snacks with friends!

Anybody who’s been along for the ride with Doozy knows we had a bit of a bumpy start to the year last year. For a couple different reasons — firstly bc she’d been NQR with suspected hoof bruising on and off the whole winter; but secondly bc I kinda incorrectly assumed we’d be able to just pick back up where we left off at the end of the previous season. 

field trip with friends!!!

Which… lol. Is NOT how Doozy rolls, apparently! But we got our mojo back by breaking things down into more “bite-sized outings,” an approach that was also reaffirmed by none other than Boyd Martin himself. Tho ya know. Life is what it is, and we still haven’t really made it particularly far afield this spring other than a couple lessons.

doozy trying to act like the grown up of the group LOL

But this weekend we had the perfect opportunity to check all the right boxes: A barn mate has been eager to get her bebe young Morgan off farm for positive low key experiences. Obviously, renting the rings at one of our favorite local farms, Tranquillity, could suit that purpose nicely!

taking pictures of each other taking pictures of each other

AND it would be a nice venue for putting Doozy through her paces and jumping some “new” jumps, but without a full blown show atmosphere. Perfect!

bc having fun with horses is quite literally the whole point lol

Doozy doesn’t get to travel with friends all that often, but it’s always a good experience. Especially when that friend is a field mate and Doozy gets to remember that she can still focus on her own work despite maybe wishing she could socialize instead lol.

pictured: FUN!!

For our purposes, I tried to treat our warm up as if we were preparing for dressage at a show. My habit, to be honest, is to ride Doozy a little delicately at shows, just trying to keep an even keel etc, vs putting on a lot of pressure and amping up the tension. Which… ya know. Fine, right?

lol doozy is locked ‘n loaded

It remains true that our flatwork really is not good when the horse is very tense. It’s just a fact, it’s why relaxation is one of the fundamental pillars of dressage. Slowly, however, I like to believe that Doozy is learning to trust the aids, trust the connection, and hopefully learning to work into the contact even when tense, vs the two of us kinda just spiraling onto the doom loop.

wheeeeeee mare!!!

And honestly Doozy WAS super good throughout our flatwork! She stayed mostly on the aids, mostly in the correct bend(ish), and I was mostly able to stay present and active as a rider. We’re gonna call that a win lol.

ok i did actually set two jumps to BN height to at least say we did it lol

Because eventually it was time to play around with some little jumps!! I say “little” bc I only reset like three of them before getting on to ride, and only two to full height. But who cares, right? Certainly not Doozy! She’s just happy to be jumping lol.

we match the jump lol

We warmed up catching a couple little singles, then finished with a nice little 5-jump course. Nothing crazy, no related lines, just long sweeping turns to singles. Virtually all verticals, tho it is Tranquillity so there was plenty of boxes and filler etc. 

video of our little course here

And Doozy was so good! She was nicely forward and had a good feeling to all the jumps — none of the little rhythm disruptions in the last few steps like we had at the lesson with Sally a couple weeks ago. And it felt like I could find a decent balance of not holding her too backwards if I could focus on letting the hind legs travel.

straight cheesin’

All in all, quite a nice little ride. Nothing earth shattering, LOL, not perfect. But fun, positive and productive! And that’s all it needs to be, right?

no hour wasted, amirite?

Especially since my barn mate had such a positive experience too! She’d already had her mare out on some off farm adventures last year, but they were always alone and the horse was often quite stressed — especially by the trailering. Having our two horses together for this trip seemed to really help, and both horses finished the day at the trailer, including loading up to go home, looking relaxed and confident.

good girl, Doozy

Slowly but surely, Doozy is figuring out the job, realizing that it’s not getting harder or crazier or anything like that, nothing really changes even when we go other places or other horses are around. It’s just the same old thing, no big deal, no muss no fuss. Well. Eventually hopefully it’ll be “no fuss,” lol. Maybe.