We had another clinic lesson with 5* eventer Matt Brown this weekend, our third such lesson with him. It’s honestly kinda hilarious bc it feels like these three lessons fully encapsulate my three years with Doozy so far…
ready for action!
The first clinic was back in August, when Doozy was still only very recently coming back into “regular” work, and we’d cantered maybe once so far in the rehab. And she was more or less unhinged in that lesson — we were either walking or exploding into porpoise mode. And Matt not-so-subtly suggested we might need a little more ground work in our lives.
doozy was very mature about the trot poles — even tho they were cow print!
Then in mid-July we were starting to get back on track, and were able to have a fairly productive flat lesson focusing on lateral yielding and transitions, with only a couple little (and not-so-little) explosions along the way.
jumping her itsy bitsy grids like a pro
Finally, tho, this go-round we showed up ready to jump! And with full confidence that we’d be able to present to him a more or less representative picture of our fullest level of training. Which is honestly a really good feeling at this point.
got better on the landing balance as we went
You know how it is with horses and horse people tho… How people describe themselves — what they know, their experience level, etc… is, er, occasionally NOT entirely tethered to reality. Especially in a clinic setting, any good pro has to take whatever somebody says with a BIG grain of salt, and let context clues (like how the horse looks and goes) fill in the gaps.
I always felt really good about letting Charlie kinda ‘represent’ me in that regard. Like, “Here is my horse: he is relaxed, nicely muscled, obedient, and nonchalant. We are ready for this lesson!” Doozy, on the other hand… Well. To be perfectly honest I just assume that most people get a pretty fundamentally questionable first impression of us.
and another little X!
And ya know, c’est la vie LOL! But finally, for whatever reason, Doozy is fully present in Princess Land now. She’s calm and confident again in the work, and game for whatever! And kudos to Matt for more or less treating us accordingly — matching the flat work expectations to the horse in front of him.
slightly more enthusiastic about landing going this direction lol
Which, for our purposes in this ride, meant continuing to work on that lateral flexion and suppleness — especially in transitions.
It’s so funny bc I swear I don’t show up and run down the full list of every single little thing we’ve been working on, but each lesson it’s like he magically kinda picks up right where we are. Last time it was introducing the transitions, and this time it was pushing the expectations on lateral suppleness and frame control.
easy peasy over the swedish oxer of planks
He encouraged me to ask for more, even to exaggerate if needed to help the horse understand. Starting with long reins at the walk to get the mare stretching down, and then gathering in the contact while retaining the lateral suppling as she’s ready. Then picking up into trot but continuing the same feeling — helping the mare find her balance in a comfortable rhythm by releasing through her back and top line.
finishing with another bebe grid
Same story with the transitions — slowly, gently, clearly but firmly: maintain the same degree of bend in up and down transitions, where Doozy is most likely to stiffen and tighten.
And basically, this was our flatwork throughout the entire lesson — even as we started introducing ground poles and little jumps, the focus stayed on exactly this detail: clear soft inside bend, especially in transitions, before and after every jump or exercise.
doozy says it’s #tooeasy lol
And go figure, Doozy caught on quickly. She’s naturally a very balanced horse, and naturally wants to be balanced and comfortable. I think in the past when I’ve tried to do some of this flexion and frame work, I’ve been a little too restrictive and tight — which is what probably creates and intensifies Doozy’s tension and resistance.
Perhaps the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction and I’m being a little too lax at times right now. But that’s kinda the way the training and practice goes, right? Regardless, Doozy understood the posture and was legit perfect almost every time thru the trot poles, good girl!
apparently unclear on how to buck under saddle LOL
Then we sorta just started piecing little jumps together. One at a time, then with each repetition adding on another jump to the little mini course. All kinda long sweeping turns to singles, nothing related (other than the grid), and circling in between to establish rhythm as needed.
“just kidding, i’m fancy little snake” — doozy
And Doozy was super! Consistently establishing the soft bend at the outset helped her right away create a nice balance to take off for each jump. Tho for my own notes, I need to definitely remember to keep the forward feeling in this work too, always with the forward!
Our landings from the jumps were often a fair bit less organized lol, but even there Matt encouraged me to raise my expectations a bit — ask a little more clearly, a little sooner, and a little more firmly. He noted that she wasn’t arguing or fussing at all, wasn’t getting inverted or anything like that, so I didn’t need to be so worried about being delicate with her.
quick video from our last run thru
And, somewhat unusually for us, the more we repeated, the better it got. One of the host-barn’s boarders captured video from our last little trip around the course and it honestly looks decently well balanced all the way around. All the jumps came up super nicely — compared to some of the more skittery efforts we had at Thornridge for example.
And the landings got mostly organized reasonably quickly. Tho, for whatever reason we kept landing the wrong lead and I was opting for simple changes to continue reinforcing the balance, and Doozy was wanting to get a little stuck and annoyed by that. Just something for me to be mindful of, and maybe practice staying forward even in those transitions.
the goodest girl, being #nosy about the parking lot
Overall, it felt like a super productive session and exactly what Doozy and I needed right now to reinforce the right feelings to practice.
Sure, the jumps were all pretty small… which can be tricky for me bc I *know* that some of my bad habits only really crop up when the jumps are bigger… But Doozy doesn’t seem to care one way or another, and it’s honestly probably good for her to feel like it’s ho hum and easy — it doesn’t always need to be exciting LOL.
Not gonna lie, it feels so great lately to get to write about not just riding my horse, but actually going out and doing activities again too!! Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty sure I’d still be out every day riding and grooming and spending time with my animal even if for whatever crazy reason we could never do another off property field trip ever again…
“behold! i’m on a horse!!” — emma, 100% cheesin
But for me? This is where it’s at, this is my jam. Going out for lessons, little schooling shows, bigger rated shows, glorified trail rides… whatever, that’s the good stuff, ya know? And I’m so grateful to have this unique but special little mare back in action for it!
there is video from dressage!! but i don’t have a good resolution copy yet
And she was the absolute most perfect little Biscuit for our CT at Thornridge this weekend!! I won’t go into all the nitty gritty details about warm up and test riding and all that bc it’s basically exactly the same stuff I’ve been droning on about for the last couple weeks.
click for full size — it was one of our best!
Tho, maybe all that writing and studying and pivo-produced feedback is working its magic on us, bc Doozy put in what might have been her best ever dressage test! Or at least, close to it. Not perfect, obvi, and the scoring is 100% inflated, and probably by a lot, compared to what we’d see at a rated show.
and the jompies were fun too!!
But I was over the moon with the horse, and will hopefully be able to get some higher resolution video + screenshots to share soon.
we were a touch skittery on some of the distances but big mare don’t care!
And in the meantime, it was very gratifying to basically immediately meet the new goal I laid out in a post two weeks ago about Harmony, with the judge’s overall collective marks and commentary indicating: “6.5 — Very fancy pair! Some tension today.” Hell yes, we’ll take that!
our most, uh, skitteriest lol… wherein we’re juussssst barely making that 7th stride fit, drifting exactly the opposite direction of ideal considering our next fence…
It was a relatively quiet wait for the jumping phase — we’d been forecast to get slammed with torrential rain literally right up until the storm somehow swung south and missed us completely. So the weather and ground ended up being literally perfect, but probably a lot of people had already decided based on the forecast the night before to scratch. Unfortunate but them’s the breaks sometimes!
the end jumps always come up tight but it was fine!
So Doozy and I were first down to the jumping area, first to go for the day. And honestly I kinda like just getting straight to it, ya know? We reestablished a little connection on the flat then jumped maybe two warm up jumps and went in for our round!
a little more composed into the final line!
They’d clearly planned the course with the weather in mind. There was nothing too too crazy out there, beyond the normal “it’s kinda a tight space with turns planned by dressage riders not jumpers” LOL — and the jumps all looked small for BN.
left a stride out tho LOL
But the ground was perfect and Doozy was ready to go!!
video of the round here <3
It wasn’t our tidiest round ever — kinda slightly funny distances to the first couple. And while the two related distance lines walked in an uphill full length seven, Doozy barely squeezed in the 7th in the first line and left it out entirely in the last…
so fun to be doing activities again <3 <3
Plus naturally I did my own usual rider shenanigans like straight up letting go **completely** of my right rein over jump 2, for… reasons????… and almost forgetting about the end jump at 5 until the last possible second… So yea. Not exactly textbook tidy LOL… but FUN, and also somehow CLEAR!!
proud biscuit won herself a very pretty little red ribbon <3 as much as i love getting big brown ribbons for this Big Brown daughter… a new run of Big Reds could be nice too LOL!
Whatever Doozy’s thoughts about some of the skittery distances, she had no trouble just popping up and over and getting on with it! What a mare! I literally do not remember the last time we show jumped on grass, it’s always such a different feeling from totally flat and level arenas, ya know? But Doozy seems to like it!
all in a day’s morning’s work, amirite??
So another fun day in the books, and still all in all a pretty low-impact activity all things considered, with maybe 25minutes of flatwork and 10 jumps on perfect ground. Not much different from a normal every day ride, it just so happened to be out at one of our favorite places full of a lot of our favorite people. Not bad!!
I recently participated in one of those webinars where a professional rider reviews video submissions. It was… obviously a little uncomfortable to put forward a video* of ourselves with so little context. But also super interesting too.
(**For the curious, I submitted the video from this flat ride, since submissions opened a couple weeks ago. It’s obvi not a perfect ride, but is reasonably representative, right?)
first time with pivo in this indoor went better than expected!
it had some trouble with this bright open door. tho ya know. doozy does too sometimes LOL
Having already learned a bit about his training methodology and philosophy, I wasn’t surprised that his overall impression of us was that I needed to put more emphasis on frame control, first and foremost. That’s kinda his order of operations: Frame control comes first, then foot control, then pace control.
look at us finding more and more nice moments!
That’s… obviously not how I’ve really found much success with Doozy, to be honest. Our whole recent little rehab induced renaissance has followed a slightly different order: foot control first, then pace control, then frame control.
trying my best to stay focused on the flatwork even when we start jumping
Realistically, tho, it’s all important, right? So Brett’s feedback was around emphasizing frame control with the intent of utilizing a soft round posture in the horse to induce and support relaxation. And to achieve this, he wanted me to be more firm and accountable in my expectations — he said I’m not really “pressing the issue” enough.
i think she’s cute <3
His point was that Doozy needs to let me into her top line as a trigger for her to relax mentally, to become more through as she yields to connection, gets rounder, and draws forward. So the “forward” feeling should still be there — the bit pressure shouldn’t be backward.
she was super quiet for this ride!
It honestly sounded a lot like a comment trainer C made in our last lesson — that “ if I don’t ask, and Doozy therefore doesn’t do it, Doozy ain’t exactly wrong.” And it also meshes nicely with what I wrote about last week, about how Doozy actually needs to be connected to feel soft and secure.
walkies lol
So ya know. It’s added to the list LOL, always more stuff to work on, right? As L. Williams often said, “Yesterday’s solution might be today’s problem.” Maybe I kinda needed to back off the intensity of too much contact and pressure earlier in the rehab bc I was getting too backwards and Doozy was too explosive… But ya know. The pendulum keeps swinging, and now we’re on the other side of that, ready for the next step. And so it goes.
and jump crewing our own self… these rails are feather-light and Ms Thing doesn’t mind getting close
So that’s the mindset I brought into this most recent pivo-recorded ride. It was overall intended to be a jump school (bc hopefully if the weather cooperates I might possibly actually be doing a little CT at Thornridge today!!) but obvi it’s still all the same stuff anyway, right?
legit every jump is decorated with hella ground lines and flowers and boxes etc but she don’t care!
And it felt like a good sorta first push toward “asking for more.” Not that it necessarily made a hugely obvious change in how we go, but the feeling was good — better, not worse. So that’s always nice haha!
still gonna just knock ‘em down all the same, whoops lol
I’d also hustled up to the ring before the ride to set up my jumps, since the outdoor is still too wet from recent rain.
ooh was surprisingly tidy over the swedish oxer even with the dark rails!
Course included a low vertical for warming up, at-height vertical on the diagonal, swedish oxer, a grid of roughly 21’ to 21’ in and outs (all verticals), plus ground poles at either end in line with center line. Everything with big ground lines and flowers and fill etc, set to be safely ridden both directions.
absolute princess thru the grid <3 <3
Doozy was super relaxed and flowed beautifully from the flatwork right into jumping. Tho obvi she knocked the very first jump down, so I had to hop off and reset it… Jumped it nicely the next time, but then knocked the next vertical too, womp haha. I did not reset that one…
the grid honestly helps her more than i do, apparently!
At least in our sample size of two jump schools since coming back into work, it seems like we keep wanting to get a little close to the jumps. The spots don’t necessarily feel wrong or terrible, just a little close sometimes.
easy out <3 <3
In the grand scheme of things, I think I prefer that to a horse who isn’t comfortable jumping from a closer distance… But it’s just something I’m keeping an eye on for now. In this ride, at least, we probably actually could have carried slightly more impulsion, tho honestly I was happy with the rhythm and pace.
and one last trip over the swedish the other way
And Doozy’s technique through the grid and over the oxer was basically everything I could have asked for! Which… ya know… is kinda the point of those particular exercises.
video of just the jumps
Another note that Brett shared in the webinar was that “exercises are for people, aids are for horses.” Meaning, the exercise (he specifically was referring to dressage exercises like riding certain figures, patterns, transitions etc) basically ‘put a line in the sand.’ To do the exercise, the rider must actually put the correct aids on. And the horse, for their part, gets better when the aids go on correctly.
video of the full ride, minus the walking, if you’re into that sort of thing
In a way, that kinda puts into better words something I’ve often struggled a bit with in the flatwork compared to the jumping. Doozy doesn’t need me to interpret the grid for her, she understands it and experiences it herself directly, for better or worse. The grid asks her for positioning and technique, and if she answers correctly it feels easy and smooth.
The flatwork, however, is often less intuitive to the horse. So I liked the way Brett talked about the exercises in dressage — that a rider focusing on a specific exercise is more likely to be more definite about their aids. Meanwhile the horse, obvi blissfully unaware of whatever pattern the rider is imagining, responds better to the more clear and definite aids, and therefore goes better.
good girl is ready for her peppermint pls!
As always, it really just boils down to good communication and feedback between horse and rider LOL. Everyone’s happier when things make sense, feel familiar, and expectations are clear. Doozy especially, just look at that sweet little face up there lol, eager for her peppermints bc she knows she was a good girl <3 <3
Doozy had what we hoped would be her final vet check last week to flex all the things, jog hard soft straight round etc etc etc, dot all the i’s, cross all the t’s, etc… And the vet was very pleased to declare Doozy completely cleared for full and unlimited work, including jompies omg!!
all screenshots and video today are actually courtesy of a real human riding buddy, not pivo!
Somewhat hilariously, it actually made it into the vet’s notes about how we needed to be really really certain the mare was ready bc she is an “all or nothing” sort of horse — there couldn’t be any qualifiers like, ‘well just take it easy!’ or ‘stick to trotting cross rails for a little while,’ ya know? Like, we needed either a green light or red, no in between.
“is that jomp… for me?????” — doozy, the *most* excited
Doozy is who she is, right? And… Well. Doozy is full of surprises.
The day came for our first proper jump school — the ring had been completely cleared, dragged and watered* (with *rain, but still) and I had permission to set up whatever I wanted. AND we had a friend to ride with, Doozy’s best bebe morgan friend.
eeeeee crossrail!!
And Doozy was, not to put too fine a point on it, literally perfect. Not like we didn’t make mistakes or whatever, bc we did lol. Obvi. It’s been four months, ya know?
eeeeeeeeeeeee crossrail the other way!!!!!
But ahhhh it was just so fun! Doozy was in such an amazing mood, the feeling was there, actually I probably could have pushed her more in front of the leg, she was so relaxed.
She was still forward and excited to the jumps, but not rude rushy or insecure — no going inside out or getting frantic or anything like that.
literally what more could i want???
Honestly, I thought setting up the full grid from Peter Wyde’s show jumping sessions at the Windurra Camp might be a little aggressive… And therefore opted to keep the heights low for both trips, and only two trips obvi bc I’m not trying to jump the horse’s legs off the very first chance I get, right?
heights were appropriately conservative given, ya know, everything haha, but lookie how engaged she was!!
But Doozy was so ho-hum about it! She stayed straight as an arrow, actually respected the placing poles (spaced 8.5’ from each element) and never batted an eye!
like she hasn’t missed a day
Obvi I can’t predict the future. It’s horses, anything can happen at any time, right? Like, that’s how we kinda got into this whole summer-interrupted situation in the first place.
so proud of her footwork her first time through!
But I’m already kinda wondering if I won’t look back on this rehab-mandated reset period as a bit of a blessing in disguise.
almost amazing that i actually ended up getting ahead of her by the end
Doozy feels and looks so good in her body right now. More important than that, tho, is the progress we’ve made together just in the last month in reproducing more consistently relaxed and pleasant rides.
lolz boxes #TooBoring after all that
That’s not to say that Doozy’s wild child days are behind her, winter IS coming, after all! It just seems like something is sorta clicking for her right now.
ooooh but this was exciting <3 <3 <3
She’s a happy sort of horse who likes doing activities and solving puzzles and answering questions — especially when she already knows the answer. But it’s been a bit of a trick trying to get her to modulate that over-achiever nature to keep her from getting anxious or ‘locked out.’
she was proud of herself too <3
And who knows, all the same old problems could (and probably WILL) reappear when we’re finally back into the big electric horse show atmospheres. It just feels like we have more tools right now.
last trip through the grid was less perfect than the first, but still honestly fucking fantastic <3
Regardless, it felt really good to shake some of the rust off and get airborne again. Basically all of our combined skills, strengths, weaknesses, etc, were right where we left them. We didn’t ’forget how to do it,’ nor did either of us magically like… tune up in the time off haha.
grateful for this mare who is so full of surprises
Maybe in an ideal world I should have gone back down the grid one last time to fix our pace after knocking a couple of the rails in the last trip. But… Meh haha. We can save that for another day.
On this day, it was enough to just be out enjoying ourselves, having a great time jumping around!
