Happy Friday, and Happy Fall to those who celebrate! It feels like September is always one of the craziest months of the year, not least because it is a month of transitions.
August is peak summer in Maryland, with the heat and humidity seamlessly carrying on into September.
We were fortunate to have enough late season rain to keep things luscious and green — even after the last cuttings from the hay field!
Still tho, eventually everything goes to seed for the year — our fields get this gorgeous heather-y purple hue that really brings out the contours and steepness of the hillsides!
We’ve been lucky to get out a lot lately too, and occasionally in larger groups! And Doozy loves the groups. I used to worry that she’d be too chaotic and triggering for other horses but she’s proven me wrong (yet again haha). The vibes are good <3
September also always brings a new tenor of urgency to the show season calendar too. Suddenly stuff needs to happen! Preparations need to be made!
Including the MDCTA’s fall starter, which we’re super excited to be holding at Shawan Downs again!! In just a few short weeks all these jumps are gonna be back out and ready for action!
Doozy, for her part, seems to be happy for the routine. Well. Except occasionally — our early morning dressage lessons sometimes interfere with her nap schedule!
“I need a coffee. And maybe a hug too.” — sleepy Doozy <3
It’s not exactly coffee, but she likes sniffing the lavender potpourri satchel I keep in my helmet bag haha.
And hacking, haha. She likes hacking. We hacked a lot this month, apparently!
The low trail down by the creek finally got cleared of trees again too! I just love the woods this time of year.
Doozy’s been so pleasant and happy out there this month that we’ve actually done some hillside trotting and cantering too!
It’s super important to me that hacking remain a relaxing and fun activity, a nice escape. Obvi being free to run can be its own variation of fun liberating escape — but only if Doozy’s on board with that vibe lol. And lately? She has been !! <3 <3
Tho obvi we probably spend equal time stopping and snacking and chatting LOL.
It’s also been a season for starting to get back out to all the major FEI events — starting with the Plantation Field International!!
I got to steward the 4* and 1* dressage warm up the day before our own show at Loch Moy and it was super inspiring lol.
I also stuck around long enough to help transition the big hilltop ring from dressage to show jumping — picking up all the boards and blocks etc above and putting down the standards and poles and cups and numbers.
I’m always so amazed by the level of organization and professionalism at these big venues. If you ever have a chance to help with set up for one of these events, you totally should. There’s a lot to it!
As it is, I’m super grateful that the gorgeous Indian Summer weather held fast through that event and our own showing at Loch Moy, bc it’s been rainy and cool ever since.
Soggy Biscuit actually wore a blankie (and fly boots, go figure) a couple nights this week, esp the night before our last dressage lesson. God forbid she be cold and muddy AND have to go to work lol.
The rain brought in a distinct new crisp coolness to the air. A change in the light and color.
And the sun is setting earlier and earlier, as it always inevitably does.
Fall is my favorite season for riding, tho. I’m honestly kinda glad it’s here, excited to see what it brings! Hope you all have a happy start to the season, and a fantastic fall weekend!
It’s been just rainy enough, often enough, to keep our outdoor arena closed while the footing dries (or, doesn’t, as the case may be).
setting my pivo up on the fenceline, willfully ignoring the storm clouds behind me lol
Obvi with two indoor rings there’s still plenty of options for riding … But idk, I kinda hate riding inside if we don’t have to, ya know?
walking with doggo lol
Like… We’re basically confined entirely to the indoors during the winter since the outdoor ring doesn’t have lights (and again, the footing is bad in wet weather and slow to dry). So for the rest of the year, unless there’s a specific reason to do so (like when I wanted to jump before Thornridge last week), I’d really rather not go inside.
just trit-trottin around the field!
Especially on the weekends — this time of year the horses are inside during the day, meaning the paddocks are all empty. And there’s a very nice and decently flat paddock right next to one of the indoors. This paddock has the extra advantage of being essentially the closest thing the farm has to a dry lot — the grass is extremely short and picked pretty bare by the sweet pudgy ponies that use it for turn out.
something so refreshing about the grass!
Obvi I do my best not to leave marks or tracks or ride out there when it’s muddy anyway, but since it’s the one paddock that never gets ‘rested’ to grow grass, I really don’t worry too much about that.
jussssssst enough terrain to keep it interesting
And there’s something so nice about riding out on the grass! It’s up on top of a hill so there’s a nice breeze, and there’s options for working on slight variations of slopes and undulations in various corners of the paddock.
lateral suppleness remains an area of opportunity lol
I feel like it’s an entirely different type of workout for the horse to school on uneven ground too, compared to well groomed flat surfaces and footing. Like Doozy has to work harder to contain herself, keep her feet underneath herself.
feels like canter is coming along tho!
A friend I boarded with years ago moved to a farm that didn’t have any ring at all, and I remember seeing them at shows and her horse looked amazing. Like, obvi she was a lovely rider and he was a very nice horse anyway, but something about working full time on the grass had really done wonders for him.
obvi not perfect, never perfect, but it’s feeling a lot more pleasant to ride!
Plus, we have a lot of events around here that run dressage or show jumping, or sometimes both, on grass — in addition to cross country. That can be a slightly different experience if you’re not used to it, too.
Ms Thing felt very balanced on the grass!
Like I’ve honestly kinda avoided some events historically bc of the grass rings or especially the warm up situation. Which… ya know, is fine. But it’s also something we can practice, right?
wouldn’t mind having this down transition at a show!
It’s also “just different enough” that it can kinda influence how I ride in the same way being at a show can — in the sense that maybe I get more tentative or passive, or lower my expectations etc, bc we’re doing something “different” and “hard.”
we squeezed in some quasi-test-practice before the rain got too heavy
So with all that in mind, it was nice taking advantage this weekend of the nice weather but unrideable outdoor to get out into the paddock.
**singing free-walkin in the rain!**
Doozy is still going strong on her Princess Streak too. Idk what’s in her Wheaties these days but she’s been literally the most pleasant creature for actual weeks at this point. The last time we had what I felt was a ‘bad’ or ‘frustrating’ ride was back in July, actually.
actually kinda nice to school in the rain — a rarity for us these days
And that was its own interesting experience too bc it was when I first got the pivo, and upon watching the video from the ‘bad’ ride… I actually felt better about it, like maybe it wasn’t that bad after all. And in fact, that was the ride / video situation which kinda helped me figure out that I was trying to solve rideability issues by getting too backwards.
our “test practice” was more like just trot a circle, canter a circle, change directions, rinse repeat
Since that ride, I’ve been a lot more intentional about keeping my leg *on* and riding forward. And gooooooo figure, lol, Doozy looks like an entirely different animal now to how she felt then.
doozy loves her halts now
Actually, if anything, I probably need to add even more leg now bc she’s suddenly so ho-hum about life. It’s honestly been so pleasant!
fairly quick ride bc of the weather…
It’s like I almost don’t know what to do with ourselves when she’s this pleasant haha. Like, we walk, trot, canter, she’s a perfect princess, and it’s like…. okie dokey so…. now what?? LOL…
collecting the expensive electronics before they get too too damp!
Obvi it’s easy enough to see from these pictures and the video that perhaps I could push for a little more, be a bit more exacting about frame and posture and all that… And sure, we’ll keep working on that. But I’m not gonna lie, it’s nice to just enjoy Doozy’s relaxation for a bit too haha.
lol @ her face…
My hope is to keep sorta reaffirming this relaxation in new and slightly different ways — like riding out in the grass! or riding in the rain! — while also continuing to nibble around the edges of improving our flatwork, so that ideally the relaxation will remain accessible to us when we get back to events.
We’re supposedly finally getting a reprieve from the intense heat dome that’s stretched across much of the country this past week… And not a day too soon, either. Endless days of triple digit ‘real feel’ temperatures are exhausting for everybody, bleh.
bunnies. bunnies everywhere
Well. Almost everybody, LOL!
I like to joke that Doozy is impervious to heat, that she IS the heat, she is one with the hotness haha. The rest of us might be wilted and begging for mercy, but not Doozy!
106*F put the kibbosh on basically all riding tho (also, feel free to ignore my tire pressure warning, as i do every day!)
Tho a friend was talking about how the orchids she planted outside were thriving and going wild with all the heat and humidity, and I was like, Aha! Maybe that’s the perfect analogy for Doozy!! I mean, we always knew she was a hot house flower anyway, right???
“garçon, my snacks!” — doozy, impatient
Anyway, she might not mind the conditions, but even I have my limits, so it’s been a fairly quiet week around these parts. Not really the worst thing in the world, given her current rehab status.
Like, sure, I’m still all inspired from a lot of the conversations, feedback, and ideas I got from Windurra camp — and actually a few preliminary sessions prior to the heat dome felt really really promising in terms of getting us back on track on a more traditional rehab schedule. The mare actually trotted 4 whole minutes under saddle with zero shenanigans, no tiny circles required!!
sample serving of purina replenimash came in the windurra camp auditor’s goody bag
But all the same, time is still our best medicine for any sort of recovery, so a week off is just fine.
Tho obvi I’m still out to see Doozy every day just to check on her, scratch her bug bites, and feed her fancy snacks. As one does! That’s perhaps my favorite thing about being a thoroughbred person: it’s easy to just keep plugging her full of foodstuffs without really having to think too deeply about it lol.
doozy was a fan!
Like this fancy Purina RepleniMash that was part of the Windurra Camp swag bag. It’s marketed as basically a wholesome mash with ingredients like electrolytes and their Outlast gastric support product, intended as a supplement to regular feed, or quite literally, to “simply let your friend know you care.” (assuming, hopefully, that your friend isn’t an air fern!)
Does Doozy already get a lot of gastric support from me? Do I already give her electrolytes? Yes and yes lol… But, eh, Doozy thought it was delicious, plus a nice big sloppy mash when it’s a million degrees out seems nice too, so I ordered a bag LOL.
stübben grooming spray + a baby pelham in their fancy flexible plastic composite
I’ve also been eager to play with some other goodies from the camp swag bag — like this fancy grooming spray from Stübben! It’s different from other grooming sprays I’ve used bc alcohol is a main ingredient, but it’s supposed to make them super shiny and dirt repellent. So we’ll see!!
Oooh and the bit I ordered arrived too. It was not part of the swag bag, tho we did get a nice discount code to use. The baby pelham cheek pieces are apparently among Boyd’s favorites for a variety of reasons, but I’m also really interested in this mouth piece too.
reader poll: is my bebe kitten already giant? or is this the littlest yeti you’ve ever seen? (trick question, the answer is yes to both… they grow up so fast!)
Only time will tell if it goes into regular rotation for lessons or shows, or if it’s more of a specialty use bridle, like our hackamore. Time will also tell if this fancy flexible plastic material holds up any better than the rubber nathe Doozy chewed through in just a few short months, too.
“garçon! it’s spa time!!” doozy, itchy, ready for a cool down bath!
Regardless, I’m eager to give it a try, and get back to riding again too. We’re hopefully signing up to lesson with Matt Brown again in the near future, and ideally I’d like to show him a slightly… more civilized version of how we go this time around.
this stuff usually lives in my trailer for rinsing off after lessons, but it’s the perfect refreshing rinse in these oppressive heat dome conditions
The new approach we started experimenting with prior to the heat dome includes a bit more ground work — a mishmash actually between feedback from Matt in our last lesson and also some pointers from Peter Wylde and Steph Simpson at the Windurra camp. And you already saw a few pictures from Doozy’s first foray into our at-home round pen.
probably a lot of you are already familiar with this stuff, it’s got great ingredients
None of it is necessarily groundbreaking stuff in the grand scheme of things, probably it looks like exactly the type of routine practice and work that most people do with young or green horses.
kitten is trying to create his own spa day too, natch by making a mess of my AC tower’s condensation drainage…
I’m learning with Doozy, tho, that so much of our success (or lack thereof) in deploying any given tactic or technique is honestly rooted in my own understanding, framing and approach. That it’s not enough for me to just do it with this horse, but I have to have a really clear sense of why, how, and for what purpose.
#loveabletrouble
Bc at the end of the day, this horse is too sensitive to distinguish a muddled signal from all my noise, ya know? She hears it all, whether I mean it or not.
We’ll see, tho. Hopefully this week will be a bit more normal conditions, at least normal for July. So probably still moderately malevolent mugginess lol. I’ll take it, tho. We’re officially half way thru the year and I’m eager to keep chipping away at our 2026 goals!
