my wild orchid

We’re supposedly finally getting a reprieve from the intense heat dome that’s stretched across much of the country this past week… And not a day too soon, either. Endless days of triple digit ‘real feel’ temperatures are exhausting for everybody, bleh.

bunnies. bunnies everywhere

Well. Almost everybody, LOL! 

I like to joke that Doozy is impervious to heat, that she IS the heat, she is one with the hotness haha. The rest of us might be wilted and begging for mercy, but not Doozy!

106*F put the kibbosh on basically all riding tho
(also, feel free to ignore my tire pressure warning, as i do every day!)

Tho a friend was talking about how the orchids she planted outside were thriving and going wild with all the heat and humidity, and I was like, Aha! Maybe that’s the perfect analogy for Doozy!! I mean, we always knew she was a hot house flower anyway, right???

“garçon, my snacks!” — doozy, impatient

Anyway, she might not mind the conditions, but even I have my limits, so it’s been a fairly quiet week around these parts. Not really the worst thing in the world, given her current rehab status. 

Like, sure, I’m still all inspired from a lot of the conversations, feedback, and ideas I got from Windurra camp — and actually a few preliminary sessions prior to the heat dome felt really really promising in terms of getting us back on track on a more traditional rehab schedule. The mare actually trotted 4 whole minutes under saddle with zero shenanigans, no tiny circles required!!

sample serving of purina replenimash came in the windurra camp auditor’s goody bag

But all the same, time is still our best medicine for any sort of recovery, so a week off is just fine.

Tho obvi I’m still out to see Doozy every day just to check on her, scratch her bug bites, and feed her fancy snacks. As one does! That’s perhaps my favorite thing about being a thoroughbred person: it’s easy to just keep plugging her full of foodstuffs without really having to think too deeply about it lol.

doozy was a fan!

Like this fancy Purina RepleniMash that was part of the Windurra Camp swag bag. It’s marketed as basically a wholesome mash with ingredients like electrolytes and their Outlast gastric support product, intended as a supplement to regular feed, or quite literally, to “simply let your friend know you care.” (assuming, hopefully, that your friend isn’t an air fern!)

she’s still loving her triple crown stress free fortified forage too

Does Doozy already get a lot of gastric support from me? Do I already give her electrolytes? Yes and yes lol… But, eh, Doozy thought it was delicious, plus a nice big sloppy mash when it’s a million degrees out seems nice too, so I ordered a bag LOL. 

stübben grooming spray + a baby pelham in their fancy flexible plastic composite

I’ve also been eager to play with some other goodies from the camp swag bag — like this fancy grooming spray from Stübben! It’s different from other grooming sprays I’ve used bc alcohol is a main ingredient, but it’s supposed to make them super shiny and dirt repellent. So we’ll see!!

Oooh and the bit I ordered arrived too. It was not part of the swag bag, tho we did get a nice discount code to use. The baby pelham cheek pieces are apparently among Boyd’s favorites for a variety of reasons, but I’m also really interested in this mouth piece too. 

reader poll: is my bebe kitten already giant? or is this the littlest yeti you’ve ever seen?
(trick question, the answer is yes to both… they grow up so fast!)

Only time will tell if it goes into regular rotation for lessons or shows, or if it’s more of a specialty use bridle, like our hackamore. Time will also tell if this fancy flexible plastic material holds up any better than the rubber nathe Doozy chewed through in just a few short months, too.

“garçon! it’s spa time!!” doozy, itchy, ready for a cool down bath!

Regardless, I’m eager to give it a try, and get back to riding again too. We’re hopefully signing up to lesson with Matt Brown again in the near future, and ideally I’d like to show him a slightly… more civilized version of how we go this time around. 

this stuff usually lives in my trailer for rinsing off after lessons, but it’s the perfect refreshing rinse in these oppressive heat dome conditions

The new approach we started experimenting with prior to the heat dome includes a bit more ground work — a mishmash actually between feedback from Matt in our last lesson and also some pointers from Peter Wylde and Steph Simpson at the Windurra camp. And you already saw a few pictures from Doozy’s first foray into our at-home round pen. 

probably a lot of you are already familiar with this stuff, it’s got great ingredients

None of it is necessarily groundbreaking stuff in the grand scheme of things, probably it looks like exactly the type of routine practice and work that most people do with young or green horses.

kitten is trying to create his own spa day too,
natch by making a mess of my AC tower’s condensation drainage…

I’m learning with Doozy, tho, that so much of our success (or lack thereof) in deploying any given tactic or technique is honestly rooted in my own understanding, framing and approach. That it’s not enough for me to just do it with this horse, but I have to have a really clear sense of why, how, and for what purpose. 

#loveabletrouble

Bc at the end of the day, this horse is too sensitive to distinguish a muddled signal from all my noise, ya know? She hears it all, whether I mean it or not.

We’ll see, tho. Hopefully this week will be a bit more normal conditions, at least normal for July. So probably still moderately malevolent mugginess lol. I’ll take it, tho. We’re officially half way thru the year and I’m eager to keep chipping away at our 2026 goals! 

trying out the 2026 tests

It’s honestly so great having a regular schedule with dressage trainer C this year. We found a mutually convenient bi-weekly time (that I suspect will be even more convenient when the horses switch to summer hours), and I’ve got my calendar blocked in perpetuity. 

Perfect!

tyrannical red mare scatters her pony friends like pins in a bowling alley!

Well. Ok, haha, mostly perfect…. Since it’s still horses, after all! We missed last week’s lesson bc of Doozy’s lost shoe. Tho, fortunately with the bi-weekly routine we could make it up this week instead, and then hopefully get right back onto the normal cadence again next week. Love. 

well. she tries LOL

Normally I like to just let trainer C have her way with us. She has so many students, has been teaching for so long in general, and teaching me in particular for more than a decade now… It’s easy to trust the direction of her coaching. But she’s exceptionally good at teaching ring craft and test practice too — so that’s what we did this week, with the new 2026 BN-A test!

perfectly pleasant for hill hacks tho!

Obviously basically all of low level eventing tests are some variation of training level dressage… Basically just showing your gaits in both directions on simple large figures and patterns. 

They aren’t the most exciting or inspired patterns, and in fact often give the impression of being almost a bit of a formality anyway — like the test designers are trying to see how quickly they can check all the boxes to get horses in and out of the ring.

literally eating…. trash?

That’s great if you’re riding a half asleep school master who could do the low levels backwards on three legs… But actually can produce a slightly hectic choppy and frazzled tempo to the tests for our slightly, er, less established horse and rider partnerships. Like, ahem, me and Doozy!

anyway. cats. 

The BN A test is plain enough on paper — enter using that weird broken center line so you don’t have to aim straight at the Judge’s Booth of Doom. Trot your circle basically immediately tho. 

Trainer C’s sage advice: ride that first corner after the broken center line extra deep, then as you start your circle at C it’s easier to show a difference in your track. Same idea reversed for the final quadrant of the circle and the following corner, really taking advantage of making a first impression when you’re right in front of the judge.

absolute hooligan, squeakiest of ink blots, purveyor of random creepy lost baby cat teeth

Then it’s right into a circle at your middle letter — developing your canter on the circle sorta like in the Intro C test. Except after years of eventing tests using this transition point to send you on 1.5 rotations of the circle (one full lap at canter), the BN A test says, “ain’t nobody got time for all that! (and may dog have mercy on your soul if you misfire leads!)” and keeps the rotation at 1.0, sending you right back down the long side toward A, transitioning to trot before the corner.

ok ok, back to the horse!!

Then there’s actually a nice little breather for us, using the short end at A to hopefully get our shit together if the canter got us strung out, then crossing the diagonal, hopefully again utilizing necessary changes of bend etc to stay organized. Right into another trot circle in front of the judge at C — again with the strategic use of corners, showing a difference in track / line of travel.

handsome doozy, ready to ride some dressage!

Then, at least for me and Doozy, things get… potentially more hectic. We are already notorious for getting increasingly strung out as we go, but then we repeat again the same canter pattern — picking it up on the circle but only doing exactly 1.0 rotations before continuing toward A. 

Except — sweet mother of jesus, you better be ready to trot asap, bc then you’re walking in the corner after A, then free walking the long diagonal, then trotting again by the time you are past the judge, trotting straight down the whoooooole long side toward A (and, presumably, toward the promised land, given how most shows are laid out), before whipping back up the center line to halt, salute.

aaaaaand back on the cats again… this time with denizens of the barn!

Doozy was actually quite good for the whole lesson, and particularly the test practice. Tho, interestingly, not “good” in like a classically supple soft round way… But an entirely new type of good for us: the kind of workmanlike good where she sorta kinda phoned it in, like “Yea yea I know my job, whatever,” but… actually did just go about doing her job. Which like… Cool? 

Honestly, I appreciate that Doozy is such an overachiever most of the time, but that’s also a big part of her explosive energy and frequent tension. If she wants to show up to an actual competition and just be like, “Siiiigh, this again!” I’d be toooootally fine with that!

OG: *literally growling*
Pebbles: *blissfully ignorant!*

I digress, tho. Anyway — yes she was perfectly fine for this lesson, but the test definitely feels a little rapid fire for us, particularly that second canter into free walk, into exit. All the transitions feel kinda stacked on top of each other, especially given that we tend to be more in the “slow to develop” category for down transitions. 

“I told him not to touch my butt… so we compromised and he’s touching my butt.”
(the deep sigh of resignation at the end kills me LOL)

In a weird way, tho, maybe the test will suit us? My habit so often is to kinda shift into survival mode and sorta whip us through the pattern… But maybe this new version will force me to stay more present and ride more proactively? 

Doozy seems to prefer the proactive approach, it keeps her more calm and relaxed to be constantly given clear directions vs sorta left an ambiguity. I’ve known this from the beginning, but the Brit Bot definitely confirmed it, and even Dan pointed it out in our last lesson. 

So ya know. I just gotta remember that. And, ahem, cough cough, execute on that… A girl can dream, right?

friday the 13th

Happy Sunday, folks! And just a quick friday foto finish sunday snapshot summary today. I would have posted sooner but… Had my hands just a little full, because……….:::

resistance is futile

Omg I finally got a new kitten <3 <3 <3

so are focused pictures LOL

Obvi this is a horse blog, more or less narrowly focused on documenting that aspect of my life. But ya know. My blog, my rules, and I also like capturing key moments, milestones, memories, etc etc etc.

fierce creature

I didn’t really document in real time my longtime kitty Martini’s battle with cancer, and his eventual passing. Nor did I post much about adopting a new kitty companion, Jojo, to fill the hole Martini left in my and OG’s life. Bc, ya know, I figured I had a lifetime ahead with Jojo, little snapshots would just filter into the blog, as they have with my cats for the last 10 years.

“what the fuck is that” — OG, for sure lol

But then Jojo broke all our hearts when after just four months together, he went into acute distress and was diagnosed at the emergency clinic with late stage heart failure. Talk about a gut punch.

kitten may or may not be nicknamed donald trump bc he just starts kissing, doesn’t even say hello first LOL

Obvi that was unexpected in many ways, and it left me a bit flummoxed about what to do next. Introducing adult kitties is a challenge, and honestly a bit of a gamble… but we’d done everything by the book and all signs pointed toward longterm happiness with the kitties. 

apparently still hard to take a picture even when sleeping

It had been a lot of work tho, and honestly a lot of stress too, esp for sweet OG. So we took the last few months to figure out whether it seemed like he wanted to be an only kitty or if he needed a friend again. 

“for real, tho, what the fuck” — OG, secretly excited by the enrichment

Obvi if you’re reading this, you’ll know we landed on, “Let’s get him a friend.”

already a pest while i try to work <3

And this time it’s just a little kitten instead of a young adult cat. The kitten is essentially a blank slate, no baggage or past trauma, and no expectations other than shelter, food and love. Wish us luck!

speaking of pests <3 <3 <3, it’s the Mamacita herself, Ms Señorita! 

Maybe it’s just the season, tho, but I’m feeling optimistic. The days are longer, the weather is getting more mild… More bipolar, sure — we may or may not have gone from 80*F to snowing and 30*F in 24hrs last week… But conditions are so markedly improved that the outdoor arena footing was rideable again even just two days after that storm!

stop the presses bc we are OUTSIDE OMG, and the footing is PERFECT!!

Which means that, as of at least this writing, we’ve now logged TWO rides outside just in the last week!!! Considering the ring had been too soggy and wet since, uh, *checks notes* at least November, this is a pretty big step!

this actual literal pile of poles is probably not the safest jump construction in the world, but who cares, jompies outside!!!

And I swear Doozy is happier out there. Like, she’s still who she is — distracted and a little ADHD and as eager as ever to leap off into the unknown… But she’s maybe less spooky? 

outdoor ring is bounded on all sides by turnout, meaning no matter where you are it always has a ‘horse safe’ feeling

It’s also so nice to have a little more room to feel like we can ride more forward, while still testing that the responsiveness to the aids still works. And guys, it feels like the schooling is really truly still working! 

nosiest mare in the world, spying on her bebe morgan friend at the far end

I’m trying to do better about being clear in my aids, consistent in my expectations, and more steady and still in my posture. 

Dan really hammered me in our last lesson about how much my seat and position moved side to side with Doozy’s movement. My thought had been that it was better to stay fluid and soft if Doozy was going to be so rigid and tense, but Dan said it’s actually the opposite — I needed to be fixed and still and ‘in one place’ so that Doozy could come to me, rather than my aids kinda bouncing all over the place.

speaking of bebe morgan friend, she’s growing up too!

Aaaand go figure, the professional was right LOL. And honestly if you read that last lesson recap, it was a real test for us — with so many distractions and chaotic happenings going on while we tried to trot our circles. It was a real struggle, but honestly it feels like we both learned a LOT from that experience — especially Doozy. And especially about the consistency, safety and security of coming onto the aids even when we’d rather be distracted and flighty.

it’s all ahead of us!

So things are feeling positive. Lots to look forward to, hopefully. On little nibble, one little milestone inch-Pebble at a time!

2025 foto finish

Happy New Year!! Whatever your feelings on the matter, 2025 is well and truly over. As such, I’d like to do one last flush of ye olde iphone and post the final few photos from the year. 

according to the jockey club, this wild child is 8 now! somebody should let her know lol….

You’ve already heard me whine about being confined mostly to the great dusty indoors for our December rides. And… Well, that ain’t super likely to change in the immediate future. C’est la vie!

anyway. the holiday season is dead. long live the holiday season!

I still followed through on my traditional holiday limbo routine, tho — polishing off the last of my ‘use it or lose it’ PTO for the week between Christmas and New Years.

weather has been wintry this month

Idk what exactly it is about this week, but I always find it super peaceful and restful. Sometimes, depending on conditions, we can be really proactive about scheduling fun adventures — like schooling Loch Moy’s derby course! 

lots of time spent indoors for sure

This year was a little less hustle-bustle with the horses, tho, instead favoring quality family time. (And the lesser-quality associated driving time that entails…)

the snow never lasts long tho, and it dried enough for some hacking!

Tho actually — I DID get out to Loch Moy before Christmas. Less for high octane, jump-all-the-things schooling of the derby course, and more so just bc it was a convenient meeting spot for erstwhile longtime coach Dan, who’s located down in Northern Virginia these days.

woods are so pretty this time of year <3

And it was good! I didn’t write about it bc 1) zero media; and 2) it was more of a sorta reintroduction for us all, plus obvi his first time* seeing Doozy. Plus I was actually a bit of a hot fucking mess, not gonna lie, for reasons you’ll understand shortly. So Dan asked to get on Doozy for a little session — putting her thru her paces and over a couple jumps before handing her back to me to do the same. And again — it was good! 

Rest assured, tho, if I get my way, and my 2026 intentions hold true, there will be more to come in the near future!

(*If you ignore the time we almost accidentally murdered him when he was coaching in the warm up at Doozy’s first ever event, oops)

my sweet new shelter kitty Jojo was such a wonderful addition to our little household, even if it was heartbreakingly brief <3

And anyway. About the whole ‘hot fucking mess’ situation… The night before that lesson, my sweet beloved new shelter kitty Jojo, who had only been with us for about 4 months, suddenly went into significant respiratory distress. I took him to the hospital, where x-rays confirmed he was in the final stages of heart failure. We made the only possible choice and let him go right then and there. Ugh. My heart is broken <3

The Original is carrying on tho <3

It feels like a lot of beloved animals lost just in the last year or so, with Jojo’s predecessor Martini passing from cancer this past summer. And obviously losing Charlie a year ago now, if you can believe it. I still think about him and miss him every single day. 

my mom visited!! doozy was #obsessed

Part of the beauty of the holiday season, however, is making space for bringing family and friends together to remember and celebrate those who aren’t with us today. 

Doozy had only met my mom once before, but basically immediately picked up on her strong “Cookie Lady” vibes and was instantly smitten <3

also made time to ride with friends!

Really, tho, the year closed quietly. Well. Ok. “Quiet” is probably not the right word to describe Winter Doozy, Queen of Chaos. Ahem. 

experimenting with the KK again to see if maybe doozy has actually grown up

She’s been an absolute handful in our schooling sessions. Explosive, touchy. Sad if we’re alone, but also sad if we have company, but the vibes are off. It’s been a LOT.

really tho, so much time indoors. sometimes with bounces!

And it’s been a bit frustrating, not gonna lie. Except… Actually, the quality of the work (when we aren’t turned inside out spooking at the sound of clumps of dirt pinging off the walls…) has been quite decent! Relatively speaking, obviously.

the face of a horse who is more than happy to make her own excitement

We even made it out to a lesson with longtime dressage trainer C* as a fun limbo week to-do, and she felt like Doozy has developed and changed so much just in the last ~6 months, and even since she last saw us in September. 

(*OMG if 2026 is the year of ‘getting the gang back together’ I’ll be over the moon!)

ooooh we finally made it out for some lessons again!

Obvi Doozy was still a hot touchy explosive diva in that lesson too. Like omg she almost straight up Lost Her Shit, Ma’am, when we arrived as the last horse was finishing their lesson with practicing flying changes (in a slightly thunderously forward manner). 

“New Year, new you. *I*, however, make no such promises!” — Doozy, 1,000%

But overall, it was a great lesson and great to get that outside perspective that, sure, yea it might feel like I’m sitting on a barrel full of TNT, but the moments that are good? Are good. 

Regardless, it’s so good to get out again, after a somewhat prolonged cautionary period of mandated isolation. Doozy is always at her most civilized when she’s routinely getting off property. Plus, getting into new and different spaces can make our at-home indoor feel more boring and familiar (and therefore perhaps less exciting lol). 

A girl can dream, right? And isn’t that what January 1 is all about anyway?? We’ll find out, I guess. In the meantime, happy new year, folks!