jumping with matt

We had another clinic lesson with 5* eventer Matt Brown this weekend, our third such lesson with him. It’s honestly kinda hilarious bc it feels like these three lessons fully encapsulate my three years with Doozy so far…

ready for action!

The first clinic was back in August, when Doozy was still only very recently coming back into “regular” work, and we’d cantered maybe once so far in the rehab. And she was more or less unhinged in that lesson — we were either walking or exploding into porpoise mode. And Matt not-so-subtly suggested we might need a little more ground work in our lives.

doozy was very mature about the trot poles — even tho they were cow print!

Then in mid-July we were starting to get back on track, and were able to have a fairly productive flat lesson focusing on lateral yielding and transitions, with only a couple little (and not-so-little) explosions along the way. 

jumping her itsy bitsy grids like a pro

Finally, tho, this go-round we showed up ready to jump! And with full confidence that we’d be able to present to him a more or less representative picture of our fullest level of training. Which is honestly a really good feeling at this point. 

got better on the landing balance as we went

You know how it is with horses and horse people tho… How people describe themselves — what they know, their experience level, etc… is, er, occasionally NOT entirely tethered to reality. Especially in a clinic setting, any good pro has to take whatever somebody says with a BIG grain of salt, and let context clues (like how the horse looks and goes) fill in the gaps. 

I always felt really good about letting Charlie kinda ‘represent’ me in that regard. Like, “Here is my horse: he is relaxed, nicely muscled, obedient, and nonchalant. We are ready for this lesson!” Doozy, on the other hand… Well. To be perfectly honest I just assume that most people get a pretty fundamentally questionable first impression of us. 

and another little X!

And ya know, c’est la vie LOL! But finally, for whatever reason, Doozy is fully present in Princess Land now. She’s calm and confident again in the work, and game for whatever! And kudos to Matt for more or less treating us accordingly — matching the flat work expectations to the horse in front of him.

slightly more enthusiastic about landing going this direction lol

Which, for our purposes in this ride, meant continuing to work on that lateral flexion and suppleness — especially in transitions. 

It’s so funny bc I swear I don’t show up and run down the full list of every single little thing we’ve been working on, but each lesson it’s like he magically kinda picks up right where we are. Last time it was introducing the transitions, and this time it was pushing the expectations on lateral suppleness and frame control. 

easy peasy over the swedish oxer of planks

He encouraged me to ask for more, even to exaggerate if needed to help the horse understand. Starting with long reins at the walk to get the mare stretching down, and then gathering in the contact while retaining the lateral suppling as she’s ready. Then picking up into trot but continuing the same feeling — helping the mare find her balance in a comfortable rhythm by releasing through her back and top line. 

finishing with another bebe grid

Same story with the transitions — slowly, gently, clearly but firmly: maintain the same degree of bend in up and down transitions, where Doozy is most likely to stiffen and tighten. 

And basically, this was our flatwork throughout the entire lesson — even as we started introducing ground poles and little jumps, the focus stayed on exactly this detail: clear soft inside bend, especially in transitions, before and after every jump or exercise.

doozy says it’s #tooeasy lol

And go figure, Doozy caught on quickly. She’s naturally a very balanced horse, and naturally wants to be balanced and comfortable. I think in the past when I’ve tried to do some of this flexion and frame work, I’ve been a little too restrictive and tight — which is what probably creates and intensifies Doozy’s tension and resistance. 

Perhaps the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction and I’m being a little too lax at times right now. But that’s kinda the way the training and practice goes, right? Regardless, Doozy understood the posture and was legit perfect almost every time thru the trot poles, good girl!

apparently unclear on how to buck under saddle LOL

Then we sorta just started piecing little jumps together. One at a time, then with each repetition adding on another jump to the little mini course. All kinda long sweeping turns to singles, nothing related (other than the grid), and circling in between to establish rhythm as needed. 

“just kidding, i’m fancy little snake” — doozy

And Doozy was super! Consistently establishing the soft bend at the outset helped her right away create a nice balance to take off for each jump. Tho for my own notes, I need to definitely remember to keep the forward feeling in this work too, always with the forward!

Our landings from the jumps were often a fair bit less organized lol, but even there Matt encouraged me to raise my expectations a bit — ask a little more clearly, a little sooner, and a little more firmly. He noted that she wasn’t arguing or fussing at all, wasn’t getting inverted or anything like that, so I didn’t need to be so worried about being delicate with her.

quick video from our last run thru

And, somewhat unusually for us, the more we repeated, the better it got. One of the host-barn’s boarders captured video from our last little trip around the course and it honestly looks decently well balanced all the way around. All the jumps came up super nicely — compared to some of the more skittery efforts we had at Thornridge for example. 

And the landings got mostly organized reasonably quickly. Tho, for whatever reason we kept landing the wrong lead and I was opting for simple changes to continue reinforcing the balance, and Doozy was wanting to get a little stuck and annoyed by that. Just something for me to be mindful of, and maybe practice staying forward even in those transitions.

the goodest girl, being #nosy about the parking lot

Overall, it felt like a super productive session and exactly what Doozy and I needed right now to reinforce the right feelings to practice. 

Sure, the jumps were all pretty small… which can be tricky for me bc I *know* that some of my bad habits only really crop up when the jumps are bigger… But Doozy doesn’t seem to care one way or another, and it’s honestly probably good for her to feel like it’s ho hum and easy — it doesn’t always need to be exciting LOL.

Regardless, Doozy’s first jump lesson since April is in the books! Feels good to be back at it!