mdht pro pics

Happy Tuesday, y’all! I’ve been fighting off some nasty weird little head cold for the last week, and still feel like my head is plugged full of cotton stuffing…. Foggy fuzzy and fatigued. It’s lovely, lemme tell ya…

loving the fiery mane here <3

Life goes on, tho! We made it out for another jump lesson with Sally, and I spent a lovely day this past weekend volunteering at Morven Park. Plus Doozy has been working hard and well in our schooling rides!

opinionated but #dointhething!

Maybe I’ll write about all of that! Maybe not! We’ll see!! In the meantime I’m about to head out of town for a quick work trip (blergh), so instead of trying to arrange any sort of deep thoughts, let’s just look at the pretty pictures that arrived this week from our season opener at MDHT!

halt, salute

Purchasing the prints care of Erin Gilmore Photography continues to be the best deal, and not gonna lie — I kinda not-so-secretly love having an ever growing collection of actual physical images that I can rotate thru my albums or stick on the fridge or give to my mom. 

aaaaaand they’re OFF!!

And the photographers caught some nice ones, too!! Unlike Doozy’s and my first foray at BN, wherein I endeavored to manifest cool calm collected vibes via an extremely causal outfit, we actually wore our full normal show gear this time. Including one of our pretty blue coats for dressage!

a little launch-y at the first

For whatever reason, I usually don’t bother… But also for whatever reason, I felt like it this time. Go figure. Makes for nice pictures tho!

fully into the zone by seven!

We got some decent shots from the jumping too!! Especially compared to last time! I don’t always feel fantastic about Doozy’s and my combined technique in the jumping, not gonna lie. 

so nice i liked it twice lol

But ya know. We did a lot of gymnastic practice this winter, and we’ve been getting more serious about jumping lessons in general too… 

pretty mare <3

And a funny thing about practicing more is that… ya know, it usually helps LOL.

stepping just on the edge of the ditch rather than inside…. #progress

The photographers also caught most of the action from the second half of the xc course too — out in the big main field. 

ping!

There was that lovely little series from the ditch thru to the water and then to the finish line, although sadly none of us actually going thru the water. 

we admittedly did not get the best shot at this boat, but it was nbd

And also slightly sadly, this was the place on course where we had our little miscommunication — we jumped the boat out of the water a little awkwardly and landed way off the line to the next jump, had to do a circle to get back on track, but then had a stupid runout bc I apparently lacked sufficient conviction lol.

i love her expression here — this is right after our oopsie runout

Nbd, tho, Doozy obvi jumped it just fine on second attempt — with this picture being a good reminder for me to not take anything for granted!

easy peasy thru the finish!

What a sweet expression she always has in the jumping tho <3 <3 <3

Obvi the pictures, like the scoreboard, only ever tell part of the story, but it’s a part I’m grateful to have captured!