click beetles + boat houses + trot steps, oh my!

Well the festivities have finally concluded for MDCTA’s annual recognized event, and follow on unrecognized Jenny Camp Horse Trial. But just because the party’s over doesn’t mean the fun stops, amirite?

these boat houses are some of my favorite jumps at all levels — charlie jumped this T one a couple times, like in 2019. they definitely deserve some TLC and fresh paint!

There was still jump painting going on right up through the day before the starter trial, and in fact a couple more got done afterward too. It’s so much easier to get them painted nicely when they’re out in the field vs stacked up in storage, ya know? And some of them were pretty desperate for attention…

taking the club into the digital age with an actual database for the jumps, complete with printable reports!

I’m not the world’s best jump painter, tbh — I’m a little too fast and sloppy and not as disciplined about the scraping and prepping as some others… But I *am* good at compiling, cataloging, and recording information into usable data and shared information hubs. So I finally took pictures of everything and made a digital jump inventory!

this N version of the boat house used to live at our last boarding barn, and charlie and i jumped it literally zillions of times, memorably that one time we actually won an event

From my experience as a volunteer, storing and sharing information centrally is so much more efficient than having everything residing inside key individuals’ heads. Not that there’s anything wrong with key individuals who generally know all the things, but… ya know. Being ‘key’ and all that, they’re typically busy and doing a million things. Much easier to just have a list.

and here’s the legendary USEA VIP original gold medalist volunteer Sue, painting yet another of the boat houses, this time the P version!

That way, when some of the country’s most amazing volunteers show up ready and eager to beautify our precious jumps, everything is ready to go for them! And voila! More jumps get painted, less time is wasted tracking down busy bees, and everyone is happy! By my count, something like 17 jumps total got painted for this event!! Amazing!

the club receives grants for introducing new groups to eventing — here’s a set of actual small children, apparently accomplished steeplechase riders, warming their race horses up before schooling xc

The schooling week in between horse trials is always a big hit too. I don’t know the final numbers on how many folks came through, but it was a LOT. Such a great resource for the local community to have full competition courses available to school so close to home! 

what goes up must eventually come down: unflagging is the least sexy task

I’d personally love to see the club offer more events at Shawan Downs throughout the calendar year. It’s apparently more feasible than I dared hope… but ya know. It’s a LOT of work, especially for a skeleton crew of board members and volunteers, almost all of whom are either retired or working full time jobs on top of, ya know, having lives and stuff.

new flexible pipe flag attachments recommended by the xc builder were a solid win!

But there are some ideas bumping around. Including opportunities to streamline some of the fussier tasks and chores — like this new method for flagging the fences, recommended by the cross country builder. Sure, it takes a little time to install each tube, but once it’s set, the flags go in and out, no muss no fuss, no friggin zip ties, AND — this style counts as frangible for narrow jumps and corners!

Only trick is to buy the right type of tubing, bc the really flexible stuff will completely relax and lose its shape once you cut it open. Ahem. Cough cough. Ask me how I know….

everyone knows hypothetically about staking jumps… but few spend much time thinking about unstaking jumps… blergh, 2 stakes + ~4 screws per fence x ~100 fences…

Anyway, tho, for many tasks, there really are no shortcuts. Like staking the fences. Sure sure, plenty of facilities out there get away with leaving jumps unstaked. And sure, plenty of oopsie rolled fences don’t result in major accidents — like that time Charlie and I rolled a house at Windurra. 

it’s a fun way to get intimate with the local bugs — meet the Click Beetle,
a gigantic native bug i’ve somehow gone my entire life without ever seeing before

Buuuuuuut…. when there ARE accidents, they can be legitimately catastrophic and fatal for everybody. Thanks but… no thanks. The few hours spent staking and unstaking is cheap insurance, as far as this club is concerned. It’s just hours that need to be accounted for in planning any additional events.

if bugs aren’t your thing, here’s cats instead, in a very good box

The neat thing about accounting for hours, tho, is that it’s all just numbers at the end of the day. If you know what things need to get done, and how long* those things take to do, it’s just a matter of assigning tasks, budgeting for paid professionals where feasible, and working backwards from a date, right? In theory??

(*And I mean the REAL time things take — like including the 20 minutes spent looking for the drill bit you dropped in the grass, or the extra trips to the hardware store bc you bought the wrong material — not the ‘aspirational’ guesstimates LOL)

anyway tho. doozy. she’s still a weirdo LOL

Well. In theory, all things are possible LOL! Like, maybe in theory, if the club decides to host a fall event at Shawan, mayyyyyybe Doozy will be fully rehabbed by then? 

and we’re still tack walking with friends!!

I still honestly don’t really have a sense of timeline for that, and am trying not to set any expectations, consciously or unconsciously, even as I may or may not be trying to manifest opportunities LOL.

do we look happy? <3 <3 <3

But we’ve been tack walking for a couple weeks now, and have started introducing little bits of trot, one long side of the arena at a time. Well. Ahem. And the occasional accidental canter step, bc Doozy is who she is. 

ain’t a bad way to spend an evening!

The mare feels like a million dollars tho… A million feral dollars LOL, especially compared to all those nice obedient well-schooled dressage horses I’ve been taking lessons on haha. Like. Doozy, some horses just ya know, do the thing without all those feelings and opinions!

oooooooh but the rehab continues!!!!
(not pictured: lots of feelings and opinions! oooh, or cohesive color coordinated outfit choices LOL #dontjudge #allthebluesatonce #andalittlegreentoo)

I have this beautiful fantasy that perhaps we can use this rehab period to maybe polish over some of those little rough spots in our schooling… Ya know, like, if we have to be walking and doing lots of transitions bc we’re only doing littles bits of trot at a time… might as well make the practice count, right? 

Seems like a nice idea LOL, we’ll see how it turns out in the real world tho. As long as we come out the other end with a happy sound horse ready to go run and jump again, I’ll be happy regardless!

So… yea. Lots of wishful thinking going on at the moment — hoping and wishing for more fun club stuff, and hopefully a happy sound horse to do the things with! Now that the club stuff is wrapping for the spring, it’s time to get serious about that other part!

dooz control

On one hand, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind around these parts. On the other hand tho… We’re still just kinda marking the passage of time with Doozy.

just me ‘n my formidable creature

I started doing a little tack walking about two weeks ago, and it’s been absolutely lovely to sit on my favorite girl again. 

 

She’s a feisty beasty tho, and despite my cautiousness about keeping things civilized under saddle, she’s definitely been, ahem, unruly in turnout…

 

And I admit to spiraling a bit after she’d clearly been up to no good outside:: telltale mud sprockles around face and belly were the first hint that she’d been tearing it up. Second hint was the teensy tiny little pinky-nail sized wound on her left hind. Ya know. Her cellulitis-leg. 

 

new hackamore plates from nunn finer! i *almost* got the biscuit style bc obvs! except it looks a little too western-y for me.

And naturally it blew up like a stove pipe and everything. 

 

Luckily it did NOT escalate into full force cellulitis again, and was back to normal after a day or two… But still. I did a little pity-party shopping for myself (new hackamore plates and fancy rubber reins from Nunn Finer!), and otherwise went full bore into total immersion / distraction with all things MDCTA planning.

 

Fortunately, as with any recognized event put on by a grassroots skeleton crew, there was plenty to do! And fun opportunities too — like getting to be a fly on the wall for the prelim course inspection, conducted by none other than Captain Mark Phillips. 

 

Mostly tho, it was the normal chores list. However long you think it takes to flag for an event… double it. 

don’t worry, i’m a professional

And brushing up the fences. Tho, uh, we were… ahem, a little short on brush LOL!

whew ok, we’ll call that “passable”

Setting up dressage arenas isn’t my favorite thing in the world, but that needed done too.

 

And painting. So much painting. Some jumps just needed some work on the leading edges and high points — like the above two — while others needed full on facelifts. Probably still more to do there before the starter trials next week too… Makes for some long nights!

 these kerrits paddock boots have held up shockingly well for the last two years, and are super comfortable. considering my blundstones were riddled with actual literal holes after the same amount of time, i’m officially a convert!

Eventually it all paid off with two good days of horse showing, with perfect weather, great footing, and lots of happy riders! 

 apparently a fox wanted to make sure i didn’t miss picking up this decorative straw ground line… 

Thennnnnn straight back to the ‘salt mines’ of cleaning up after the event — we take down the P and M courses right away since those levels don’t run for the unrecognized trial, and obvi all the decorations etc need to get picked up too.

kittermission picture as a palette cleanser after the poo LOL

It was definitely nice in a weird way to be a little too busy to even really feel guilty about not riding Doozy. Sure, I still made it out to groom her, check her legs, scratch her bug bites, etc… but mostly it’s been a couple weeks of just cruise control.

 

Finally, tho, with the event behind us, I started tack walking again this week <3 

 

Doozy is fresh AF and sizzling like a steak on the grill. I swear this horse just vibrates with energy omg. 

aerie is a stalwart supervisor <3

And I opted to cut one of our solo hacks short when we got out to the hay fields and the guys were all out there in the middle of cutting and baling and all that and Doozy thought that was all VERY EXCITING OMG lol… 

 

Luckily we had proper supervision for our next attempt and enjoyed a lovely (tho still extremely energetic) hack out to the woods.

 

Idk how long it’s going to take me to not feel nervous about the next steps in rehab, tbh. We had a single ride where I trotted exactly two long sides of the indoor arena… And the very next day she got that little wound on her cellulitis leg, and I instantly got cold feet again.

 

I’m sad to miss out on riding and showing and all that, and obvi eager to get Ms Thing going again. Except, more than anything, I really really want durable long term soundness. 

Obvi there are no guarantees with horses. A large part of Doozy’s recovery will depend on how well she treats her own self, ya know? Tho, by all accounts she appears happy healthy and SOUND frolicking around in her field. And the leg is looking good too.

So ya know. That makes happy. One day at a time!

shawan preparations

It’s that most shawanderful time of the year again, when my local riding club the MDCTA starts gearing up for their annual recognized USEA Horse Trials at Shawan Downs!

Phillip Dutton & Fernhill Singapore jumping around prelim circa 2015

I love this event so much — for honestly a lot of reasons. It’s inexorably connected to my eventing history, as home of my earliest volunteer and competitor experiences. And it’s super local for me!

my third ever horse trial, with Isabel in 2015

Shawan Downs is an iconic venue, independent from just eventing too — they host a variety of timber and steeplechase races throughout the season. 

what Shawan Downs is really famous for: the Legacy Chase

Mostly, tho, my interests center on the eventing aspect. Especially bc it’s super easy to get involved with the club too! Their current competition calendar just uses Shawan Downs for the big recognized event and a follow-up unrecognized starter trial. So it’s always a big push for club members and volunteers to get everything set up!

trying to make sense of the annual jumble

All the portable cross country jumps are piled in an adjacent field for storage throughout the rest of the year, so it’s always a bit of a mystery puzzle sorting everything out — seeing what maybe got a bit broken in the transport, or perhaps succumbed to nature over the winter, vs what’s ready to go for the new year.

making a plan!

Generally it’s a multi-day job for the builder to move jumps from storage out onto approximate locations on course ahead of the final set with the designers. 

and from the woods emerge…. jompies!!!

Presumably this is the same just about anywhere, although at Shawan the storage field is a bit far so there’s a lot of time spent driving back and forth with the trailers and loaders. This year fortunately we had two trailers, so it went a little faster maybe.

however long you think it takes to move all the jumps from storage to the course, double triple it

It’s super satisfying seeing everything take shape tho. And for whatever reason, things are well ahead of schedule this year too! All tracks are officially set out with just some building (repairs / blocking / staking), mowing, painting, decorating, flagging, roping, etc, left to do.

and voila! a combination is born!

I mean, obvi that’s still a lot of work left LOL! Tho generally that’s how most members knock out their year-end awards eligibility hours, so it always ends up getting done.

next steps: painting + decorating + flagging!!
sign up here if you wanna join the fun!

I personally love getting to see more behind the scenes “how the sausage is made” eventing activities. It’s not that it’s all that complicated or unexpected, but it is A LOT. A lot of time, a lot of work, a lot of hands involved. Especially activities like mowing or flagging or painting, it all just takes the time it takes, ya know?

But it’s such a nice change of pace from my normal desk job haha. Honestly not a terrible way to spend a day! 

So ya know, if you need me, that’s where I’ll be for the next few weeks LOL! And if you’re local and interested in getting involved, come join us and sign up to slap some paint on a jump!

jonesin for a fix

The events calendar is really picking up around Maryland — something about the month of May, there’s usually at least 2-3 different equestrian activities either day of every weekend.

another blingy dark bay!

I’d originally planned for our next show to be two weekends* ago, so this weekend was penciled in for getting an early start on volunteer requirements. Year end awards at both my local riding clubs require at least 8 volunteer hours specifically to the benefit of each club (vs hours logged at any random show). Esp with the DVCTA, whose hosted shows can be slightly farther away, this can take more advance planning.

(*Fortunately even tho my entry was submitted and it was post-close date already when Doozy had her accident, the secretary hadn’t actually processed the entry yet and let us ‘pretend it didn’t happen.’ So nice of her, and so nice to not be out that entry on top of everything else!) 

my poorly framed shot doesn’t do this sweet dressage court + judge’s gazebo justice, it’s a lovely place for a schooling show!

Last year I signed up to scribe the morning shift at a dressage show without checking the address first, only to discover it was a nearly 2hr drive from home, oof. It all worked out in the end, but I don’t want to have to do that again! 

Luckily this weekend a venue only about 45min from home needed a scribe for the morning. So I got to knock out the first 4hrs for the DVCTA, scribing for a lovely judge while getting to watch some extremely pleasant tests. Everything from kids on ‘been there, done that’ school masters, to adult ammies on beloved homebreds, to higher level contenders looking to put some polish on before heading out to a recognized show.

audited a fun local clinic!

And the timing worked out perfectly that I was able to cruise down the road right after to watch my new friend Murray and his person ride in a dressage clinic with another well respected local professional!

I’ve actually tried to ride with this trainer a couple times, actually had already secured a clinic spot with him two winters ago when Doozy’s weird hoof bruising issue first started and we had to scratch… He’s got a really positive and encouraging approach while also really focusing on correct posture and alignment in horse and rider. So it was fun getting to watch my new friends go with him!

ok ok back to that sweet blingy dark bay — meet Milliner!

After all that, tho, I admit to feeling a little sad and demoralized about the situation with Doozy. Like, part of why I love volunteering and auditing clinics and all that is that it’s just straight up inspiring, ya know? Makes me eager to get back to the barn and go riding, right??

Obvi I still went straight to the barn after to see Doozy, and we had a nice time grooming and all that… But you know what I mean. It’s not the same. 

not quite as blingy as Calvin, but still extremely handsome!

Fortunately, my barn manager was completely understanding when I sent her a desperate plea text later on, and one thing led to another, and the very next day I got to spend some quality time with lesson horse Milliner! 

I don’t know him very well, don’t really know anything about him, actually, except that he’s one of those sort of typical ageless TB geldings. And he’s got basically the best possible “if you’re going to be a lesson horse, this is the kind of lesson horse you want to be” gig. He’s slightly too advanced for the typical once-a-week lesson kiddo, so he doesn’t get used a ton. It’s mostly adult students who ride him (and ideally take leases on him) or good riding boarder kids if one of their horses is laid up. 

tried to get a majestic ‘look of eagles’ shot with the buttercups background, didn’t quite succeed LOL

He’s apparently in between leases at the moment, tho, and could benefit from more regular work. Tho, as I learned when I hopped on for our first little “get to know you” session, they really did mean it in the purest form. Milliner is a good boy, he doesn’t need any tuning, he doesn’t “need work” in the “needs miles” sort of way. 

Rather, just like any of us — actually, just like me! — it’s good to just stay in a routine. Sounds like a win-win, right? Here’s hoping haha. Our first little ride was lovely and low key and exactly what I needed <3

no ‘look of eagles’ from this one either … 

Doozy, for her part, is doing more or less quite well. I’ll probably do a more thorough update later… tho mostly just to get all the various pictures off my phone bc there isn’t a whole lot of actual ‘updating’ to do. These things just take the time they take.

poor bored mare… she’s so demanding!

And in the meantime, my sweet beloved little chaos engine is… Well. Chaotic. Literally not more than 3 minutes after I snapped the above little video, as I stood there rolling up her stable bandages, standing right there with her… she managed to pick the whole ass grooming bay mat up with her foot (knocking over the trashcan in the process, natch), spooked, broke the cross ties, and got loose AGAIN. 

Like. Mare. WHY tho?? Ugh, sigh. Fortunately she’s pumped full of trazodone, plus her best friesian friend was standing right outside the doorway hand grazing, so she opted to just stop and stand there all sad with her cross ties dangling, rather than bolt off into the sunset again.

ridiculous critter, glaring incredulously at a saddle pad drying in the sunlight.
“hOw DaRe.” — doozy, presumably

So ya know. Never a dull moment, I guess! The sooner we can get this mare healthy and back to normal, the better!! And in the meantime, it seems like some pieces are coming together to keep getting that saddle time I so desperately crave… Thank god for the Milliners of the world!