moments with mondeuse

Back in May when it became apparent we'd be moving farms, I'm not gonna lie to y'all... I was a bit, hm. Nervous. 

my sweet little wine grape <3

Probably not unlike a lot of you who have dealt with horses for years, lived through all manner of experiences, I felt reasonably confident and secure in my abilities and knowledge. I was surrounded by peers who have been shoulder to shoulder with me through all the ups and downs over the years. 

really can't overstate how dry it got in june and july, these two ladies picked this paddock clean in just a few weeks

But it kinda struck me that... Ya know. Going into a new place, a new community that maybe wasn't so familiar with me, or my perception of myself... That it was realistic to expect folks to make first impressions based on what was presented to them. 

but just a little rainfall (thanks Debbie!) and suddenly we're growing again!

Which... If you recall back to May... Included a horse and rider who couldn't realistically trot around a circle without a non-zero degree of chaos. 

and then omg the two moved into a smaller but rested + luscious paddock!

Maybe in a way it was exactly the reality check I needed. Like. Yea ok, we are kind of ridiculous. But... Eh, I didn't buy Doozy to be perfect, or to go win all the horse show ribbons, or jump giant jumps. I bought her to learn with, to keep developing myself along with her. 

knock me over with a feather, but the folks at this farm love mowing haha!

Moving farms kinda stripped away a lot of my crutches... But also maybe some of my mental blocks too. It won't surprise any of you to learn that I can seriously overthink even the most basic activity. Which ring should we ride in, what time will it be, who else will be there, what impact will that have on Doozy... 

oooh. we also went to more dressage lessons <3 <3

I'd gotten maybe a little reliant on thinking we couldn't do certain things alone or without help from other riding buddies... That everything had to be curated and set up just right. 

had to stop the presses tho bc #cat

And idk. Maybe there was some truth to that. Some of the more toxic qualities of the last place definitely created some unpleasant outcomes for my rides with Doozy. 

shocker, did more simple gymnastics at home -- both solo and with trainer Kelly

But. Eh. Since moving to the new place, the entire paradigm has shifted... and also basically just simplified. The horse needs ridden. Ideally daily. So... Go do it. 

until it's boring, amirite??

If I didn't want to be the eccentric new (and possibly over-horsed) boarder, for whom "trotting a circle" was questionable.... Well. Go practice and make it better. Every day. 

ooooh we did add in that green panel jump top left too -- with no placing poles!!

And for fucks sake, get serious about getting REAL help --- lessons. Routine, regularly scheduled sessions with professionals who can provide that structure for me.

flashback to last Dom lesson -- jumping without placing poles haha
srsly tho look how much stronger she's gotten behind!

And guys, Doozy is basically thriving. She's always been a trier. She's always "colored inside the lines," so to speak. 

the schweetest critter

But idk. My approach these last couple months has basically been to remove all the pressure, and instead focus on just getting consistent and relaxed. And goooooo figure, it's resulting in... a relaxed horse who is consistently responsive. 

cookies for a good girl <3

We legit aren't doing anything any different in terms of specific activities. If anything, we're doing **less** when it comes to stuff like jumping course work or cantering fences and what have you... 

doozy's new friends kept her entertained while i was away in Seattle!

But idk. It feels nice. Feels easy, predictable, routine. 

first ride back, after legit 10 days off, and we braved the great wide open to survey her #FutureLunch

Not gonna lie, for months last winter and this past spring, it took more effort than I was entirely willing to admit to swing a leg over every day. And not bc I don't enjoy the horse -- I definitely like her very much. But every ride was So. Hard. It felt like it took so much concentration, so much focus, so much more attention to little details in posture and tension... It was exhausting and kinda a demoralizing spotlight on my diminished skills.

lol and she pulled a shoe, WHOOPS. our companion was able to retrieve it for us tho!

The slightest loss of my balance wreaked allllll kinds of havoc. The mare didn't go straight, popped shoulders every which way, spurted off into canter at the slightest provocation. 

And I had zero tools other than trying to just strongarm her into obedience. Which... is itself 100% a losing proposition. Y'all read the posts, saw the pictures, watched the videos. You know what I'm talking about LOL. 

"you should throw a shoe too!!!" -- Doozy, for sure

But idk. It feels like we've turned a corner. Maybe it's just the natural byproduct of time spent together.... that whole pottery analogy thing I shared earlier this month... It might be, tho, that moving farms was just the shot in the arm we needed. 

flat tire didn't slow this one down tho!

The move has kinda given me the space to back off from any goals or pressures around performance expectations etc while we settled in... while also giving me a fresh start at being and presenting myself in a new place. If that makes sense.   

but, eh, looks like another few days out of service, womp womp!

Doozy and I went to our first few events together last spring in a somewhat slapdash (ahem) fashion. It was wonderful and invigorating and proved to myself that, yes! we can do this! 

But I'm equally excited to put together a little fall season that maybe will have a slightly different feeling to it. Not bc we'd necessarily perform any better (obvi). But bc it just feels like we have so many more tools in place, and are on much more established footing. 

Well. Ahem. If she can keep her shoes tied for more than 3wks!! Horses, amirite? 

friday foto finish

Happy Friday, y'all!! It's been kinda interesting around these parts lately, but in like.... a really familiar and comfortable way that almost feels like.... settling in. 

barn mate snapped this epic misty morning shot!

It has probably been YEARS since I've ridden 5-6 days a week so consistently. But Doozy seems to absolutely flourish in this routine. And for reasons beyond my comprehension, it's been easier to stick to the schedule at the new place.

finally, new tall boots! Mondoni Whitehaven, ordered from Divoza

The daily riding, plus re-introducing my favorite riding apps (a metronome + interval timer that dings every 2min), have helped us rapidly develop a standard "package" for our sessions. 

Instead of just trying to keep a lid on things while existing through all three gaits in a more or less balanced posture.... Well, we're actually working on refining stuff now! Practicing transitions! Trotting figures for literal minutes on end. Cantering only when asked. **Half halting omg**

finally, a decent zipper too haha

And like. Don't get me wrong. Doozy still comes out a little wild sometimes. Esp on Ride 1 after a day off. But it feels like we've got mutually agreed upon parameters -- more of a shared vocabulary. 

ok ok so they're kinda knockoffs of the mountain horse boots... just ya know. $200 less lol, nbd

For months, the overwhelming feeling of riding this horse was just that.... everything felt so hard. And I do mean everything. But suddenly.... Idk, we're starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel LOL!

spectating lauren nicholson casually hopping around the P course at Hunt Club
good lord, tho, that grass looks thirsty!

Which, obvi, is a very welcome and reassuring feeling. Esp considering, we still aren't exactly doing anything truly ground breaking at the moment. But I honestly just get such a strong sense from the mare that, once she understands the game, once she knows the rules etc... all the rest will come fairly easily to her. So we keep plugging away!

doozy hackin about with her new friends <3

And almost without me quite realizing it, we hit kinda a big milestone this past week. For the first time probably since 2015 or 2016, I actually had three lessons omg in the span of about a week, give or take!!

our grass is getting a little desperate for rain, not gonna lie

I wrote about our clinic ride with Dom Schramm last week, and then this Sunday we made it over to dressage trainer C!! We've actually seen her a few times in recent memory, but I haven't written about it bc... ya know. It's still just the basics and without any videos or photos, ehh... It's all been said already haha, now we're just out doin it.

ooooh --- dooz out in the wild for a dressage lesson!

Still, tho, it's worth it for my obsessive documentarian self to at least capture that the lessons are happening. And this was a good one in that, there really aren't any big notes or takeaways other than "keep going!" 

legit such a pro at the trailer these days

Doozy was able to strut around showing off her new and metronome-improved trot rhythm, while politely acquiescing to small adjustments in bend and posture. Then the wheels fell off a little bit in canter --- but in that perfect "this is the work" kind of way where nobody (including the horse) got flustered or undone.

drive-by charles!!! whose grass has somehow managed to get more rain??

We just worked through it, and focused on helping Doozy find her balance. Trainer C wanted me to ride a little more off my thighs in canter -- which at first kinda worried Doozy, she didn't quite know what to do with that. But so long as I could stay soft (vs. rigid), it ended up helping. 

he's already cultivating new minions <3 <3 <3

Overall, Trainer C wants to see me get more weight into my lower legs and heel ("Feel as tho you could stand up at any moment"), and maybe move my seat far enough to the left that I feel off center --- since I actually trend toward sitting too far on the right side. This jives well with Dom's observation that I tip too much off the right side too. Not news, but still needs work!

meanwhile. what is it with cats wanting to stand on top of our feet lol

So that posture work continues to be my main focus in our solo rides, even as we keep up with all the same gymnastic and footwork practice. Tho -- big news! Our most recent practice session was actually in eager anticipation of the last of the 3 recent lessons --- the return of trainer Kelly!

oh hey look, it's **another** picture of poles on the floor!! WOW!

I rode with her somewhat consistently throughout 2022, before Charlie's hoof injury. She has an impressive resume in both upper level eventing and grand prix show jumping, all with the same horse who remains (I believe to this day) hale hearty and sound. My hope with her had been to get good coaching that was also empathetic to my protectiveness around Charlie, and she definitely fit the bill.

 

ha i tried a new arrangement too. turns out we aren't quite ready for straight lines tho

So ya know. Everything is different now... But the new place lets us bring in outside trainers, and she bases nearby! Perfect!! It's too early to get my hopes up, bc the logistics of "regular lessons" always prove more complicated than anybody expects... Plus ya know. Humans are humans and sustainable coaching relationships require good cultivation (on both sides). 

we love the big X's tho!

But Kelly's first session with us felt promising. We spent a lot of time catching up, and talking about what Doozy's done so far, etc, and then she basically observed while I put the mare through a typical flatwork session. I'd set up our standard exercises the night before as a practice run, since Doozy does so well with repetition, and everything was still in place the next day so we kinda just repeated all of it for Kelly.

and getting to be nonchalant about all the fill too

And guys, Doozy was on her A-Game for sure. Like, was lovely on the flat, still obvi green, but very game and pleasant in her pacing. And she was perfect to our little jumps!! 

Kelly made a few adjustments to my standard setup -- she encouraged me to set my takeoff pole at 7' instead of 9' if I'm planning to trot it, just to help Doozy not have to make a big move at the last minute if she does actually trot all the way in. To make this set up realistic for me when I'm on my own, she suggested using one of the jumps more toward the middle of the ring so that I could approach the jump from both the right and the left while always jumping it the same direction -- so the takeoff can be 7' and the landing can be 9'.

I will definitely adopt this method, tho also think the 9' takeoff was what we needed to first introduce this gymnastic, given how frantic and launch-y Doozy was post-Jenny Camp. The extra space gave us a little more room for forgiveness when she predictably rushed. She's over that, now, tho. So we can refine!

good girl, dooz <3 maybe one day i'll get video of our rides again!

It was a great session tho bc we got to the point where I'd usually call it -- after a couple nice reproducible efforts -- and Kelly said, yea ok but let's do a little more. And while Doozy remained lovely and game, she did make a couple little mistakes, which obvi meant that we had to keep repeating the exercise. 

But it was just like with the canter in our last dressage lesson with Trainer C. It wasn't a big deal. Nobody got flustered, including the horse. It was just one of those, "gotta work through it" educational moments. Doozy just had to figure out how to be patient to this shorter distance takeoff pole in order to have a comfortable clean pass over the vertical. That's.... literally the lesson lol. And she figured it out, good girl!

days are getting shorter tho!!

Also was a good reminder to me that, this is legit what the lessons are for. Having that ground person guide me (and reset the jumps when we clobber them lol) and push me for that extra effort needed for the breakthroughs. 

Here's hoping we can keep it up lol. Happy weekend, y'all!

Jumpers @ Elkridge Harford

Our local training association is trying to diversify competition and schooling opportunities for members this year, and this weekend hosted their first ever little jumper show! 

god i love shows where you're pretty much guaranteed some satin even if you do like, the absolute bare minimum LOL

Naturally every year I promise not to torture myself with horse shows in July... But c'monnnn, how could we say no to this? I had free entry bucks from volunteering, the venue (Elkridge Harford Hunt Club!!) is just down the road from us, my favorite local photographer would be there (shoutout Amy!), AND --- new trainer Kelly designed the course!

bc good lord it has been a tad bit toasty around like.... everywhere lately lol

So obviously we would go. Not that, ahem, I didn't still indulge in a little bitching when the weather was abysmally oppressive and scheduling details were predictably murky for jumperlandia.... Plus I got myself all worked up about it being a 3' class vs the "Novice" (aka, 2'11) I've been entering at all these other outings. Stupid, I know. But the brain will be what it will be sometimes. 

ooooh we got pretty photos tho from Amy Flemming Waters! here is charlie finally clicking into gear by like jump 6 lol

Once we arrived tho, everything looked pretty much perfect. They were wrapping the 2'6 class but still with enough time for us to say hi, check in, and watch a couple rounds. Which was useful bc the course started on a right lead diagonal, from which you turned left up the judge's line -- a triple combination of a jump 4/5 strides to the in-and-out right next to the tent. 

We watched two horses in a row make that turn, lay eyes on the tent and that jumble of jumps, and skid to a surprised stop. You can't see the tent in the video bc our intrepid videographer was standing right next to it.... But it definitely looked spooky, so we took note and made sure to do our entry into the ring up the rail past the tent before starting our own courses!

i swear to god these jumps are 3' folks, tho obvi not the spread we saw at plantation

I'm getting ahead of myself, tho. Bc obvi first we had to warm up. Remember at Plantation we warmed up for kinda forever since the show was behind. This was basically the polar opposite -- there were only 3 of us jumping the 3', and the course was open and ready as soon as we were. 

was a nice little course too! 

I honestly didn't know what to expect, either. For all my bragging about how sharp and on point Charlie has been lately... Our most recent lesson (a tale for another time) found me working a LOT harder than I should have to just to get around. The kinda slugging feeling where the spots evaporate the closer you get to the fences, and you kinda just crawl over... Bleh.

same jump as before, just a different moment <3 <3 

Charlie surprised me tho and was basically pretty much on point in warm up. Not like... perfect. Not pulling me to the fences in his own special sort of way that I love so much... But going even if we got there a little long. Good 'nuff, we strung like 4 consistent efforts together with the help of new trainer Kelly setting fences etc, then hit the ring for our course. 

literally all the jumps were either red or white haha

And I admit to only entering one class. Idk why I have this stumbling block about doing a full division or multiple classes, but for some reason I only ever want to do one or two. Maybe bc I think it's like this bargain I have with Charlie that if he's perfect the first time we'll be done? 

Which is nice when he's good... But sometimes I *DO* want to go again, and he's gotta be good again, even if he thinks our deal was to be done after one. That was kinda the problem we'd had in our lesson too -- everything was great for warm up etc but he got increasingly checked out as the ride went on -- even tho I swear it was still hyper short in the heat. Idk. Regardless. I opted to just do one single class, and to try and make it count. 

easy out over the final jump!

You'll see what I mean tho about that evaporating spot and pukey weak jump for our first effort on course. Like, I swear I was pushing haha, and tried all the normal tricks to get him going. But like. Damn, bro. Sometimes he just doesn't. 

We made it over 1, tho, and had a better effort at 2 even tho we took that rail (boo). Next up was the judge's line that was measured for 4-to-1, but Royal did comfortably in 5-to-1 and I figured Charlie would do the same. Which he did, good boy. After that, tho, he really clicked on and carried me through the rest of the course, cleanly down another bending line, up over a single diagonal off a short turn, then down the proper 72' five-stride to finish. Good boy!

quick video of our one and only round here

It's so funny bc I get so preoccupied with the "bad" fences, get so frustrated and annoyed about the same mistakes or whatever. Which I guess everybody does to a certain degree. But it actually took me a hot minute to realize that, sure, Jump 1 was definitely our weakest jump on course.... But it wasn't anything like the "one majorly bogus fence" trend we've had on all our courses lately. It was just sorta a normal bleh spot, but nbd. 

woot woot group photos lol

And actually, first-jump-itis excused... Overall it was honestly a pretty decently consistent round. I don't love how much pushing I'm doing vs feeling "pulled" to the fences... But it's also potentially arguable that Charlie would have stayed clicked into that better gear had we opted to do a second or even third round (or, god forbid, a "warm up" trip first lol). 

So ya know, that's food for thought for future outings (when it's less hellishly hot lol). 

lol it's so nice to have a riding buddy that does all the same classes as me, but damn they beat us every time <3 <3 <3 charles pick them feet up, buddy!

We're glad we went, and that's what counts, right? I like this venue a lot, and really like their little grass ring too. And obvi Charlie always loves getting to wear his studs, obvi, even if sometimes it feels like a ridiculous amount of effort to get them in and out for one single jumper round LOL. 

So it was a day well spent despite the heat ;) Tho uh.... I may or may not still be recovering, and swearing yet again to myself to stop showing in July omgwtf lolol..... Stay cool, y'all!

in search of sunrise

Happy Friday, y'all! TGIF! For any of you who have been following along for a while... it's not much of a surprise that I'm kiiiiiiinda a head case. It's part of my charm, I swear.

instantly snoozing the second i hop off after our lesson last week

But I wrote about how last week's CT at Thornridge was kinda proof that all my work on slowly tediously methodically trying to create a better mental game was finally paying dividends. 

sir. you are so #earthbound sometimes.

And guys. It has been a process. Probably will *always* be a process. Ahem. See blog title.... 

For real, tho. Who really knows what leads to a crisis in confidence. A million different personal factors. Everyone's story is kinda a little bit unique in that regard, I'm sure. But... As far as I can tell, the solution isn't really all that complex. Just.... long.

trit trot at tranquillity!

For me, it had to start by acknowledging the crisis, not stubbornly trying to push through when it clearly wasn't working. And giving myself space to step back and reevaluate. Bc .... most of my issues aren't really about the horse or the jumps or the ride or whatever, it's about some sort of vague existential sense of like, idk, failure or some shit like that. 

oooh actually jompimg!! just ignore the flying rail!!

Which in a way is lucky for me, bc once I realized that nobody else really cares the way I do about whether I succeed or fail, it became a lot easier to kinda start releasing those feelings and assess what it means *to me* to be successful.

i swear all the jumps were raised for our final course, but phone ran out of storage :(

I've always known that my confidence in jumping is a pretty simple function of making it feel routine and mundane. I was at my absolute best when I was taking two jump lessons a week --- it was like this glorious halcyon age during my Isabel days.... 

excited about finally seeing combos and oxers in these lessons with Kelly tho! 

That's not super realistic now for a lot of difference reasons. But finally finding new trainer Kelly has helped a lot. Sure, shipping out for lessons again definitely kinda sucks. But she hustles for us and that alone makes it worth it. Having a lesson on the schedule keeps me accountable, especially when I don't do much jumping outside of lessons.

video of a couple snippets here, sadly cut short from lack of phone storage bleh

But.... That actually takes me to the next stage in .... recovery? Now that we're feeling back in a regular groove, we've gotten our sea legs back, we've been back at shows, doing our thing, and feeling ok about it.... I'm ready to take the next step.

oooh jumping at home again!! 

Which, for us, means doing more jumping at home again. It's honestly something I've kinda not enjoyed for the last couple years bc Charlie can be an uninspired slug at home, and often requires a jump crew me dismounting repeatedly to reset fences.

yessir, much better with less splat at these big X's! 

Plus.... When I'm riding solo and not feeling super confident.... I tend to... Idk, it's hard to explain. It's like I let things slide until we have a big mistake. But the big mistake makes me feel more fragile, or like, "Damn see this is why I don't do this, I knew this was a bad idea!" And then I don't want to do it all over again the next week.

you'll have to take my word for it that all the jumps we put up to Nish height were too close to the camera to see

It's much easier when you've got somebody coaching you around. Sure, I still make the big mistakes in lessons.... But I've got somebody there whose literal job is to work me through it and help me fix it. 

like so --- but look at that good boy!!

And go figure -- that process works. Because now I'm kinda at the point where, if I'm going to be shipping out to lessons and paying that extra $25 for ring rentals etc, I'd like to skip the big mistakes, thanks, and get straight to the good stuff, ya know? Work on challenging ourselves and stepping it up, not like... Splatting over our stupid tiny warm up fences bc I didn't bother to get the horse in front of my leg in the first place.

tinkering with tiny twos! 

Getting more consistent about jumping on my own has other advantages too. For instance, unlike the overly orchestrated coordination of shipping out.... I can be more improvisational at home. Like yesterday, after it had rained the whole night before and all morning, I was like -- Ah, yes! Soft ground!! Today we jomp!!!

lol first time down this line i absolutely stuffed charlie into 6 strides. went back to fix it, but joke was on me bc i overcorrected and managed to stuff him again, this time in 5 lol....
homeboy can ADJUST (and emma needs to relearn calibration lol)

Bc obvi the other piece here that I always stress about is Charlie's soundness and fitness -- which are two deeply related but also somehow occasionally oppositional forces. Charlie must be fit to be sound, but it is absurdly easy to lame him in the quest for "conditioning."

video from last night's schooling -- short 'n sweet

And obviously worrying about my horse's soundness is yet another direct route to hell mental insecurity. I *hate* rolling up to a big lesson or show or whatever and being like, "eh I hope Charlie is physically prepared for this!" He obvi knows his job... But it's the practice that ultimately matters -- making sure he is physically conditioned to the speed and the effort and the distance and all that stuff. 

I feel like I've learned a lot about how to manage him over the years, tho, and especially about how to NOT overdo it -- tho we've certainly trended too far into under-doing it LOL. 

Idk, tho. Right now, in this exact moment, I'm feeling a strange but pleasant sort of calm about it all. About where we are, what it means to me, and what I want to do -- regardless of if it's "perfect" or whatever. And I like it! So here's hoping for a season of renewal after what's been an undeniably shitty set of years for like, wow, the globe LOL.