Doozy and I made it to our second full 3-phase event of the season this weekend, woo hoo!! And another recognized show bc #yolo I guess haha.
why is it that show days are always the hottest days??
No real rhyme or reason at this point between choosing rated v schooling shows, just kinda doing what I want bc I can. Sure sure, some might argue that, just bc you can doesn’t mean you should… Especially when you consider our dressage results haha. But. Eh.
semi-related — new gear! added the ThinLine Perfect Fit half pad to try to resolve some nagging fit issues… more on that in another post!
We had a good lead up to the show, including another lesson with our new 5* trainer that finally included actual jumps, multiple in a row approached in canter omg. And our ride times were pretty pleasant, all things considered, tho it would be a long day with jumping scheduled right for the hottest part of an already-very-hot day.
snapped a quick braid pic in between spinning / rearing / sniffing while on walkies before dressage
Doozy was better on the grounds walking around than she had been at Loch Moy last month… Tho, she was worse in the warm up. Which was disappointing given how notably relaxed she’d been at this venue last fall.
This tension issue remains immensely challenging for me, and clearly for Doozy too. It’s like this impenetrable iron wall between me and whatever actual training I’ve managed to impart upon the animal. When she’s that worked up, legit none of that training is accessible.
post-dressage expression lol…. me too, mare. me too.
Some how, some way, we need to work on the ‘wall’ itself, developing some sort of key or method for backing her off the edge instead of ricocheting off every sound / touch / sensory input in a chaotic doom loop. Ahem.
Anyway, tho, as it was, we were in the chaotic doom loop in dressage warm up. And given that I don’t currently have particularly useful exit strategies, I accepted our fate and entered trotting cantering at A determined to at least stay present and active for the full test.
slowly getting ready for the jompies
‘Twas not a good test, with a few 3s earned presumably for cantering through all the trot work… Still got 6s on our walk tho, go figure lol. The actual canter circles flew by in a frantic flash, geometry was iffy, and the mare was just basically #NotHavingIt. Womp.
jompies!! they were… not our best LOL
And that feeling stayed with us through to the show jumping warm up too. Tho, notably, the mare was stellar for all the intermediary time, including going back on the trailer for a spell to escape the intense midday sun. It’s just the ridden part, she’s consumed by explosive anticipation.
the course did not suit us — this crazy line bumped you into two different jumps before even being able to present the intended fence (and this was after they’d removed more jumps from higher levels), but honestly that was the least of our problems lol
Tho in my defense, the warm up ring at Waredaca is a little tricky and she had trouble with it last year too. It’s lined on one long side by food trucks and vendors (all of whom always seem to have loud buzzing generators), and on the other side the actual show ring (divided by string).
They only permit 5 horses into the warm up at a time since the space is so narrow, and this tricks riders into rushing thru their jumping bc nobody ever seems to realize how long 10min actually is for jump warm up. So then horses end up clustered and congregating at one end, rendering the already-small space even smaller still.
jumping straight into the string divider for warm up, yay
That’s legit all excuses tho LOL. Bc I’m pretty sure with the horse I was sitting on, none of it really made a difference anyway. Doozy was explosive and bolt-y, and I opted to be satisfied with a couple decent enough efforts and just wait our turn with the rest.
good shot over the last tho <3
And our turn was… Well. More of the same. Less like Thornridge last week or Tranquillity last month, and more like St Augustine earlier this spring. It was a weird course with unintuitive turns that tempted the horse into locking onto the wrong jumps, then only seeing the *right* jumps at the last moment, lots of weird turns, oooh and one super long straight related distance.
i’m never sure how well the ‘frantic feeling’ comes thru on helmet cam
We went ahead and got it done, tho. Clobbered the first rail for no real reason as far as I can tell, tho took the 2nd too when we rushed up underneath of it. Didn’t touch anything else after that, but were sorta all over the place.
onto the ‘easy’ part — xc!
Not gonna lie, I was tempted to call it there… Except history tells me that cross country is Doozy’s strongest phase — lots of opportunity to settle into a rhythm and work together. Plus, she was honestly jumping reasonably well in her body (rushed distances aside, obvi) — no crazy deer leaps like at St Augustine.
i really liked this course! really flowy from one jump to the next — you can sorta see our next fence to the right on the ridge
And guys — this cross country course looked fantastic omg. It looked like **exactly** what I had hoped for from this well established multi generational eventing family farm. They have tons of terrain, but not so aggressive that lower levels end up squeezed onto unfortunate lines (which was sorta the case at Loch Moy last month) — so every track gets its own space and character.
trotted the little road crossing mostly to prove that i could
They also rotate the direction of the xc courses, so this event’s track started at the opposite end of the farm out by where they hold the steeplechase for the 3 Day Classic, then looped back around the pond in the opposite direction from what we did last fall. And like last time, they seemed to ‘pair up’ the starter fences to keep you focused and riding in between jumps.
cute little bending line from bebe ditch to coop! also for some reason all the screen grabs are super low-res compared to the video, sorry
All that to say — this was what we came for. So off we went to go do it! Doozy left the box a tad, uh, explosively, but settled decently to the log at 1. But then rushed a bit underneath 2 and I got more serious about enforcing a pace and rhythm.
Which naturally meant the lovely little midfield cruise they built for us went swimmingly, even tho 4 was at the top of a ridge and 5 was after a sweeping downhill turn. We trotted the road crossing anyway, tho, mostly just to get a nice 90* turn to the ditch option— animated above.
properly stout for starter!!
Then came another nice sequence of fences turning us back toward the pond, including a chunky table that definitely wasn’t on last fall’s unrecognized course. We got a great shot, tho Doozy landed in basically a dead run downhill toward the pond and our little up bank (straight ahead in the pic above, same bank we came down toward the camera last year).
trotting the dam… probably overkill but also probably the most trotting we did all day LOL
Idk what triggered that little episode, but I definitely over corrected for it by making the mare trot across the dam. In retrospect, I wasted a fair amount of time with the trotting and Doozy maybe would have gained more from being allowed to continue cantering, but c’est la vie.
look how friendly this water was flagged!! can pass thru the flags on dry ground, then school as you like without penalty (aside from time)!
As it was, up next was a lovely little water option that let us walk through the flags clearly on dry land, then ease into the water no muss, no fuss, no risk of 20 penalties. Again, I probably took more time here than was entirely necessary — tho, again, schooling these features is literally why we came, and imo Doozy definitely benefits every time she passes pleasantly through a water feature without stress or drama.
actual pillows on the bench lol
And with that, we were just about to the finish line!! First with an adorable and nicely sized bench — with actual real pillows on it omg. I worried they’d be spooky but obvi Doozy couldn’t have cared less — she was up and over and already on her way up the hill haha.
barns at the finish line!
Then came back to a properly pleasant canter balance to finish the course in good style, good mare! A few little blips in there, but basically all decent jumping efforts and A+ navigation of our bebe ditch, bank and water! A few time penalties too but, eh, that’s on me and my choices right?
the day’s highlight <3
All in all, another lived experience lol. We certainly did it. Didn’t, uh, do it particularly well, let’s be honest. But I’m still glad for it.
There’s plenty to unpack in terms of takeaways, homework, planning next steps etc. For example, it’s increasingly clear that a lot of what we work on in lessons seems entirely unreachable when Doozy gets so worked up. Whoever put “rhythm” as the foundational step before “relaxation” on the training pyramid has clearly never met Doozy lol.
We also have some routinely scheduled wellness appointments coming up too, so I’ll have a chance to pick more holistic brains about anything that might be triggering poor sensitive Dooz.
looking serene among her ponies the next day <3
In the meantime, tho, I’m allowing myself to continue feeling proud and grateful for this tricky little mare. Bc at the end of the day, there was literally never any doubt whatsoever that we could get around and probably enjoy ourselves while we’re at it. Which, we did!
And at this point in my riding life, being able to 1) do the thing and 2) keep learning while doing basically sums up my entire horsey pursuit <3 <3
This week marks two years since first meeting Doozy and bringing her home. She was three months out from her final race and still hadn’t begun the restarting process, after tangling in a fence at the adoption facility… But there was something about her that I liked.
Her inquisitive and interactive disposition, her desire to connect with the people (and animals lol) around her. A general sense of willingness. Plus I thought she was cute lol.
she had me at bonjour
We got off to a bumpy start, tho, when Doozy almost immediately developed a giant systemic infection, cellulitis, and subsequent hoof abscess in one of her injured legs. The mare was slow to recover, and my very pragmatic vet noted it could possibly be a recurring / chronic situation given the nature of the fence injuries.
So we spent those first few weeks working on relationship building and developing a shared vocabulary. Tho, readers from the time will remember I also put the mare on a 90 day probationary period — with the explicit intent to return her to the adoption facility if her lamenesses didn’t meaningfully resolve by then.
Fortunately, the lamenesses did resolve, and slowly but surely Doozy and I settled into the exciting challenging and rewarding rhythms of a growing partnership.
go everywhere, do everything, smell every flower
Our first season together was not without its difficulties — both in and out of the saddle, as evidenced by a midyear barn move. But Doozy successfully got me back into the swing of eventing for the first time in years, and blossomed throughout the year into the “go everywhere, do everything” type of horse I love.
This past spring brought more bumps, however, with a series of successive mystery on-again, off-again lamenesses. The nature of the NQR-ness was tricky to pin down, and multiple vet work-ups and exams were frustratingly inconclusive. I wrote about our approach and course of action back in April, when we decided on somewhat conservative (YMMV) adjustments to the mare’s wellness profile — including adding hind shoes and putting her on equioxx.
What I didn’t write about at the time, however, was that I gave the mare another ultimatum: a long enough runway for us to try one thing at a time to see what worked and what didn’t, enough time to turn over every stone (example: add hind shoes, reassess, consider adding wedges as a next step). But that if August rolled around and we were still on again, off again, signing up for stuff only to scratch in the warm up ring bc of lameness… Well. That would be that.
that moment when you ‘look the part’ but are rethinking… everything
Everyone on Doozy’s care team was looped into the plan. Not to put pressure on any specific individual, but rather to say, “Hey, if you have an idea, let’s game it out and give it a proper chance — one incremental step at a time, starting now.”
My vet also gave us the green light to go forth and keep the mare in work unless she was actively lame. Giving her a chance to stay the same, improve, or worsen (which itself could inform diagnostics).
In the meantime, I started researching options for the dreaded “Plan B.” Realistically, there are few ‘good’ options for an unsound red thoroughbred mare. She could go back to the adoption facility for a reasonable fee — but then what? What happens to this silly mare in the bottomless vortex of the OTTB resale pipeline? No no, that wouldn’t do. Instead I found a lovely little retirement farm (no riding facilities but plenty of grass) at a cost that would still let me get another horse and do occasional adventures.
i just want more of this,* pls (*except for the whole crazy pants meltdown that came later, obvi)
So. With a care plan and acceptable contingencies in place, August would be our moment of truth. And here we are: two years in, facing Doozy’s second big reckoning in as many years.
And our verdict? Well. Lol. Given that I’m posting already halfway into the month bc we were too busy with lessons and xc schooling and our favorite local show series… Well. That kiiiiiiinda says it all, amirite?
We might not have seen the last of the mystery ailment, but it doesn’t seem to point to a breakdown (given she’s been consistently better in her body this summer). There are no guarantees with horses, but for me, this is enough — especially considering the alternatives.
finding the joy <3 <3
And realistically, I love the shit out of this mare. She’s got me, hook, line, and sinker. Not that that’s hard — I’m pretty much a bleeding heart, after all. Keeping her would always be my first choice.
But it’s serious stuff, too. I know I’m not the only one sacrificing a LOT to have this type of animal in my life. We all know the adage about “keeping the main thing the main thing,” but feelings of guilt, disappointment, failure — or just plain stubbornness — are hard to get around when a horse isn’t working out. IMO, it’s important to normalize contingency planning, especially as an adult ammy with limited resources.
Getting back on this trajectory with Doozy — this experience of learning and growing my skills, getting out and challenging myself, pursuing the dream — has meant so much. She’s a special and exciting horse, for all her quirks and charms haha. Here’s to a happy 2 years and hopefully many more to come!
Happy Monday, y’all! Hope you had a nice weekend! Doozy and I have been busy gathering the ingredients and starting prep work for a nice little fall season (touch wood for us) — you saw last week’s xc schooling already, and there’s been another lesson with longtime dressage trainer C.
Sadly I haven’t gotten around to writing about it, and without compelling media may not ever… But it was a good one, with Doozy really starting to understand the work. At least, ya know, when I’m under direct supervision of a coach who instructs as if by puppet mastery lol.
idyllic morning with almost a light chill in the air!
Regardless, it was a good lead up for our favorite combined test series at Thornridge! I really love this venue, the vibes, the schedule, all of it, and also was somewhat eager to prove that our less-than-stellar experience here last May truly was a rusty fluke.
Verdict? Mare was absolutely back on her best behavior this time, good girl!
less idyllic: pic taken from within pasture, taken of pony without pasture, oops fortunately he was recaptured without too much fuss or delay!
I opted to stick with Starter level (2’3) for the CT bc, to be completely honest, that height feels so comfortable and easy for us, and I really appreciate not stressing about it. We still haven’t accomplished much in the way of jumping in lessons, and I’m reluctant to push too many boundaries on my own at this point. That’ll likely come up in conversation at a lesson in the near future, wish me luck lol.
safely arrived!! also: when #hoarding pays off: she’s wearing an old stained trailer saddle pad bc somehow i legit forgot to pack a nicer one, oops.
Regardless, tho, I also opted to add a second dressage test to our dance card — with a request to ride the tests back to back, or close to it. Idk about you all, but sometimes I get halfway thru a test before realizing that.. Hm, but what if I considered being a more *active* participant in this exercise??
Plus, so much of Doozy’s tension seems to come from anticipation. She’s so smart, she knows what’s coming, and she just gets so fizzy when she thinks she’s being held back from the inevitable.
rode through the test twice in a row, back to back, trying to help her understand that it’s just a game
So I figured, we’d go through the first test and do our best, but realistically just do whatever Doozy was gonna do. Then, take a deep breath, reorganize, and go right back in and do it all over again. Like maybe if Doozy better understands the pattern, she’ll better understand why I make her wait to canter?
she’s got the ‘free walk’ trick figured out, tho!
Who really knows, honestly, except that I felt a lot better about our second test. Sure sure, it’s virtually indistinguishable from the first in allllmost every measure LOL, we are (for better or worse) extremely consistent.
But there were a few key moments in the second test that made me feel it’d been a positive experience to do two in a row.
trotting the other way, i swear i’m trying so hard to bring my shoulders back, sigh
For example, Doozy slipped into our right lead canter in the first test a fair bit early, tho it was close enough that I let her roll with it instead of fighting her back down then pushing back up again. In the second test she was more patient and waited until I asked (at which point, I naturally biffed the cue and we picked up the wrong lead, oops!).
trying to be better at cantering too
A few other times, it felt like I was able to soften and push my hands forward into the bend, and in the second test she was likelier to soften with me vs spurt off or fall out onto her outside shoulder as she had in the first. Down transitions seemed to come a little more easily as well.
remembering to salute, yay me
Overall, tho, the scores were very similar — with comments mostly revolving around tension, too quick a tempo, and the overall balance being against the hand.
video of first test, 40.7%
video of second test, 39.3%
we are remarkably consistent LOL
You can decide for yourself, tho, since both tests are on video, yay! IMO, I’m happy with both tests and believe both are an improvement on earlier tests this season, even if they’re still sorta objectively bad.
I swear Doozy is learning to soften her top line and come into a lovely contact in lessons, but as with all things with this mare and me, it’ll take the time it takes. And that’s all good!
click for full size. 1st test on left, 2nd on right
And anyway, it’s hard to argue when that same tricky tense beasty transforms into an easy, straight forward and fun horse to jump around!
anyway, onto the fun part!
Like sure, she’s still tense and all that for the jumping — but I honestly believe she just better understands it. Like it makes more sense for her.
And something about just letting her canter on in a rhythm is so much easier than the starting and stopping of frequent transitions or the “one jump at a time” type exercise we’ve done in lessons. Bc once she’s in a rhythm, all the bolting and chaos seems to melt away.
this course always features some slightly funny turns and angles, but doozy was aces despite some pilot steering errors
Anyway. I felt decidedly positive about the course after walking it in the morning. Nothing terribly technical, but a quite proper 3 stride uphill line, and naturally all the same eccentrically off-kilter terrain and turns we’ve come to expect in this charming little grass ring.
we had a funny little uphill 3 stride line so it was worth getting our shit together before approaching
And Doozy warmed up like a super star! Like, was hot and touchy and tense, but also just proceeded with trotting the X, cantering the small vertical, cantering the large vertical, like she absolutely understood the assignment. Good ‘nuff, let’s go do the course!
she’s got such a great stride length, esp when i can trust her to travel forward
And she just… did, lol. Literally every jump was perfect. No notes, good mare.
Well. Ahem, maybe a note or two for the pilot, uh, *me.* Namely: I was super careful to get deep into the corner past the in-gate for that weird off camber turn to the black and white vertical at 3 — the tricky ground often makes this an awkward jump. We got a good shot at it, tho, except that even with all that space I’d given myself, I hadn’t planned a good line to the next jump and ended up needing kinda a big readjustment to get straight to 4.
locked ‘n loaded!
Doozy made it over 4 just fine, but all that disruption meant that we landed too disorganized to make the turn to 5 (the far end jump). Like we allllllmost got there, I think if I’d asked Doozy to jump she would have, except that the combination was coming up next so…
Eh, I just accepted that we’d missed the turn — technically you’d call it a refusal but I don’t think Doozy ever really had a chance, let alone realized she was meant to get there — circled around, caught it on a lovely balanced stride, then proceeded in the perfect rhythm to walk up the 3 stride line easy as pie.
nailing the final jump, easy as pie
Final little arc to another left lead end jump, and voila — a beautifully jumped course! As far as I’m concerned, the only mistakes we made were my own, which is my favorite type of mistake. There are other nitpicky details beyond steering that I’d love to fix in my style of ride too… But ya know. That’ll be part of the future conversation re: lessons.
video of show jump round
And in the meantime, I remain so pleased with this critter, in the face of what could be understandable temptation to be frustrated by the flat work. But ya know. The sport is hard anyway. And we have extensively documented history that dressage is not exactly my personal strength… Plus, Doozy has proved to be a bit uniquely challenging for me overall.
But!! We are doing things!! And things are my favorite thing to do!! So, we persist lol.
I work at a consulting firm full of type-A geniuses, each a master of something—and everyone’s got an analogy for everything. It's like a sport: who can pull the most perfectly relatable client story out of their hat, fastest. My boss, in particular, is fond of saying, “If you’re resting on your laurels, you’re wearing them in the wrong place.”
arrived just in time to enjoy pleasantly subsiding temps + humidity
And ya know. I admit to spending maybe more time than was quite necessary basking in the glow of our wonderful Loch Moy experience last month… But. Eh. It’s been hot, I knew there was work travel on the horizon (happened last week), and let’s be real: we’re allowed to be adult amateurs who can sit back and rejoice after doing a “big thing” every now and again, right? It’s all good.
the helmet cam always makes evening look so majestic!
Tho I’m also trying to really learn and understand all the various components that help create wonderful positive experiences in the first place. Namely, for us (and me and my mental demons in particular), it seems to be steady consistent “bite-sized outings” where everything feels easy and routine and mundane and normal.
With that in mind, I spent some time calendaring the next couple weeks between planned lessons and other outings, with an intent to balance Doozy’s trailer schedule, and decided that last night was the night to pop back over to Tranquillity for a little trip around the xc course.
not a new jump, but a good one
By now we’re all kinda familiar with the routine, right? Tranquillity just makes it so darn easy to get out and do whatever needs doing. I actually decided to warm up in one of the outdoor rings too, more or less to try to keep myself as honest as possible.
It wasn’t a perfect warm up — Doozy definitely knew what was up and was distracted by other horses (and deer) milling about the property — but honestly it was totally fine, and she popped over the little x-rails setup in the ring as quietly as she ever gets. Good ‘nuff!
brief interruption orienting the uninitiated to Tranquillity’s inviting layout: we parked next to the two big outdoor rings along the driveway, warmed up in the third outdoor (spiral), then basically made a circuit around the various fields (notably, the hay fields only ever really have jumps on the edges if at all).
Then we were off for a nice little jaunt about. Just trying to find the jumps nicely, reminding myself to circle and get balanced whenever necessary, and trying to keep everything easy breezy.
We started with mostly logs, but honestly Doozy was jumping fine — if a little fast and excitable. Bc, erm, it mayyyyyy or may not have been our first proper jump school since Loch Moy LOL. All good tho.
oooh putting this together is new for us, tho!
I knew from last time that as much as I like putting little lines together, Doozy sometimes seems to do better with single jumps when she’s feeling too hot to trot. Tho, interestingly, on this particular night, we actually had our very best set of jumps after what was a nice long straight run (the above gif) — just like what we’d see at an event.
not a new bench either, tho got quite a nice little shot to it
So it’s not necessarily that she does better on singles vs related distances, but just that she does better when she has a fair amount of time to relax into a more forward rhythm and cover some ground. Which… Is hard to trust when the shorter approaches feel so choppy and explosive. But interesting food for thought, none the less.
ooh first time with this slightly larger ramp-y triple bar!
Anyway, in trying to process all that information in real time while also making snap judgments about whatever jumps happened to appear in front of us, I opted to finish the schooling with a little loop around three nice fences — two of which are familiar, and one that was slightly larger but also friendly, all of which would require some threading the needle thru the driveway trees.
basic brown boxes are always good to us, even when i take a crazy tight approach LOL
And it was good! Tho actually I opted to throw in a last minute circle before the second jump (the new-to-us triple bar) just bc I didn’t totally love our level of straightness and canter, and preferred to circle, do a simple change of lead to Doozy’s left leg (just in case she found the weird water cooler jump on the left side a little spooky), and make it all a little more clear.
walked over the little log bump
It obvi didn’t matter tho LOL, Doozy was fine, jumped it great, and then even jumped the final fence fine too even tho I turned wayyy too early through the trees and we weren’t at all straight. Oops. What a mare haha.
omg there was swamp water for once!! we just snarfled through it, no real schooling
We stopped by the water mud puddle on our way back to the trailers just for the culture, more or less. Doozy was skeptical, as is natural — this ain’t exactly the world’s most inviting water complex. But she figured it out like the clever biscuit she is.
In a way I’m kinda grateful to just have helmet camera lol, bc it hides so many imperfections and really just showcases the feelings and vibes of a ride. Which, ya know, are what core memories are made of, right?
Like I could totally feel throughout the ride when my hands were misbehaving, or I wasn’t riding as straight as possible, or whatever other flaw you can imagine. But. Eh. That’s what the practice is for, I suppose! One little nibble at a time lol….
I’ve said from the very start with Doozy that the plan was always to ‘take it slow.’ Charlie taught me many, many lessons — more than a few of which I was not quite ready (or entirely willing) to learn. Chief among them: there isn’t some magical destination which, upon reaching, aha - we have unlocked fulfillment!
another lesson without compelling media, sorry guys!
Going bigger, higher, faster is not necessarily a reward unto itself, it turns out. Especially when the dogged pursuit means rushing through or under appreciating what should be special memorable experiences. For example, like when I’d walk away from a horse show feeling frustrated bc it wasn’t “good enough” for our move up plans, when actually in reality it should have been a happy and fun day and literally nobody robbed me of that joy except for myself.
In fact, it’s easily arguable that this overall approach is what ultimately took a lot of the fun out of competing entirely. If you only want one thing, and you ‘fail’ at that thing… it’s hard to not feel like, well, a failure, ya know?
did remember to nab pics of our new stirrup leathers tho — Henri de Rivel nylon lined in chocolate, paid ~$55 at Dover. first impressions: they feel great under the leg — flat, smooth, and unobtrusively easy to put my leg where i want it
So with Doozy, I’m really trying to do things a little differently. Tho, human nature being what it is, it’s also been easy to subconsciously slide into old mentalities and thought processes.
Like when Doozy finished the season so well last year, and was out and about starting to jump bigger things in clinics, it felt natural to assume that, well, we’d probably move up to BN at the beginning of this year’s season — and maybe even finish the year at N.
it’s a tougher leather with exposed nylon backing, compared to a very soft leather encasing a nylon core on pricier styles
It seemed like a reasonable idea at the time — bc doesn’t it always?? But obviously we all know by now how very vastly differently this year started out for us. And real talk? I’m kinda a little grateful for the interruption and reminder to think through what it is I really want.
Bc…. What I want is to have fun at horse shows, feel confident about what we’re doing, and not feel like I’m betting quite so heavily on the good will and nature of my horse to carry us through sketchier moments.
i loved these Passiers and perhaps 5 years is a reasonable life span for that style (paid ~$85 new on ebay in 2020), but they are well and truly dead. maybe the tougher HDR leathers will last longer?
In fact, reading back through this post of Charlie’s second season opener (which I linked to in an unrelated post a couple weeks ago) really drove home that… While that experience was well and fine for that era in my riding life, I’m really kinda trying to go for something, erm, a little different now haha.
anything for Ms Princess, who had to have another saddle check (just 6 weeks after the last flocking) bc we are having a recurring problem likely related to our codependent crookedness… her back looked all clear after our lesson tho!
And. Obviously, Doozy is not Charlie. I got lucky with him in so many ways, I got away with a lot haha. Not quite sure the results would be the same with this funny little firecracker mare lol.
anyway, the rest of the pics are from hacking out. can you believe this is AUGUST grass??? unreal
She is an exciting horse tho, and I’m excited with the progress we’re making on this new and different approach — this rigorous dogged pursuit of…. wait for it… the fundamentals.
We finally had another lesson with event trainer Woodge this week (recall she was traveling for her own competition last week and so we snuck in a reunion with dressage trainer C), yet another session of “remedial trotting.” And guys, Doozy was brilliant omg <3
doozy likes marching me straight up to these clusters of mouth-height tall grasses lol
No media, obvi, so you’ll have to take my word for it. Which, natch, is up to you haha. It’s hard to go from earning 50% on a dressage test to swearing up and down that a horse is fantastic on the flat, but here we are lol.
woods are still full of (suspicious) ferns! they cut a new high trail too — on soft loam vs the rocky stream bottom, so we actually got to do a few little log jompies omg, and doozy was super chill about them!
We stayed almost exclusively on a 20m circle for the full lesson, and only ever did sustained walking and trotting (a few bits of canter snuck in, but only temporarily).
The circle had jump standards with poles at 3o’clock and 9o’clock (ie bisecting the circle, and we essentially carved a horse-width sized track into the footing. Noting: the width of our track should be equally narrow all the way around, not just where the poles were.
i love how her hacking confidence keeps growing <3 <3
The focus was all about posture — both mine and Doozy’s — while maintaining inside bend and outside shoulder control. Which actually felt like a really really complementary next lesson after riding with Trainer C last week. Like we kinda put the ‘yin’ and the ‘yang’ together finally.
happy marching across hill and dale, away from and back toward home!
And Doozy was so good — was able to have moments where she really felt on the aids, stable, balanced, could do thoughtful balanced serpentine changes of direction inside the 20m circle at trot, could shift down to a 15m circle over just one of the pole exercises while Woodge adjusted the other, and basically just settled into trotting over the various pole configurations like it’s easy and boring. Good girl!
oooooh the butterfly bush is blooming again!
The pole configurations included going from single poles at each end, to sets of two poles (at trotting distance), to three poles (still trotting), to one side actually having a little cross rail — which was SUPER EXCITING the first time, but boring thereafter — then back to finishing with four trot poles on each end.
Not groundbreaking stuff, guys. But it was incredible to feel the difference in how easy it was for me to sit tall and still with long legs, shoulders back, and hands together and down when Doozy was so secure in her own balance and posture. It’s really clear how much we feed off each other’s instability in the chaos lol.
i love riding out with friends, but sometimes going solo is nicer for letting doozy power walk to her heart’s content
And funny enough, more than once (more than three times, if we’re being honest) Woodge asked what I did differently in a moment of softness… and all I could do was just shrug like, “I dunno, Doozy just got it?” Again it really felt like the pieces we’ve been working on since riding with Trainer C were super complementary to the approach Woodge is taking with us, which may or may not inform my scheduling choices for the foreseeable future.
Regardless, and kinda back to my main earlier point — It’s exciting to see where Doozy is right now. And liberating in a way to remind myself that there’s no clock, there’s no rush. The reward is in the positive experience, the horse that “gets it.”
And it’s giving me an entirely new and unfamiliar — but GOOD — kind of rush when I click “submit payment” on entry forms. Who knew that was even an option LOL :D
