I don’t remember exactly how long it’s been — definitely years, maybe even a decade? — since the MCTA hosted their fall unrecognized at Shawan Downs. For a lot of different reasons, it’s most frequently been held at other local established facilities in recent years.
fall is doozy’s favorite color <3
The stars aligned this year tho, and everything came together to make it happen at Shawan this fall!! Which was super exciting for me — not least bc I got to 1) make the courses again, and 2) get Doozy out to school them! It’s such a lovely place to ride, and I was so bummed to miss this spring bc of Doozy’s injury.
staring at that guy in a gator, ready to rage out lol
You might recall when we schooled Spring a year ago, I was a bit circumspect and philosophical about acknowledging that, yes, we were still just jumping the same jumps we’d jumped the year before that… That it’d been a long and at times bumpy journey with Doozy. But that progress *was* happening, however incremental and hard fought it felt.
barbie dream house to warm up!!!
And ya know. Those things are still true LOL. Tho we’re not gonna talk too much about the challenge and the journey today, bc apparently doing so risks getting yet another earful (eyeful?) of folks chiming in with all manner of oversimplified ‘solutions’ regardless of how explicitly I spell out the words “Spare Me.” Ahem.
sweet little roll top!
And besides!! This time we *didn’t* just jump the same jumps we’d done the year before, and the year before that! Bc Doozy really is well and truly happy comfortable and confident with BN stuff these days, and ‘happy comfortable and confident’ is my jam!
lol our fake ditch was VERY fake, with legit zero filler at all this time around. all good tho, claimed zero victims!
So I finally got to jump around one of my own BN courses!! Truthfully, I don’t really know a whole lot about design, in the grand scheme of things, beyond just what I’ve experienced, what I see out at other competitions, and what I, personally, like doing with my horses.
for some reason these log tables just jump so fantastically on rising ground off a gentle bend
It’s one of those subjective creative endeavors that is actually shockingly easy to get *exactly* wrong when you try to do it. And ‘bad’ design is basically plain as day to anybody - and everybody is a judge. True story, the first time I set a course, literally just about every single jump had an awkward ‘S’ bend before and after it. And none of my jumps measured, they all had to get dug in, bc I put them in basically the worst possible spots. Fun times for the builders!!!
this ramp, tho. for some reason this thing jumps like trash
Luckily, tho, the crew running the operations at this club have been enormously patient and generous with their experience, guidance and collaboration over the years. And for this event, it really felt like things kinda clicked into a nice familiar gear setting everything out.
everyone **HATED** it in the warm up at our spring recognized, and we all blamed the crazy ridiculous ice cream scoops that maybe looked like weird voids or portals into a dark parallel universe. obvi i made it my business to give it a fresh facelift… but maybe will try again with a more toned down hue?
And it was such a treat getting to actually ride around it too! Charlie was kinda already well into his declining soundness when I first started, so even tho I made all the Novice courses somewhat selfishly with ourselves in mind, we never got to ride them. And before this year, Doozy and I had stuck to just the starter courses.
a lot of our jumps are some variation of blue tho — and this feeder always jumps great!
So it was nice to refamiliarize with some of my favorite jumps!! Like the Lincoln Log tables, and the steeplechase jumps (below), and this fantastic feeder that used to live at Tranquillity and that we basically completely rebuilt this spring!
and another sweet little roll top! wtf with those janky flags tho, what kind of amateur hour is this??? oh wait, **checks notes**, yep, that was me who flagged it. WHOOPS!
I was especially eager to experience first hand how the jumps felt relative to the terrain. Shawan Downs is a long narrow race track set on a massive hillside. Depending on which end of the track you’re on, the slope can be quite severe — and it can be tricky getting the lower level courses far enough out to turn them around without sending them either straight up or straight down that slope, and without running over the allowable track lengths by level.
finished with the steeplechase brush, minus the brush bc we hadn’t set it out yet LOL. didn’t matter, doozy jumped it great
And naturally, Doozy being who she is, the terrain can be extremely challenging for us haha. So it was super reassuring when everything rode more or less decently for us, even with all our, uh, personal challenges haha.
short ’n sweet helmet cam video
It wasn’t necessarily a good enough ride to make me really want to do all three phases of the show itself… what with all the other difficulties we generally have… But it was a good enough ride for what it was. A productive net positive experience.
“i am the fastest horse in the world” — doozy, so fast
And also a smoother and more consistent schooling experience vs some of the drama we had at Windurra a few weeks back. I really don’t think the typical lesson format of ‘starting and stopping, one jump at a time, everyone takes a turn’ suits Doozy at all.
so sweet and silly too lol
She’s much happier with the opportunity to settle into a rhythm and jump a few things at a time. For my purposes, I need to be good about not taking that too too literally — we can still work on putting circles in between jumps and reestablishing balance and all the things so that each individual jump is a nice pleasant effort. So it ends up feeling like something in between “one jump at a time” and an actual competition course.
fall arrived for the show with a bang — hard to tell but that is FROST on the jump!!
All in all, tho, a fun time, with some super nice jumps on perfect ground in perfect weather! And all done by basically mid morning, so I still had time to get Doozy home and taken care of before getting back out to finish numbering the jumps and finalizing all the rest of the show prep.
easier to tell on this pic, just look beyond the little bits of scraped off poo lol
Seriously, tho, guys — if any of you have any interest at all whatsoever about all the various tasks in the lead up to an event, you should 1,000% sign up for an event prep volunteer shift at your favorite local venue. There is always *So.Much* to do, and a lot of it is honestly kinda interesting, especially for adding another dimension or perspective to how you see things at a show.
pictured: super important volunteer shit
And everything actually went pretty great for the show itself! A couple ups and downs across the day — it’s horses, after all, and horses and horse sports are hard, full stop. But from an organizational and operational point of view, things went just about as well as can be hoped for — lots of happy horses and riders, and all the necessary resources and protocols for anyone who needed them.
I might not have ridden in the show myself, but getting to check off “Ride at Shawan!!” from the wish list for the year feels like a win all the same. At this point, I’ll take it LOL!
I really did have all the best intentions for this year… But obviously horses being horses, we work with what we got, right? And so here we are in September — finally arriving for our first xc lesson at Windurra of the season, almost an entire year since the last time.
looking back down the driveway completely packed with trailers
And given all the circumstances of that long break… We’re still basically almost exactly where we left off. Actually, this most recent lesson was in many ways a fair bit pared back from that last lesson back in October — and appropriately so, right? Given the mare’s fitness and time off and all that.
one of the locals stopped by to say hi too!
This mare is gonna teach me patience if it’s the last thing she does LOL! Regardless, tho, it was a super fun day and so great to be back out again. The weather was perfect, the ground was good, and even tho it was probably the most packed I’ve ever experienced at Windurra, we were able to basically go about our business unimpeded. Very nice!
it was busy in more ways than one — water trucks and mowers and tractors out dragging, plus boyd’s dog randomly popping in and out from the woods
I was proud of myself for actually putting in a proper warm up too. Close observers may recall I’m sometimes a little, erm, complacent about that. Warming Doozy up on terrain around cross country jumps when she’s running a little hot and distracted is… ya know, hard. Historically I’ve been a bit quick to throw in the towel and just get on with it.
we had a good little group tho
And it’s not that I need to spend ages on it, but it’s been clear through the rehab process that Doozy goes best when I can get her more laterally supple and connected in the warm up. That doesn’t mean cantering her around for 20min or anything like that — actually we start at the walk — but it just means at least trying to establish the feeling, however fleeting it may be.
did a lot of familiar exercises and jumps
And Doozy was honestly pretty good, especially to start! Tho the reality is that the typical group lesson format — everybody taking a turn jumping one thing at a time — is probably the trickiest style of riding for the mare. We just straight up don’t do that much starting / stopping in a normal ride, and it really activates Doozy’s natural tendency toward anticipation and rushing.
doozy did best with a little repetition and being allowed to cruise around for a bit
And even tho I was super careful on the landing sides to mirror the work we did in our recent lesson with Matt — returning quickly to balance and suppleness at trot or canter, or even just stopping straight — it didn’t seem to make Doozy want to pick up for her turns much more smoothly.
didn’t do too too many jumps, and some were pretty small, but the bn stuff was all nbd
Tho don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t like bad or anything, just not as smooth as I’d like. Never really settling into a rhythm, ya know? Tho we did a couple times put little lines together, and those often went better. Or a couple times I asked to circle back immediately to the jump, keeping my canter along the way, and that worked nicely too.
doozy don’t care bout no brush!
Remembering my commitment to staying forward definitely helped with all our up transitions — we didn’t have too many moments of twisted stickiness or pogo-sticking like we sometimes have had. Tho it was hard for me to keep that same forward feel to the actual jumps.
just enough to say we did it!
As it was, tho, Doozy jumped everything basically quite nicely. Nothing super skittery, tho some a tad backwards feeling mostly bc of that lack of rhythm issue. She didn’t seem to care one way or another, tho, and actually seemed to level out when we got to jump actual BN height stuff.
and again played with nice jumps out of the water
She felt very confident, maybe even a little cocky at times. Like she knew what we were doing, and why, and even occasionally allowed that I might have a point about asking her for more lateral suppleness before and after our jumps.
d’aww doozy
And for my part, while it wasn’t necessarily a perfect representation of all the good work we’ve been trying to establish, it DID feel better and more reproducible in this schooling session compared to some past efforts. Especially given that it was our first time jumping cross country in like 5 months… ya know, I’ll take it LOL!
somehow between this moment and getting back to the trailers she lost that left bell boot, womp
It’s just yet another reminder that with Doozy, the jumps are the easy part haha. If I can get her to the jump, even in decidedly suboptimal levels of straightness and balance, she’s jumping.
so fun <3
The moments **between** the jumps tho… That’s really the tricky part for us. One thing I noticed in this ride is that the terrain really seems very influential to Doozy — as soon as she starts to feel a little off balance going up or down hill or off camber or whatever, it’s like she gets completely rigid across her top line and loses all suppleness.
helmet cam video of most of our ride
While some of that is undoubtedly her just being a bit triggered and anticipatory, it’s probably a strength thing too. Hopefully I can keep finding opportunities for dedicated (and RELAXED) flatwork on the grass at home, bc that should theoretically help her feel more secure.
there was so much noise and distraction along the driveway, she wanted me to stand with her while she finished her mash before going home lol
As it was, Doozy was TIRED after our ride! And we really weren’t even out there that long, didn’t really jump all that many things. But she wastes so much energy on tension, on just being hot and bolt-y and having to do extra circles and all the things. Oh mare, it doesn’t have to be like that haha!
so pleased with this critter <3 <3 <3
Again, tho, for our first time out in a while it felt like yet another positive reinforcement that some of the changes we’ve made in our approaches are paying off for Doozy. It might not be classically “easy” yet, but it’s definitely fun haha. One step at a time, right ?
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?
