gratuitous post script of my wildest child, getting in a quick pre-bedtime frolic LOL…

ridiculous critter

Warmer weather and better ground can’t come soon enough for either of us LOL! In the meantime, tho, it was nice to get out to a new place and especially to figure out that the drive was honestly pretty smooth! Hopefully it’ll be something we can do again in the future!

Happy Monday, folks!