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!
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!
We had another eventful weekend around these parts — with Doozy’s second horse trial of the year, and third go at BN!!
“are we running and jumping today??” — Doozy
For a variety of reasons, I opted to go to Loch Moy again even tho there were actually a few different Area II events running this weekend… What can I say but that we just love the Maryland Horse Trials??
overlooking xc without a care in the world #trailerpro
And anyway, I’m still basically entirely focused on establishing confidence and relaxation in both of us. Not that we need an excuse to keep returning to the same venue, obvi, esp such an awesome venue, but there’s something to be said for familiarity. Ooooh and volunteer credits haha, this event was almost entirely paid for, ka-ching!
still not sure where that gorgeous full tail came from!
Doozy was an absolute superstar, too. Like, even in the dressage. Sure, our warm up was not even close to our best work. But it was just ‘run-of-the-mill’ not good, vs being “that horse” level of not good.
for as frustrating as our reliably terrible dressage is, i’m not-so-secretly loving our growing collection of Big Brown ribbons!
The test was a bit the same too. Just… Ya know. Not great. And not as good as last time (presumably in part bc I didn’t have Dan yelling at me to get my shit together this time…). Definitely not a competitive test, tho the 2.0 for cantering our final center line (oops) and 5.0 on the harmony collective x2 coefficient really crushed final score, womp.
anyway. who cares about dressage when we could be JOMPING!
In the spirit of full disclosure, I admit to feeling significantly frustrated and demoralized when I saw the score too… Not so much for being in last place, bc… obvi lol. But the spread was so extreme — we were more than 20pts off the leader. Which, real talk, is ALSO not a first for us haha (at MCTA two years ago we were, ahem, 40pts off)… But like. Damn, lol. Sigh.
jump 1 claimed many victims, including at least two horses right before us. not doozy tho!
Luckily the pity party didn’t last, tho, and eventually it was time to jump.
This sport is hard for so many different reasons. The rider at the next trailer over said how she just started eventing last year and already discovered all manner of frustrating ways to get eliminated. I could also see the show jumping ring and most of xc from our trailer too — and witnessed some obnoxious refusals, rider falls, and horses straight up noping out, kthxbai.
this line along the ivy wall caused issues too. we had the rail at 3 but were ok
Neither Doozy nor I are particularly good at the flatwork, and it shows… But damn. The jumping part?? Well ok haha, we aren’t exactly perfect at that either — but we LIKE it and IT’S FUN. And at this point, that is reward enough, amirite??
nice shot at the big blue oxer!
So anyway, onto the show jumping warm up, where Doozy was again extremely civilized. They didn’t have a steward bc of volunteer shortages, so we basically made quick work of it (including jumping a couple warm up fences that clearly had not been reset from N) before heading down to the in gate to wait our turn.
helmet cam video of the round!
Wherein, no joke, each of the three horses ahead of us at the gate were one after the other eliminated on refusals. Two at the first jump, and the other after cumulative issues on course. So… yea. Turns out, this sport is just plain hard!
Doozy and I went in ready to go, tho, with my biggest focus just keeping her in front of the leg, letting her travel, and trying to find opportunities to let the new bit do the work for me, instead of me constantly hanging on. And? It was good!
the xc course was a little short but had plenty to do!
Not perfect, but totally good!! We got good shots to mostly everything, stayed mostly in front of the leg, and I definitely like the new bit a LOT! Tho I obviously need a little more time calibrating myself to it, since once or twice I whoa’ed WAY more than I needed to — like into the in-and-out*, where we added — But Doozy never got offended or rattled by it, and stayed positive the whole way around! And felt like she was jumping well too!
(*Which apparently IS a thing at BN now — they had one at Morven’s recognized event last weekend too!)
past experiences have taught me that turning away from warm up to 3, and then the long downhill pull to 4 (dead ahead) can ride really behind the leg if you aren’t ready for it
The level definitely feels easy for her, which is reassuring especially after it took us so long to move up while we sorted out how to survive all the rest of a busy show day haha… And also reassuring bc basically by the time we get to cross country, it definitely feels like all the hardest work is behind us, and now we just get to enjoy the good stuff!
we were ready for it tho, and it went fine!
Obvi I’d never celebrate my fellow competitors having a bad day, but it was kinda nice arriving to xc warm up with the whole place to ourselves, and the start box ready and open, since the three riders before me had been eliminated in sj. Doozy and I made a quick pass over a single roll top, headed for the box, and took off!
first time jumping this table, it’s a good one!
This month’s course had a clockwise configuration that imho seems to flow very nicely after the first few. Those first few, tho, they will absolutely break your heart — 2 and 3 turned us away from warm up, then a straight downhill run to 4. I’m notoriously terrible at riding downhill, but the new bit really helped me rate Doozy without getting totally up in her face, and she stayed nicely in front of the leg.
opted for the blue house at the option
They gave us a cute little bending line to turn back toward the water, catching a nice big table on the way and then an option between a left corner and a blue house. Doozy has jumped the corner before just fine, but after last month’s funny little run out to the left at a different blue house, I was inclined this time to 1) protect the left side and not repeat the same mistake; and 2) jump the blue thing. So that’s what we did!
we rode this in reverse last month, did a slightly better job this time around!
Then a lovely cruise to the boat house into the water, which Doozy naturally smoked like the natural xc machine she is. Then downhill again to a little roll top that I was again intentional about not getting too fussy and backwards with the downhill approach.
quite a nice little line for BN — ditch to that little hanging pole dead ahead
It was a short-ish course, idk how many meters but probably not more than 1,500, so we were just about finished at this point — just a quick line from the ditch to a small hanging pole that I slightly biffed bc I forgot what it walked in (6, not 5, Emma!), but it was nbd.
easy over the finish!
Then an easy cruise up the hill to the finish line!! And Doozy was so good!! Barely breathing hard, and not nearly as sweaty or tired as last month. Sure it was a little cooler this weekend, but it’s also just amazing to me how quickly thoroughbreds put on condition LOL.
short course means it’s a short-ish video too!
Anyway, tho, it was an immensely fun little romp around. And also clear that Doozy is starting to recognize the game too. Like she knew it was over, knew we were done, and was relaxed and calm right away, good girl!
such a fun horse on cross country <3 <3
There really isn’t anything quite like the feeling of finishing a good cross country round too. A timely reminder for me, especially after feeling a bit dejected about the dressage. Obvi we’ll keep working on the flatwork, it’s not like we aren’t trying, ya know?
cheesin’ after our rounds!
But in the meantime, we’ll work with what we got, and get on with the running and jumping lol.
snacks before heading home again
There are certainly worse ways to spend a day, amirite?
Happy Monday, friends!! Exciting news today since Doozy and I went to our first horse trial of the year this weekend!! And it’s so funny, I don’t think I’d ever won an 8th place ribbon before Doozy (at least not that I remember)… but for some reason this daughter of Big Brown and I are growing a bit of a Big Brown Ribbon collection lol. Must be kismet…
serenely unaware of the day ahead!
Anyway. I promise not to drag on and on (and on), but it was on the balance a really fun day! Tho, if you go by how things looked on paper… Well. It’d be easy to come to a different conclusion: our dressage landed us at the bottom of the class (per usual), we had a rail in show jumping (also per usual), and we had a run out on cross country — Doozy’s first xc jump penalty in competition.
“oooh are we going to run and jump tho??” — doozy, interested lol
But ya know. The lived experience is something so different from the scoreboard at the end of the day. And ours was a good one, so let’s dive in!
poem by Morgan Harper Nichols, image source yoga teacher shared this in class yesterday and it felt so fitting for how i’m trying to approach the year, so i wanted to share with you all too!
Dan and his wife were both competing on the same day too, so Dan was actually able to pop by dressage warm up to give us like 15min of coaching to start us off, and it was super valuable. Doozy had arrived to the property like a grown ass adult mare, but then wanted to melt down a bit once in warm up. And Dan just… wasn’t having it.
He reminded me that this is the real world, I need to ride the horse, get her on the aids, be proactive. Now. And gooooo figure, Doozy responded well to that.
sun bathing + snoozing post dressage
And she executed what I felt might actually be one of our top dressage performances to date! To the extent that I actually ordered multiple prints from our ride!!
click for full size. good luck reading those comments
I was particularly pleased again with our transitions into canter, although scores were mixed. Well. Real talk, scores were a bit mixed across the board bc “Today quite tense,” as the judge notes. And that tension, the bracing and lack of suppleness etc, is basically the difference between a 6.0 and a 5.5.
tanking up before jumping!
Doozy, however, wouldn’t know that. She’s tense erry day LOL, that isn’t exactly something new for us. What IS new is her level of workmanlike effort. Staying present, staying more or less on the aids. Trying to understand, to be a good girl. It’s honestly a great feeling!
dropping in with an oxer at 1!
And I’m proud of myself for being really intentional about riding the dressage as if it was the only thing we were doing for the day. Too often I kinda wing it or tacitly dismiss the phase bc “we’re not good at it, and we’re here to jump anyway.” Which like. Yea, true.
But while it obvi doesn’t seem to make a difference in scores or placings, it probably makes a difference to Doozy. And it’s my responsibility to help her operate within a consistent set of parameters and expectations: It’s always the same, nothing changes, and we can do this!
reason #1,367 why you should walk your course: i was so surprised by how “crookedly” folks were jumping into this line that i was super intentional about squaring my corner. turns out… the jump itself was on an angle, whoops! no harm, no foul!
Anyway, tho, realistically we ARE here to jump tho lol…. So after about a ~1.5hr break that Doozy spent mostly snoozing, we got right on with it!! Doozy was actually pretty decent in the warm up ring in terms of explosiveness, tho I think we knocked down every single jump that we jumped except maybe 2. Oof. She felt ok, tho, just… not particularly careful, so I figured we’d see what we got in the ring.
another nice oxer!
The course looked like it might suit us, being mostly sweeping curves with turns just tricky enough to demand attention. And the two related distances both seemed to be riding very consistently, so I figured they’d be the same for us.
omg wtf with the in and outs at BN!!!
And it was honestly a pretty great course overall! Doozy got a great shot into the oxer at 1, was tidy in the sweeping left handed rollback from 2 to 3, tho we did have the rail at 3. Then was good about staying out in the tricky looking right turning segment from 4 into the related distance down the outside. And if you’re getting the sense that we were maybe trending leftward, nice work, that is in fact foreshadowing LOL.
Anyway, the course finished up with another sweeping turn to a big oxer, tidy comma turn to a vertical that we loudly rattled but that did not fall, then finishing over the 2 stride in and out!
Not gonna lie, I really don’t remember BN having in and outs… In fact, I DO remember being sad about that in the early days with Charlie since he was such a grid savant.
full video of the course here!! it’s a good one!
But you get what you get at unrecognized shows, and in this case it worked out great! All our gymnastics practice over the winter paid off handsomely and Doozy was easy and confident to finish the course, good girl! This was definitely our strongest phase of the day!!
was a good girl at the start box
No rest for the weary tho bc it was straight on to cross country, where again Doozy was nicely civilized in the warm up, more or less, tho it did occur to me that we really have not schooled on grass or terrain in quite some time. I mean, c’mon, it’s only March and the snow has only been melted for a couple weeks…
As it was, the course looked really fantastic. Almost all the jumps were placed on nicely rising ground, and the designer gave us plenty to do for the level, even if the overall distance and jump count were on the low side. I figured it should be a good one for us!
the footing is still a little bare in places but didn’t ride slick or deep
Tho, truthfully, we actually ended up being just slightly out of rhythm for most of the jumps. I think perhaps bc of a combination of factors. For Doozy, she obviously hasn’t jumped on terrain in a while — and especially with the rising ground to most of the takeoffs, I think she may have had her striding slightly out of sync with her eye.
riding forward to the distance made for a great jump, go figure!
For me, I think I had the canter too collected for most of the time. The gif above is nicely illustrative bc I knew it should go in an easy 7 strides for us (which it did!) but in watching the video after the fact, the quality of the canter I had in that line above is better than the quality of canter we carried in between fences elsewhere on course.
It’s always a tricky balance bc Doozy will 100% still land in a bit of a disorganized heap, running off into the unknown distance LOL. It’s just a question of recalibrating and experimenting. Sometimes ya gotta let go a little bit to see what will happen!
absolute professional into the water, with a nicely advanced line for BN — see our red boat hiding just behind the N blue boat straight ahead?
Anyway, tho, the turn to the brush coop was kinda a weird unintuitive downhill S, but Doozy didn’t care, she jumped it great. Then we had a lovely-for-BN line from that brush coop, to a ditch, to another coop, into the water, to the boat!
tho i still managed to land wayyyyyy off our line for the next jump, circled above
None of it was super close together, but it definitely felt like plenty to do! Doozy powered over the ditch without a glance, and was straight into the water super confidently! Tho we got a slightly awkward distance to the boat, which was one of the only jumps not set on rising ground, and landed completely off the line to the next.
and was perhaps a little complacent given that i know these slightly narrow and vertical blue houses can ride a little funny. WHOOPS!
So I rode a circle to get us back on track, and honestly I think we had the canter and striding fine enough for this house, but alas, our day of drifting slightly left finally caught up with us, and Doozy squirted out at the last minute. Honestly I think she was tired and feeling like maybe she was having to work a little too hard.
nbd, tho — regroup, jump it again, and keep cruising to the finish!
It’s all good, tho, we just turned back around, took a breath, and rode a more intentional and determined approach, and got over nbd. Actually one of the prints I ordered is from that effort bc Doozy’s expression looks so nice!
helmet cam of the full course here!
I remember how with Charlie esp toward the end of courses I’d be thinking in my head, “you’re so close, don’t stuff it up now!” but I’ve been working so hard to remind myself to keep remembering in the moment that “this is fun!” that perhaps I lost a bit of attentiveness. Ah well! That’s what early season is for anyway, amirite?
As it is, we just had two jumps left to go, then over the finish line!
good girl, Dooz!
And oh my word lol, Doozy was TIRED!! It was nearly 70*F out — not overwhelmingly warm, but plenty esp considering how cold it was just a couple days ago, and Doozy still has most of her winter coat. And obvi being out on the hills again esp in slightly sticky ground made a difference.
she was actually quite tired after all that!
I still opted to go a bit slower with washing her up, feeding her snacks and packing up to go home, to let her recharge a bit for the trailer ride. She was such a super star all day, she deserves a little pampering, right??
Anyway, again, I’m just so pleased with the horse. In a way, it’s kinda weirdly liberating to know that our dressage scores are so reliably bad tho haha, bc I feel like it gives me the freedom to really focus on riding our own ride through each phase, without being distracted by the end results.
Tho, as it was, even with our poor score and penalties in both jump phases, we still managed to move up throughout the day, go figure lol. Turns out, this sport is just hard. Who knew? Feels good to be out there and doin’ it tho!!
