a little course work-ish

As usual, I had all these good intentions of “getting on a schedule” with all my various favorite local pros this spring… But winter had other ideas. Fortunately, tho, spring is finally making itself felt, slowly but surely. And we were able to make it out to ride with Sally again at her most recent clinic day in Annapolis!

invisible mare camouflages with the “greenery”

And given our recent uptick in “normal work,” I had a couple key goals from this ride. Namely, to make all the steps in between the jumps — before, during, after, etc — count just as much, if not more than the jumps themselves.

It’s so easy to fall into nasty little ‘survival mode’ habits with Doozy, ya know? She’s so good at the jumps, and so… er, tricky, about everything else, that I often kinda just do the bare minimum before getting on with it. 

all the way in the back corner with her boyfriends, trying to manifest the mud into grass

And that worked well enough at our last couple lessons with Sally, which were both focused exclusively on gymnastics work. Gymnastics are demanding, intense workouts in and of themselves, tho they start gently and progressively. So it’s not the craziest thing in the world to do only a light-ish warm up before getting into it. 

But ya know. We have to address the trickiness eventually, right? And for Doozy to really understand her job, I have to be consistent in my expectations. Which, anybody who has been reading will know is a key theme in our recent lessons with Dan.

fast forward and we’ve arrived at Cheshire!

I’ve also been working on staying consistent with my expectations even when Doozy would rather be distracted. Like by other horses in the ring, ahem, cough cough. Our last couple rides at home were perfect for working on that too — as we often had a couple other horses in the ring with us, but usually Doozy’s favorite friends (like her Friesian friend and bebe Morgan field mate!) and their skilled, predictable riders. 

The ring at Cheshire is gorgeous but FULL of distractions — as every window opens out to lovely vistas where as likely as not, other activities are happening. Horses galloping in turn out, riders schooling in the outdoor, and naturally just the normal foot traffic of people and horses going hither and yon.

for once i have no media from a sally lesson, massive sadness :( 
here’s a shot from our last time in this epically gorgeous ring tho!

Doozy was a good girl, tho! Tense, distracted, but contained within herself and (mostly) on the aids throughout our warm up, trotting and cantering around with our lesson mates. Good girl, a nice reversion to “normal” ahead of show season and it’s associated warm up ring chaos.

I was hoping the lesson would be more course work, but we actually ended up starting with a little gymnastic grid first. Started as a single X, grew to a ~28’ two stride (obvi set quite short but rode fine on a waiting stride), finished with a bounce in to the two stride. After that, tho, we started picking up some singles off sweeping lines. 

and for shits and giggles, another shot from a different ride with Sally, our last time at Kealani

I had hoped for more course work bc frankly the transitions are part of the trickiness to riding Doozy. The starting and stopping then starting again is harder for staying connected on the aids than just cruising around, ya know? Tho, uh, if you’re silently thinking in your head that, ‘well isn’t that the whole point of lessons tho, to work on the challenging stuff?,’ then… yea, you right LOL.

So it was good practice. Doozy was definitely a bit of a handful throughout in these upward transitions — especially into the grid. Just like last time, she had a tendency to get almost a little stuck and up and down and sideways, vs traveling fluidly forward. I found it very helpful, tho, to stay laser focused on the steadiness of my position, tempo of my posting trot (at least for the grid, that we trotted into), and steady unmoving rein contact. Just repeating to myself, keep it simple, don’t overthink it. 

oooooh that face is strangely familiar!!

It got a little easier when we started picking up singles off sweeping lines. Mostly bc we could canter, and because the ring is big enough that most things could be approached from either direction if you really needed that flexibility. Doozy has a tendency to lean on her right shoulder, which can be tricky when tracking right and trying to establish that inside bend. 

She was also getting a little stuck in her rhythm upon being presented to the fences — with little disruptions a couple steps out that would sometimes take us off our distance or line. 

Tho our last exercise of the ride was maybe a bit better, because we strung together a second jump. So landed from the first — and it should be noted, Doozy actually landed nicely (for us) from everything all day long, vs spooling off into a bolt — organized, and turned to approach a second jump. She still made a bit of a rhythm-disrupting move ahead of that final jump, but it was overall more fluid than just the singles alone.

of course, it’s two Big Brown fillies!!! so stinkin cute, amirite?

I’ll also point out that, without exception, Doozy’s efforts over the jumps themselves were all quite nice. Her technique thru the grid was good, and each individual jump was handled easily and comfortably despite the occasional disruptions. And no knocked rails, good girl!

For my own personal confidence, I would have liked to do more course work… string more things together, more related lines etc… But then again, for the purposes of the horse’s education and advancement, I think the starting and stopping and repetition of “not overthinking it” into our upward transitions probably has more long term value. We know she can jump. It’s just… all the other stuff LOL.

One thing at a time, I suppose haha — and decent rideability through a lot of transitions in an unusual and super distracting ring is a worthy enough “thing.” Especially when you consider her last jumping session was an xc school!