Happy Monday, folks! Hope everyone northeast of me didn’t get too too soaked with the recent storm, and hopefully not too many trees down in the wind! It was mostly quiet around these parts. A little soggy, a little chilly, but mostly quiet.
handsome mare doin her best
But lo — the pro pics from our most recent show arrived in the mail!! I continue to just order actual physical prints bc… well. Number 1, I love pictures — lots of pictures, ALL the pictures!!! And #2, I’m grateful the photographers are there and want to support them.
just trottin around
For whatever reasons, the most economic option continues to be physical prints that arrive in the mail, of which I take slightly sketchy glare-y digital pictures to share here haha.
we might not be very good at this, but it doesn’t matter lol
And our selection from this go-round was a bit limited. I don’t know for sure, but it seems like the photographers curate the albums. Or maybe they only shoot when they think it’ll make a good picture. Regardless, it can make for slightly slim pickins for me and my silly mare.
we are slightly better at this, tho, sometimes! sorta!
C’est la vie, tho, right? I’d rather have the pictures than not have them!
pretty sure i’d already gone off course by this point tho LOL
The day may not have ultimately gone the way I wanted, but there were a lot of good moments and it deserves its spot in ye olde archives haha.
photographers chose interesting locations on cross country, so this is our one and only shot, literally just moments before our little oopsie… oh well!
Plus, ya know, I happen to think the mare is cute. She might not be everybody’s cup of tea, but she’s just the right little red wine grape for me!
The teachers at my yoga studio start each practice with a short reading or verse to help students set intentions. This one really resonated with me:
I used to think joy was something I’d feel later — after the goals, after the growth. But it turns out, joy was the sun on my face this morning, and I almost missed it.
doozy, standing patiently in the warm sun, waiting for me to arrange my gadgets
To me, that verse manages to capture in just a few short lines the essence of all the work on mindset and mentality that I’ve been trying to accomplish for basically years at this point.
warm up walkies
And I don’t know that the work ever really, ends, ya know? This whole thing with horses is a lifelong pursuit in so many different ways and dimensions… And obviously any time you throw competition into the mix, there’s going to be a constant push and pull between pressure, challenge, fulfillment, etc.
just trottin around!
Maybe in a weird way, tho, our consistently poor results make it somehow easier to be a bit philosophical about the whole thing. Like, I’m clearly not doing this for the glory or accolades or, god forbid, prize money (LOL). So there’s gotta be something else to it, right?
just canterin around too, like a sweetheart!
Something about doing it just for the sake of doing it, bc we strive for the challenge, bc it’s fun and rewarding and exciting. Bc we like the feeling of the warm sun on our face.
and the other way!
One of my primary objectives in getting Doozy was to get back to a place where I felt like I was learning and developing and growing as a rider and horse person. And honestly, she’s one hell of a teacher LOL. A very VERY different type from Charlie.
It really does feel like she’s coming into her own this year tho. Obvi putting aside her summertime injury hiatus… But even before that, it honestly felt like we were seeing more and more promising signs of the type of horse she wants to be when she grows up.
our efforts got slightly less tidy with repetition, which is perhaps a useful finding in and of itself
That was pre-Pivo, tho, so actual evidence or footage was rare. Tho I recently went back and reviewed all the videos from earlier this year anyway bc I was looking for jumping footage to submit to another one of those video coaching sessions, this time with Peter Wylde (who you might remember ran the show jumping clinics at Windurra Camp).
lots of cantering, building back that fitness!
I ended up submitting the video from this jumping school back in April, bc basically… That’s a great example of Doozy being her best self — being exactly the type of jumping horse I want.
And ya know, it’s also a nice example of me being occasionally caught slightly flat footed and behind the 8-ball when she’s being so pleasant and rideable. Turns out… The whole thing with having a rideable horse is that.. ya know, now you have to **ride** it.
convenient singles on the diagonal for changing direction as needed
So it was good to get that feedback from Peter on what he saw in the video, and how I can keep working to meet Doozy where she is and help her be her best. Specific takeaways include doing fewer lines of ground poles at canter (he is not a fan, says they can too easily promote the wrong body habits in the horse); being more clear and disciplined in my corners after jumps, and working toward more related distances that I can practice adding / removing strides in.
last pass thru the bounces was a bit of a miss lol, but i couldn’t be bothered to dismount and reset
So I had some of that in mind when I set up this week’s jump school. Instead of canter ground poles, I made a line of little bounces. Had a couple singles that could all be ridden each way. And also built up the two-stride combination we keep seeing at shows — oxer to vertical. Peter had recommended a shorter distance — 33’ with generous ground lines — to help the horse gain confidence and draw thru the line.
doozy recovered her composure promptly, however, and jumped this beautifully
And my warm up was basically all about moving forward, covering ground, and staying in front of the leg — esp since this was our first time jumping since the little oopsie at Loch Moy. So we did a fair bit more canter than I might normally do in a warm up… Tho honestly Doozy felt great basically from the word go so we just got right into it.
finally set up the oxer-vert 2 stride we keep seeing (and biffing) at shows. i wanted this to be a confidence building exercise so the oxer is plenty wide but slightly ascending, only 33’ to the vertical, with generous ground lines everywhere
Jumped a single first just to get Doozy thinking about jumping, then went right to circling around the bounces off each lead. An interesting finding for me was that each repetition honestly got slightly less good. Probably bc I wasn’t proactive enough in reestablishing the good canter balance, and naturally Doozy was inclined to build as we went.
It wasn’t a problem or bad or whatever. Just something worth thinking about — especially whenever I integrate this or similar exercises into rides.
it rode exactly right both times <3
The rest of the jumps were really honestly great, tho. We knocked one single after getting just a little too close (I ran out of poles so it didn’t have ground lines either). And a couple times we definitely landed a bit stronger than is ideal. But other than that it felt like Doozy was actually jumping really nicely.
good girl barely broke a sweat
And she was a superstar for the in and out! I’m really glad I set it up tho — it’s worth practicing, probably again too if it’s still around next time I jump. I felt like Doozy had just the briefest feeling of “Hmmmm” when we turned the corner to present to the grid, perhaps bc that’s where we got a bit sticky at Loch Moy last week.
But she carried on and jumped it great. Tho I opted to do one more trip just to sorta prove to both of us that we’re not just getting lucky getting through it — we’ve got it, it’s reproducible. And it was!
video of just our jumping efforts
It was interesting that Doozy was looking a bit improved in some places with her leads — either landing the lead or able to execute a balanced auto change before the turn. She’s naturally a pretty good-leaded horse, and tends to be good about managing her own changes. My hope is that as we continue to prioritize good balance, it’ll only get easier for her.
“oh nooooo!!!” — silliest mare, had apparently been holding onto that carrot for a minute
Overall, tho, it was honestly just a nice simple straightforward jump school. Nothing extraordinary. Nothing crazy. Just a couple good BN sized fences, and Doozy handled it all very nicely and pleasantly.
nbd, there’s always more where that came from!
What more could I want? It seems like we might be in for a week of rain with the nor’easter that’s about to blow in, so who knows when the outdoor will be open again (tho I remain hopeful that we just get the edge of the storm vs a direct hit!).
So for now it’s good enough to just enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the good vibes, and appreciate that Doozy was happy to jump around like a professional despite our little blip last weekend.
It’s honestly a little hard for me to know how best to spend the last few days leading up to a horse show. Over the years, I’ve taken just about every possible approach — from trying to school each phase in the last few days, to prioritizing jumping, galloping, dressage, hacking, or even taking a couple days off.
this silly mare and her floppy ploppy muzzle
There are pros and cons to everything, ya know? And sometimes I’m weighing my options based on what I think *I* need, vs what I think might most benefit the horse.
it was so dusty just a week ago!! it’s been raining ever since tho
Real talk, tho. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not really entirely clear whether it makes much of a difference haha. At least, not for me and Mondeuse, and not from a “results” perspective.
From a “feelings” perspective, tho? Actually I’m coming to believe that at least the day before, and realistically probably even the last 2-3 days before a show, should be fairly intentional and disciplined flat schools. Maybe a couple jumps too on one of the days if needed, but mostly focusing on the flat work.
Doozy has this interesting sort of quality about her that, whatever she was yesterday, she’s a little bit more that way today.
So if yesterday she had off or just hacked, today she might be… more inclined toward expressing a preference for liberty and freedom. But by tomorrow she might be coming around to the idea of civility, and the day after that she could be a perfect prim little princess.
we did a LOT of walking tho, much of it actually nicely on the aids
This seems to be true too regarding how relaxed she can be in the acceptance of the aids. It always seems to be a calibration game with her — support with leg, but omg not too much! Or, conversely, she may need very exaggerated bending and suppling aids on a Day 1 ride, compared to something a little more subtle by Day 3.
just trying to normalize relaxed balance
She also seems to benefit from practicing and recognizing patterns — whether that be with verbal cues or how we arrange various exercises etc. Doozy is a very anticipatory type horse — she always wants to know what’s coming. So it’s not like we drill the work or whatever, but I definitely aim to give her a nice predictable schooling experience day after day to ideally help her sorta relax and breathe into it.
and more walkies
Again, this obviously hasn’t necessarily proven to be a winning formula or major difference maker or whatever in the show ring. At least, not yet. Our experience in the warm up ring at Loch Moy, however, gives me confidence that we’re sorta kinda getting there. Maybe. Lol.
and halties too bc mare Could.Not with the flies and required personalized swatting
Regardless, the last three days leading up to Loch Moy were all dedicated flat schools. And I did my best to set myself up for success by recording the first of those three with the Pivo. With the idea being that:
1) Having the pivo rolling would keep me accountable for sticking to the plan; and
2) Reviewing the footage afterward would still leave me with a couple practice days to work on any key adjustments — like remembering to shorten my reins, or prepare the mare more proactively for balance in changes of direction
we’re both learning to hold our balance a little more upright
Basically treating it like a bit of a coaching session while still ensuring there was time to work on any findings etc. That note on balance in particular being one of the biggest topics for us lately.
plenty of decent moments despite the tension!
It was our last lesson with Matt that kinda helped me connect the dots that some of Doozy’s tension, anticipation and rushing are directly related to how balanced she feels — or doesn’t feel, as the case may be.
Doozy is naturally a very balanced horse, that’s a big part of what I like most in her natural way of going. But it’s like once she kinda gets into that rushing frantic rigid place, everything snowballs.
would love to be able to do more of this in the actual show ring!
There’s actually a really nice example in the video from this ride where I try to trot a little serpentine change of direction from tracking left to tracking right, passing in front of the camera to turn toward the gate. And Doozy just like completely loses her balance, bend, suppleness, rhythm, all in a flash. She goes from feeling supple and on the aids and in a nice tempo to hollow, rigid and counter bent and rushing almost instantaneously.
the overall picture at canter is still middling at best but the balance is coming along!
Obvi that’s not exactly uncommon, right? Like there’s a reason you don’t see very sophisticated changes of bend in the earliest dressage levels and tests — horses have to gain the strength and learn to hold that balance. But it’s becoming more clear to me that it’s the feeling of imbalance itself that’s part of what gets Doozy a little frazzled and upset and hard to put back together again.
might not look like much but this is light years better than just two months ago
So that’s something I’m trying to keep in mind, keep working on — and stay proactive about.
In our last dressage lesson with Trainer C (I didn’t take the pivo so there’s no media so probably no dedicated post, sorry!) we kinda integrated this idea by doing more serpentines — but throwing in circles within the serpentine as needed to reestablish balance if we lost it. And also tinkering around with feelings of shoulder fore down the long side.
lots of cookies for the good girl
I’m also working on doing more canter. Just in general to help channel Doozy’s energy and not lose sight of the commitment to “forward” that has been so important for us these last few weeks.
And it seems like it’s working! Suddenly it’s like, even if Doozy feels like she’s rushing and flat and hard to sit on, I can throw in a fairly dramatic half halt to really kinda sit her down a bit — but then she stays there and holds it. Almost like this feeling of, “Ah, yes, actually this IS better!”
smooshy biscuit <3 <3
The next thing I want to work on is spending more time in an actual 20x40m space — but like an actual court, not against a fence or wall, as with our smaller indoor ring. Probably I’ll measure out a couple corners or something with poles + cones in our outdoor ring. Mayyyyyybe in one of the grass paddocks if I’m feeling really ambitious LOL.
Bc this topic of balance has me wondering if part of Doozy’s difficulty in the show ring itself comes from trying to hold herself together without the crutch of a proper wall or fence, when she’s already inclined to be rushy and over pace. It probably wouldn’t be a silver bullet — if such things even exist with horses haha — but seems worth a shot, right?
We’ll see. In the meantime we’ll just keep chippin away with the regular practice haha.
So! Doozy and I made it back out for our first full three phase horse trial since her injury last spring!! And…. welllllll…. it didn’t go *entirely* to plan, to be honest.
**record scratch** yep, that’s me…
But actually the good moments were quite good for us, all things considered, even if the day ended prematurely with my first ever fall off Doozy at one of the smallest jumps on xc. Well. Ok, cough cough, technically speaking, we were already eliminated in show jumping anyway bc SOMEBODY (me) missed a jump, ahem, oops. But Doozy didn’t know that!
you’re probably wondering how i got here!
So yea. A few things went wrong LOL. But. Eh. What else is new?? So let’s get into it!
it all started about five hours earlier….
Obvi I’m not gonna lie — it’s hard to consistently kinda suck at this sport. But ya know. It’s not like I’m not trying, right? And hopefully close observers will agree with me that even with all the fuckery, there are still some pretty solid bright spots from the day — still some clear signs of slow (oh so slow) progress.
for real, tho — all joking aside, it ended up just fine. doozy, tell the people you’re fine!
Tho maybe not THAT clear bc we’re lacking a fair bit of media so…. haha, you’re just going to have to take my word for it on some stuff! Like dressage warm up. For once, I was adamant that dressage warm up would be a feature of our day, that it would get the time and attention it needed.
doozy!! tell the people!! …doozy??
For whatever reason, some of my clock-related psycho tendencies include giving myself exactly not enough time. Not on this day, tho! I gave myself 40min. It’s more than we need for the “work” itself, but I hoped would provide the same sort of mental buffer for Doozy that the 7min break between tests at last month’s twilight dressage did.
oh. ah. i see. just a little low key mugging while i’m trying to selfie lol… yep, she’s fine!
And we’ve been working really really hard at putting together a consistent simple flatwork routine. More evidence to come of that from a recent pivo ride that I haven’t had time to write about yet.
All things considered, with all the prep work and time buffers and all that, I was actually extremely pleased with our warm up for dressage. Especially the canters. It wasn’t perfect, wasn’t as good as at home. But was NOT explosive, and actually bordered at times on ‘pleasant’ and ‘harmonious.’
walking downhill from trailers: first ring is dressage warm up, next ring holds the dressage courts, and the ring below that (behind the judge’s booths) holds show jumping. cross country is on the opposite side of warmup from this path.
Unfortunately tho that just doesn’t translate into the show ring itself. Doozy just gets so tight and tense. The test wasn’t at all our worst… some parts were probably fine. But the score is atrocious anyway bc every single movement is so tense. And still with the collective 5.0 (x2 coefficient) Harmony score.
anyway. for real for real — show jumping started off great!
I’d say it was a bummer except… Meh. For once I wasn’t even checking scores online throughout the day. So I actually didn’t even know the scores until I grabbed my test the next day while volunteering. It was important to me to try my best, to not feel like I shortchanged us in the warm up. But otherwise, it kinda is what it is, ya know?
actually quite pleased with how i rode the tricky half stride distance in this line
So we just got on with our day — the next step of which was show jumping!! And another major major bright spot of the day was the warm up for this phase. Not that there’s any media at all, so again, you’ll have to take my word, but this might have been one of our strongest jumping phase warm up efforts to date.
slightly, uh, less pleased with straight up just forgetting that red #7 even existed in the world, oops
For once I actually was able to practice opening and collecting the canter and felt like Doozy understood and was responding. We jumped four jumps — the X, the vertical once off each lead, and then the oxer, and felt READY.
ah well. doozy didn’t know her pilot is a moron. well. ok actually she might have an inkling on that point, but it was all good!
The round itself started great too! The whole course was kinda twisty serpentine-y bending every which way with almost every jump feeling slightly related but also slightly on an iffy stride.
We got a great shot into the first tho (with a rub but no rail), and then got the strides I wanted to jump 2 in a bending seven. The tight turn to 3 went smoothly, and I was super happy with our ride from 4 to 5, which was set on exactly a half stride but rode in a tidy six with just a slight bow vs the direct line.
full round, complete with our drive-by of #7
We landed counter cantering tho and in retrospect I should have fixed the lead to 6 bc even tho Doozy had good distance, she had the rail and then landed in a bit of a run. That’s not why we missed 7 tho — I literally just straight up forgot about it, never even aimed for it.
Just went right on around to the in-and-out at 8, which rode sticky and long for us, then another kinda sticky jump at 9 to finish. I suspect the stickiness is a direct result of my shoving her at 6 when she didn’t feel totally comfortable in her balance.
they still let you go cross country on a technical elimination tho!
Obvi the warm up steward — longtime volunteer and rider Meredith, who ran a fantastic ring!!! — alerted me to the missed jump and subsequent TE. Honestly tho? I honestly wasn’t ruffled by that at all. Obvi with the way our dressage is, it hardly matters anyway, right? We’re just here for the experience. And even if they’d said we couldn’t go xc, it would have still been a net positive experience.
and it started off pretty good!
But they DID let us go xc, so ONWARD, right?? And again, Doozy actually had a very nice warm up — I only jumped one fence just when the horse ahead of us was in the box, mostly to check the brakes etc, and all was well. So we made our way to the box, picked up a trot about 30sec out, then headed out and got a great shot to fence 1!
straight up princess to #2
Doozy landed strong, but I made it my business to reestablish balance right away, and she got a really nice feeling forward stride to the second.
i call this down hill run to jump 3 the “heart breaker,” but doozy did it just fine
Ditto for jump 3. It’s a fairly long downhill run away from the trailers and warm up and all that. I’m notoriously terrible about riding downhill, and everything about this jump is perfectly situated to tempt a rider into getting too backwards and behind the leg. Not Doozy tho! She carried a steady rhythm and jumped it nicely.
we’ve seen some variation of this bending line a few times now — #6 is top right corner
The next few jumps are all extremely similar to a couple courses we’ve done here before — with jumps nicely positioned on gently rising ground with bending approaches.
got a pretty decent shot to the table!
Doozy was a touch distracted at times — you can actually hear me at various points in the helmet camera telling her not to worry about various jump judges etc lurking in the trees… But honestly she felt super rateable and rideable.
proof: the good moments were good <3 <3
And she got what felt like a great shot to the table at 7!! Hindsight being what it is, tho, I wonder if she felt again like I kinda shoved her at it, sorta like jump 6 in show jumping. She didn’t land out of balance or anything like that, honestly she still felt great (albeit slightly distracted).
got a little bit of a clunker to the corner tho, oops
But the next jump definitely was a little sticky. Just not as confident a feeling as I’m used to with Doozy. I’m not entirely sure why — some people said their horses felt a little slippy on the ground, she also could have just been tired. Idk. But I opted to let her trot into the water just to be safe.
a few small things went slightly wrong here that layered together into a slightly bigger oopsie
Tho again, hindsight being 20-20, it wasn’t exactly an effort to get her to trot. Which… Should have clued me in as unusual. And she just trit-trotted right through the water, right up to a piddly little slow-motion stop at the cedar logs after.
Watching the helmet cam, I understand what I was thinking — clearly I was just waiting for her to pick up and go and take me to the fence. But she just… didn’t. And I didn’t do anything at all about it…. so yea, whoops. So we turned around and picked up the canter to try again.
evidence: oopsie
But you know what they say — you really ought to jump it the first time bc it’s almost never going to look any better the second time. For whatever reason, Doozy was just out of steam and a little upset and didn’t want to play any more.
“i need an adult” — sweet little biscuit
For a hot second, I thought she would push me back into the saddle with her neck. An instant later tho I was way up in the air and actually afraid she might be coming toward and possibly over top of me. Good girl tho flung me clear and spun back and away. And then actually just stopped and stood there waiting for me instead of bolting off into the sunset. Whew.
honestly not hard to find bright spots about this video
I’ve never fallen off Doozy before — obvi have come very close, many times — but really was not at all sure what she’d do. She’s such a sweetie tho, she really does like to be with the people. So she waited <3
bummer to end on a sketchy note tho, but c’est la vie
So ya know. Obvi disappointing. In retrospect I kinda wish I’d retired after the first refusal bc the next couple jumps were all on slightly fussy downhill off-camber lines that probably wouldn’t be ideal for us anyway. But eh. In the grand scheme of things it’s not the end of the world.
no worse for the wear <3
We both probably need a little more schooling, a little more fitness. And *I* definitely need to work on being more proactive especially in the moments when Doozy ISN’T dragging me to the fences.
All the same, tho, I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater bc of one a couple mistakes, even if they were kinda big mistakes. There was a LOT to like about how our day was going. The moments that were good, were really good (for us lol). And at the end of the day, that’s what we’re here for!
