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!!
I’m currently reading Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s seminal work, Flow, and it’s adding a deeper layer of understanding to the whole idea of “process” vs “outcome” goals that I’ve been exploring the last few years.
Csikszentmihalyi was a pioneer of positive psychology, and is often referenced in books on everything from mindfulness to behavioral economics to business leadership. His research is all about the psychological concept of flow, a highly focused mental state conducive to optimal experience.
step 1 toward going out on fun adventures: wake princess from her midday slumber! and behold! the snow is almost all gone!
In particular, he explains that this flow state is a function of the proportional intersection between ‘challenge’ and ‘skill’ levels. And that imbalances, whether they be from an activity that’s too easy for one’s skill level, or too challenging, make it harder to get completely into the moment.
And he defines a new word (for me, at least): the ‘autotelic’ experience. He observes that so much of what we do, we do because we feel like we have to or should, for various extrinsic reasons. Autotelic is about the intrinsic value — doing something for its own sake vs any future reward. A “freely chosen discipline” rather than a restraint.
“will rise for cookies!!!”
I think this is part of what makes horses so special — what draws so many people to horsey experiences, that they lend themselves in some important and meaningful way to finding that flow state. To just getting into the moment, letting everything else melt away and disappear.
And this is also probably why we see so much variety in the nature and contour of those experiences across the horsey spectrum. There are infinite ways to get fulfillment from our interactions with horses.
fast forward a couple hours and we’ve arrived at Loch Moy’s derby course!! Ms Thing is a water feature expert now, even when it’s dotted with icebergs lol
Like with anything, tho, we’re still susceptible to external pressures. Perhaps especially if we are pursuing experiences that involve sport and competition, which by definition have clear rules and guidelines and metrics for success.
And at least for me, sometimes it’s been hard to separate my attention from what may come as a result of my effort, vs focusing on the effort itself, if that makes sense.
getting right to business with a bebe coop
For a time with Charlie, I had significant personal and emotional investment in some outcome-specific goals that ultimately we did not succeed in achieving. In retrospect, it’s easy to see that all along the way, I did not fully appreciate or took for granted some very special experiences bc I was too caught up in what they meant for our hoped-for future achievements.
And since then, there’s been a bit of a ‘hangover’ effect on my ability to get back into competing without still being influenced by those same external pressures.
tiny telephone pole bc nothing is a big deal <3
So basically from the first with Doozy, I’ve really tried to wipe the board clean. To focus on enjoying the journey, the process of our growth and development together. To prioritize expanding our education and skills, while also accepting that where we are in any given moment is good enough. We’re doing the things for the sake of doing the things, and that’s enough!
loch moy has such an amazing collection of roll tops at basically all sizes
Obvi let’s be real, tho — I’m not saying that to act like we’ve actually mastered that intention LOL. No. Absolutely not.
It’s an empowering frame of mind, tho, and is probably directly responsible for me waking up in the middle of the night and going, “ooooooh I should go to Loch Moy tomorrow!” lol… As one does, apparently.
A week’s worth of warm weather finally cleared out most of the snow, and actually Loch Moy was all set up to host a derby this weekend (at which I was slated to volunteer), but another snowstorm forecast for yesterday cancelled those plans. Saturday was still gorgeous, tho, and everything was all set — so obvi we should take advantage, and build on the momentum from our recent lesson with Dan!
just me and my Fire Horse, all the time in the world and the whole place to ourselves!
Granted, the downside of these sorts of impulsive plans is that not everybody is on the same electrical jolt LOL. So I wasn’t able to twist anybody else’s arm into joining us. C’est la vie tho!
Honestly I often prefer schooling on my own anyway if it isn’t a lesson. I like doing things on my own timing, and moving from spot to spot across the facility fluidly depending on what feels right, vs the ‘stop-and-go’ of waiting for folks or taking turns, etc. Tho obvi I wasn’t totally alone — naturally it’s a schooling facility with a steward and emergency protocols, rest assured.
Anyway, tho, it ended up being perfect. Perfect weather, perfect footing, paid for with a volunteer pass, AND we had the whole place to ourselves! It had apparently been a mad house earlier in the day, but by the time we arrived at 3:30, there was only one other rider still expected on the schedule. Perfect!!
We got ready at an unhurried pace, tho realistically Doozy is already so used to shipping out for lessons, that still ends up being about 20min between arriving and swinging a leg over. Then we moseyed thru the enormous derby rings and got on with our warm up.
just did one pass up the banks on this day
I also opted to turn on my interval timer app, which I don’t always do for xc trips like this, but use almost every ride at home. And it was useful too! Mostly for the warm up — The first 5 minutes definitely dinged sooner than I expected. Sometimes I think my tendency is to get a bit bogged down in the preliminaries of a ride, vs kinda just getting on with the actual riding, so that was a useful observation.
then into the next ring — and more fantastically chunky inviting roll tops!
Obvi I tried to do Dan justice with our warm up too. Trying to recreate the same level of “on the aids” that he demanded, and also establishing my own solid steady posture and form. I won’t try to claim that we achieved ANY of that to a level that would have satisfied him (lol), but things felt good enough to me. Doozy was a touch explosive in the warm up, but only just a touch.
And everything clicked right into gear when I started pointing her at itty bitty fences. Realistically, it’ll probably be easier for me to achieve what Dan is trying to establish for us within the jumping, vs just the warm up alone. Doozy is such a unique creature — she’s fairly insecure despite her bravery, and is always anticipating.
So when I’m just trying to trot around, her mind is already eight steps ahead, thinking about cantering and jumping and what have you. But once we start jumping, it’s like she just settles in. Like, ‘ahh, yes, here we are.’
we’ve jumped all these fences before, and everything felt comfortable and easy <3
So once we actually got going, I was able to continue some of that transition practice — like interspersing walk transitions from trot, or almost walk transitions. And trot transitions from canter, or almost trot transitions. Ms Thing is learning her half halts, guys! So exciting lol…
And also practiced stopping straight after fences, or almost stopping but then proceeding.
catching yet another lovely roll top cruisin’ around the course
And she was honestly perfect. We weren’t always super straight bc, real talk, I mostly decided where to go next on the fly, so my turns and lines weren’t always perfect. Doozy didn’t care, tho.
She jumped whatever was in front of her, from trot or canter, perfectly. What a mare!
oooh and a sliiiightly taller brushed up coop to finish!
Of particular note — she kept her shape the whole entire time we were jumping. Like, ok, perhaps a step here or there on the landing side of fences when I wanted to bring her back. But exactly zero moments of losing shape on the approach to fences. Which you may recall was a big part of our hardships at both St Augustine and schooling at Shawan last year.
To me, that is an enormous win, and hugely encouraging. Bc when she’s not turning herself inside out, inverting and deer leaping, I swear she’s literally the world’s easiest horse to jump!
extremely pleased with this mare, she just has the most incredible feeling to the jumps!
And because she felt so easy, patient, balanced and steady, we could string nice little courses together, catching all the chunky BN roll tops Loch Moy has to offer! We mostly did long sweeping turns across the full arena, one jump at a time, prioritizing steady rhythm and tempo.
No muss, no fuss, just connected and cruisin <3
video here! didn’t trim the clips quite as aggressively as i often do,
but it’s a nice representation of how we approached the jumping
And I was especially proud of myself bc after one little mini course, we were about 20min into the ride which… Realistically when I’m not in a lesson and things are going well, my rides are really only ever 20-25min… And I thought about being finished.
Except, I spied a nice brushed up BN coop that honestly looked a *smidge* intimidating to me, even tho objectively I knew we could do it. I also objectively know that I often finish a ride a little early, preferring to “wish we’d done more,” vs the alternative… But here was our chance to just do one last little course!
paused for a cookie at the judge’s booth, maybe an investment in future good juju LOL
It was good practice too, bc Doozy is used to my habit of the “short ‘n sweet” ride too. But picking up and proceeding is as much a skill unto itself as anything else is.
So we picked back up with intention, established our connection on the aids again (hilariously you can sorta hear Doozy grunting in the video but then she just settles right in again). And then went and jumped our final little loop as easy as pie!
Even tho the brush jump rode straight toward the parking lot, where the day’s last trailer had arrived and was unloading. Even tho there was spooky noisy stuff. Nbd. Just went and did it, good mare!
warm enough to get sweaty after only about a half hour ride!!
So obvi we finished on that note, and headed back out to the parking lot to chat with the last rider (whom I know from volunteering) before feeding Doozy her dinner at the trailer, packing up and going home.
dinner at the trailer is always a nice finishing touch LOL
It’s always so funny afterward, when I edit the video and take screen-grabs, there’s always this temptation to feel like, “oh I should have jumped this jump or that jump too, or why didn’t I try the ditch, or or or…” As if there’s some pre-defined metric for “making the most” of a ride.
But. Eh. Maybe instead of thinking in terms of ‘maximizing,’ I’ll try instead to integrate Csikszentmihalyi’s concepts with an old motto from my grandfather, that it’s better to ‘optimize’ vs ‘maximize’ — that enjoying the activity for itself is the reward. And we’ll just grow from here!
