good day at the races

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?

season opener at MDHT!

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!! 

Doozy was on the aids, stayed in gait, was decently prompt for all her transitions, even the downwards, and was rideable enough that I was able to demonstrate those clear changes of track between ‘corner’ and ‘circle’ that trainer C coached us on.

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.

made much better work of it this time vs last time tho!

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…

our friendly chunky log roll from schooling a couple weeks ago!

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. 

little brush coop that i forced myself to jump in schooling a couple weeks ago

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!!

reflecting

Happy Monday, friends — hope it was a good weekend for you all! Pro photos care of Erin Gilmore photography just arrived in the mail, so I thought it might be nice to reflect a bit on our most recent competition, Doozy’s official move up to BN!

sweet doozy trying her best to just…. trot on around lol

Obvi anybody who’s been following along around these parts for any length of time doesn’t really need to be convinced that I can occasionally over think things. ‘Self Doubt’ could quite literally be my middle name. And our weird roller coaster winter definitely didn’t help. 

Doozy had felt ready to think about moving up a full year ago. Remember we did a BN CT at Thornridge for *last* Halloween? Then she was stellar for the Sharon White xc clinic at BN, and I sent in an entry for one of Loch Moy’s winter derbies at BN thinking we’d never look back. 

my outfit choices were a direct reflection of me trying to manifest casual vibes lol, including opting to do all three phases in the same tack 

It’s funny, tho, bc after the wheels fell off this spring and we had to kinda break everything down into more ‘bite sized’ outings starting around June this year… Idk. It kinda forced me to reframe a little bit. Prioritize confidence building, not confidence proving — for BOTH of us. 

And when we did finally make it around a full three phase event in July, it felt fun and easy in a way I’ve never really experienced with eventing. Like, sure, everything is kinda hard sometimes with Doozy. **Mere existence** can sometimes be overwhelming, apparently. 

But the actual tests of the day? Especially the jumping phases? There were no questions in my head that we could just go out and put one foot in front of the other toward a completion. 

holy crap a pic of us cantering!! 

It’s like something clicked in my head. Like, OH. Ah. I see. It can be like this! And I basically spent the rest of the summer fully embracing the idea of getting out there and doing the things at a level that felt comfortable, easy and fun — while slowly but surely trying to smooth out all the other mere-existence-related wrinkles (like Doozy’s admittedly tough time in the warm up rings at Waredaca).

We did about an event per month this season, which is a bit less frequent than the typical area campaigners from what I can tell — but it felt / feels right for us. 

click for full size — also hit a new record for “obedient” comments LOL!

And I opted to splurge on an Area II Champs entry, knowing full well we weren’t really contenders or points chasers or anything. Historically with Charlie, I was always thinking about pushing ourselves at shows, vs dallying around for special classes or whatever. So this was a bit of a departure for me. 

oxers never looks as big in pictures as they do to me in person LOL

And it was great! Like, kinda a bit of a fussy experience with the multiple days of trailering etc LOL, and idk if I’ll do it again necessarily… But it was a great experience — I’m glad for the memories, and it was also just one more positive notch in the proverbial belt for Doozy. 

doozy being mature about jumping into our bending line <3

But ya know… It also kinda felt like time, right? Like, ok. We did a proper season. Did the recognized things. Qualified for and rode around the area champs… With still one good month left to go in the season. All signs pointed in the same direction: time to go for it. 

So I dutifully sent in an entry for the BN at Plantation Field’s starter trials, scheduled to happen the weekend after our lovely xc clinic with Sally at Windurra. 

Obvi, you’d be forgiven for not remembering reading about that event tho bc… Well. I scratched the night before for really no real reason at all, except that… idk. I didn’t feel right about it, didn’t feel ready, wasn’t in the right head space, had just one too many feelings of uncertainty bordering on that awful existential dread type feeling. 

strange little cedar oxer out of the water. i’ve seen it cause problems, but doozy clearly didn’t care

So yea. Fine. Scratch that, no big deal. Grace is a lovely gift that only we can give ourselves. 

I had just gotten so stuck in my head. Feelings of uncertainty about how the day would be set up — usually at least either sj or dressage is on grass, which one would it be? How would the xc course look — it’s normally pretty friendly looking but… it’s also been a while. 

And, in all honesty, I still remember Charlie’s somewhat uncharacteristically terrible day there back in 2018, at his second novice. If Doozy had the same type of atypical day, was our schooling level really ready enough to still get us around? And would I be emotionally resilient enough to not completely melt down if it went poorly? 

Basically. My answer to that question was, “No.” I thought it would cost me too much to have the same type of bad day Charlie had all those years ago. It also felt like I’d selected Plantation for not compelling enough reasons. Like, sure, a good event horse should be able to have consistent results at a variety of different venues and grounds. But… We already know Doozy thrives on consistency, so maybe choosing the familiarity of Loch Moy for a move up was ‘strategic’ instead of a cop out. 

i can’t tell for sure, but doesn’t it look like we might actually be stepping INSIDE the ditch????

Anyway. That’s a whole lot of navel gazing, let’s be real. But it’s also a fairly honest and accurate depiction of the mental hamster wheel going on inside my head. 

I felt instant relief after scratching Plantation… paired with a newer inner voice, quieter but equally persistent: I did want to try for BN, I did believe we were ready, and maybe all we really needed was a set of circumstances that felt more familiar, with fewer unknowns. 

So I sucked it up and sent in a (late) entry for the Loch Moy starter the very next weekend. Which, obvi felt possibly like throwing good money after bad since I’d literally just forfeited an entry fee lol. But ya know. Hurray for volunteerism guys bc BOTH these entries had pretty nice discounts applied anyway!

stunning mare + matching foliage <3 <3

I wasn’t quite finished with the mental hamster wheel, tho. In order to just keep the peace upstairs between my ears, I decided to ensure our entire approach to this event was suuuuuper low key and casual. No white pants — not even tan pants. Nope, went straight up with clothes I’d just as soon wear to a lesson. 

Ditto for Doozy — I only packed one set of tack. Not for any real reason other than: just not wanting to take it too seriously. Not wanting to even look too serious. We’ve gotten around just fine in our jump tack, and this would be no different. 

And ya know, it wasn’t any different — and we did get around just fine! Not perfect, obviously. But more than ‘just fine’ too, especially cross country! Doozy was such a super star! 

Ultimately, I’m super proud of both of us for keeping on with putting one foot in front of the other, all year long. My goal with Doozy has always been to continue growing my experience and education in this sport, and we definitely learned something deeply important this year about appreciating the scenic route <3 <3