busy biscuit

I know it might *feel* like I’m suddenly taking a shit ton of lessons right now… But actually, well. Yea. Ok we did kinda get a bit stacked up in the last two weeks between the gymnastics clinic with Sally, hosting Dan for a pop-up clinic at home, and now another dressage lesson with longtime trainer C… 

frosty biscuit!

It is maybe a little bit of a busier schedule than normal, but not really unheard of. What *IS* so unusual, tho, is the massive amounts of accompanying media!!! Bc as you all know, media is essentially the fuel powering this entire blog — the nuclear core of this living documentary.

lol she apparently wanted to be like @Opie

Realistically, most lessons are not earth shattering events, chock full of ground breaking discoveries or brand-new, never before seen or heard nuggets of wisdom. So in the absence of accompanying media, we kinda get the relatively sparse coverage from this past summer of nearly weekly lessons with local 5* trainer Woodge (who has since gone south for the season). 

fast forward a few minutes and we’ve arrived for our lesson!

Those lessons were incredible, and forged a whole new level of schooling and understanding in Doozy. But ya know. Zero media = not much to show for all that in a ‘blog’ sense. Until now, that is, when suddenly the stars aligned and I’ve gotten tons of media from other recent lessons that continue to build on this past summer’s work!! Much excitement!

absolutely #spoiled by my barn mate snapping so many sweet candids!!

And much thanks to a barn mate who tagged along to our latest dressage lesson with trainer C to see what all the fuss is about. She braved the early morning frosty chill and captured some REALLY cute pics <3 <3 Hopefully I can repay the favor in the near future by helping facilitate some fun safe off-farm adventures with her baby mare, one of Doozy’s field mates.

and she got video too!!!

ANYWAY, tho. All gushing about so much recent media aside… Let’s talk about the lesson!! So much easier to remember details etc with reference material too, amirite??

video is slightly choppy but in her defense, it was literally freezing out LOL

My last lesson with trainer C was in the closing days of December, about two weeks ago. It only got the briefest of mentions bc, again, no media. Doozy was, to quote that brief mention, a ‘hot touchy explosive diva’ in the lesson, including nearly launching me when another mare had the audacity to be slightly thunderous in her flying changes.

brave biscuit ain’t afraid* of no lounge window!
(*usually)

In Doozy’s defense, tho, we’d had a fair lull from off property adventures at the end of 2025 due to concerns about EHM, and she tends to get a bit uncivilized when not adequately occupied LOL. Flash forward to now, after a stacked two weeks, and the mare is all business, ma’am!

oooh doing more with the canter than just wild circles!

Doozy was quiet and attentive right away, and I tried to channel everything we worked on in the clinic with Dan about keeping everything always exactly the same, not over thinking it, just riding the horse forward connected to all the aids, legs on pushing into hand. 

trotted AND cantered one loop serpentines with correct adjustments to bend!!!

And go figure, this set us up perfectly for trainer C, who carried on with her constant mantra of establishing correct bend first, foremost, and forever. It’s crazy to me bc I feel like we’ve come so far in this regard, and in this lesson I could really feel Doozy connecting the dots with pushing her rib cage out off my inside leg. But even still, in the video you can clearly see there’s more to do, in both directions. 

she seemed to like the added complexity of new figures beyond just circles

Trainer C said to think of it as making Doozy longer along the outside of her body, while simultaneously sitting and sinking deeper into my inside seat bone and leg. Which, coincidentally, is another thing I’ve been working on seemingly forever that, yep, *checks video,* still needs more work.

practiced canter-trot transitions across the diagonal as well, good girl!

Ain’t that always the way with dressage tho! It’s always demanding ‘more + better’ lol… Even so, tho, one of the fun things about riding with a pure dressage trainer like C is that as soon as you can more or less consistently get around a circle in all three gaits, she likes to start introducing all the various figures and patterns common in test riding!

figuring it out

It can be hard to think about transitions, changing directions, bend, figures, etc, all that when Doozy is a hot emotional mess, but on this day she was totally game! So we practiced all sorts of fun things that are included in the video, like leg yields and one loop serpentines from trot, canter segments like what we’d see in a test (ie canter across the diagonal, trot transition at X), and even counter canter loops!

she looks pleased with herself, but she’s actually just transfixed by a herd of deer outside the window LOL

It was a cool feeling too bc obviously I was integrating the ‘half halt building blocks’ we’d just worked on with Dan (remember the halt and walk transitions we did along the rail, with steady contact, ankles and wrists connected and closed?), and it clearly ‘clicked’ for Doozy that the half halt meant something was coming, and she should tune in.

#obsessed with this sweet mare

Like the first time we cantered across the diagonal for a transition to trot at X (in the video), she clearly was just blasting across and not at all expecting nor ready for the transition. The second time, tho (also in the video!), she’d totally gotten the message, was ready, and actually transitioned so quickly that we were well ahead of the letter.

also my barn mate’s camera takes such nice pictures <3

Same idea for the counter canter loops — it was as if she realized that we’re doing new and interesting things in the canter, not just spooling around an endless circle. Doozy has always been a mare who likes to stay busy, stay occupied, and will otherwise fill the gap with her own interpretation of entertainment. 

My expectation hope is that she’ll maybe actually get a bit easier to ride as her repertoire of different exercises grows. Maybe she’ll be similar to Isabel in that she’ll just keep getting better the more complicated things get. 

We’ll see. In the meantime, it feels good to get on a schedule and to get so much media establishing where we are at this moment in time. Realistically neither the schedule nor the omnipresent videographer are likely to stay fixed or as consistent as I’d like… But we’ll enjoy it for now haha.