So! Doozy and I made it back out for our first full three phase horse trial since her injury last spring!! And…. welllllll…. it didn’t go *entirely* to plan, to be honest.
**record scratch** yep, that’s me…
But actually the good moments were quite good for us, all things considered, even if the day ended prematurely with my first ever fall off Doozy at one of the smallest jumps on xc. Well. Ok, cough cough, technically speaking, we were already eliminated in show jumping anyway bc SOMEBODY (me) missed a jump, ahem, oops. But Doozy didn’t know that!
you’re probably wondering how i got here!
So yea. A few things went wrong LOL. But. Eh. What else is new?? So let’s get into it!
it all started about five hours earlier….
Obvi I’m not gonna lie — it’s hard to consistently kinda suck at this sport. But ya know. It’s not like I’m not trying, right? And hopefully close observers will agree with me that even with all the fuckery, there are still some pretty solid bright spots from the day — still some clear signs of slow (oh so slow) progress.
for real, tho — all joking aside, it ended up just fine. doozy, tell the people you’re fine!
Tho maybe not THAT clear bc we’re lacking a fair bit of media so…. haha, you’re just going to have to take my word for it on some stuff! Like dressage warm up. For once, I was adamant that dressage warm up would be a feature of our day, that it would get the time and attention it needed.
doozy!! tell the people!! …doozy??
For whatever reason, some of my clock-related psycho tendencies include giving myself exactly not enough time. Not on this day, tho! I gave myself 40min. It’s more than we need for the “work” itself, but I hoped would provide the same sort of mental buffer for Doozy that the 7min break between tests at last month’s twilight dressage did.
oh. ah. i see. just a little low key mugging while i’m trying to selfie lol… yep, she’s fine!
And we’ve been working really really hard at putting together a consistent simple flatwork routine. More evidence to come of that from a recent pivo ride that I haven’t had time to write about yet.
All things considered, with all the prep work and time buffers and all that, I was actually extremely pleased with our warm up for dressage. Especially the canters. It wasn’t perfect, wasn’t as good as at home. But was NOT explosive, and actually bordered at times on ‘pleasant’ and ‘harmonious.’
walking downhill from trailers: first ring is dressage warm up, next ring holds the dressage courts, and the ring below that (behind the judge’s booths) holds show jumping. cross country is on the opposite side of warmup from this path.
Unfortunately tho that just doesn’t translate into the show ring itself. Doozy just gets so tight and tense. The test wasn’t at all our worst… some parts were probably fine. But the score is atrocious anyway bc every single movement is so tense. And still with the collective 5.0 (x2 coefficient) Harmony score.
anyway. for real for real — show jumping started off great!
I’d say it was a bummer except… Meh. For once I wasn’t even checking scores online throughout the day. So I actually didn’t even know the scores until I grabbed my test the next day while volunteering. It was important to me to try my best, to not feel like I shortchanged us in the warm up. But otherwise, it kinda is what it is, ya know?
actually quite pleased with how i rode the tricky half stride distance in this line
So we just got on with our day — the next step of which was show jumping!! And another major major bright spot of the day was the warm up for this phase. Not that there’s any media at all, so again, you’ll have to take my word, but this might have been one of our strongest jumping phase warm up efforts to date.
slightly, uh, less pleased with straight up just forgetting that red #7 even existed in the world, oops
For once I actually was able to practice opening and collecting the canter and felt like Doozy understood and was responding. We jumped four jumps — the X, the vertical once off each lead, and then the oxer, and felt READY.
ah well. doozy didn’t know her pilot is a moron. well. ok actually she might have an inkling on that point, but it was all good!
The round itself started great too! The whole course was kinda twisty serpentine-y bending every which way with almost every jump feeling slightly related but also slightly on an iffy stride.
We got a great shot into the first tho (with a rub but no rail), and then got the strides I wanted to jump 2 in a bending seven. The tight turn to 3 went smoothly, and I was super happy with our ride from 4 to 5, which was set on exactly a half stride but rode in a tidy six with just a slight bow vs the direct line.
full round, complete with our drive-by of #7
We landed counter cantering tho and in retrospect I should have fixed the lead to 6 bc even tho Doozy had good distance, she had the rail and then landed in a bit of a run. That’s not why we missed 7 tho — I literally just straight up forgot about it, never even aimed for it.
Just went right on around to the in-and-out at 8, which rode sticky and long for us, then another kinda sticky jump at 9 to finish. I suspect the stickiness is a direct result of my shoving her at 6 when she didn’t feel totally comfortable in her balance.
they still let you go cross country on a technical elimination tho!
Obvi the warm up steward — longtime volunteer and rider Meredith, who ran a fantastic ring!!! — alerted me to the missed jump and subsequent TE. Honestly tho? I honestly wasn’t ruffled by that at all. Obvi with the way our dressage is, it hardly matters anyway, right? We’re just here for the experience. And even if they’d said we couldn’t go xc, it would have still been a net positive experience.
and it started off pretty good!
But they DID let us go xc, so ONWARD, right?? And again, Doozy actually had a very nice warm up — I only jumped one fence just when the horse ahead of us was in the box, mostly to check the brakes etc, and all was well. So we made our way to the box, picked up a trot about 30sec out, then headed out and got a great shot to fence 1!
straight up princess to #2
Doozy landed strong, but I made it my business to reestablish balance right away, and she got a really nice feeling forward stride to the second.
i call this down hill run to jump 3 the “heart breaker,” but doozy did it just fine
Ditto for jump 3. It’s a fairly long downhill run away from the trailers and warm up and all that. I’m notoriously terrible about riding downhill, and everything about this jump is perfectly situated to tempt a rider into getting too backwards and behind the leg. Not Doozy tho! She carried a steady rhythm and jumped it nicely.
we’ve seen some variation of this bending line a few times now — #6 is top right corner
The next few jumps are all extremely similar to a couple courses we’ve done here before — with jumps nicely positioned on gently rising ground with bending approaches.
got a pretty decent shot to the table!
Doozy was a touch distracted at times — you can actually hear me at various points in the helmet camera telling her not to worry about various jump judges etc lurking in the trees… But honestly she felt super rateable and rideable.
proof: the good moments were good <3 <3
And she got what felt like a great shot to the table at 7!! Hindsight being what it is, tho, I wonder if she felt again like I kinda shoved her at it, sorta like jump 6 in show jumping. She didn’t land out of balance or anything like that, honestly she still felt great (albeit slightly distracted).
got a little bit of a clunker to the corner tho, oops
But the next jump definitely was a little sticky. Just not as confident a feeling as I’m used to with Doozy. I’m not entirely sure why — some people said their horses felt a little slippy on the ground, she also could have just been tired. Idk. But I opted to let her trot into the water just to be safe.
a few small things went slightly wrong here that layered together into a slightly bigger oopsie
Tho again, hindsight being 20-20, it wasn’t exactly an effort to get her to trot. Which… Should have clued me in as unusual. And she just trit-trotted right through the water, right up to a piddly little slow-motion stop at the cedar logs after.
Watching the helmet cam, I understand what I was thinking — clearly I was just waiting for her to pick up and go and take me to the fence. But she just… didn’t. And I didn’t do anything at all about it…. so yea, whoops. So we turned around and picked up the canter to try again.
evidence: oopsie
But you know what they say — you really ought to jump it the first time bc it’s almost never going to look any better the second time. For whatever reason, Doozy was just out of steam and a little upset and didn’t want to play any more.
“i need an adult” — sweet little biscuit
For a hot second, I thought she would push me back into the saddle with her neck. An instant later tho I was way up in the air and actually afraid she might be coming toward and possibly over top of me. Good girl tho flung me clear and spun back and away. And then actually just stopped and stood there waiting for me instead of bolting off into the sunset. Whew.
honestly not hard to find bright spots about this video
I’ve never fallen off Doozy before — obvi have come very close, many times — but really was not at all sure what she’d do. She’s such a sweetie tho, she really does like to be with the people. So she waited <3
bummer to end on a sketchy note tho, but c’est la vie
So ya know. Obvi disappointing. In retrospect I kinda wish I’d retired after the first refusal bc the next couple jumps were all on slightly fussy downhill off-camber lines that probably wouldn’t be ideal for us anyway. But eh. In the grand scheme of things it’s not the end of the world.
no worse for the wear <3
We both probably need a little more schooling, a little more fitness. And *I* definitely need to work on being more proactive especially in the moments when Doozy ISN’T dragging me to the fences.
All the same, tho, I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater bc of one a couple mistakes, even if they were kinda big mistakes. There was a LOT to like about how our day was going. The moments that were good, were really good (for us lol). And at the end of the day, that’s what we’re here for!
That was a great and memorable day — so when I won an educational grant this year from the MCTA, it was a no-brainer to splurge on auditing the official Windurra Camp: a three day extravaganza full of demonstrations, lectures, and unmounted sessions in addition to traditional clinic lessons!
the auditors’ goody bag came complete with branded swag, natch
The clinic was an immersive experience of long days chock full of content and material from a broad range of professionals. And, as you might expect, I took a TON of notes! And pictures, omg so many pictures LOL!
So I’ll spend the next couple days working through the mountain of material — hopefully digesting and distilling it all down to the biggest themes, takeaways, learnings, observations and ideas.
Today’s post will focus on cross country, pulling the threads together from a few different sessions, including auditing participant lessons, former steeplechase jockey Mark Beecher’s session on galloping position, and Boyd’s demo schooling session with Liz Halliday Sharp’s Paris Olympics horse, Cooley Nutcracker.
brace yo’self, bc i took a LOT of notes!
Subsequent posts will be dedicated to show jumping (featuring Peter Wylde), dressage (featuring Silva Martin, Brett Parbery and Laura Graves), and then a miscellaneous catch-all from the unmounted demos and sessions, including:
- The Champion Mindset with Natalie Hummel
- Bitting Discussion & Demonstration with Xander from Stübben
- When To Call The Vet with Kevin Keane, DVM
- General (and also Personal!) Conditioning Discussions with Steph Simpson and Peter Wylde
boyd did a cross country galloping position demonstration on this chromey chestnut
Hopefully at least some of that will be interesting to the average reader lol… So let’s dig in, yes?
Tho, lol, I’ll be honest with you… I’m starting this recap series with cross country bc it’s the easiest for me to get out quickly… mostly bc… ymmv but I find auditing xc clinics to be less impactful than other phases, in the grand scheme of things.
So much of cross country riding is really just about feel. And since most of us don’t have the luxury of setting up our own schooling fields, it’s not like we’re taking away exercises or combinations to recreate at home either. The lower levels are most fundamentally just one jump at a time, applying skills and training developed from normal every day ring riding.
lessons were replete with lots of discussion of principles
What WAS interesting to me, however, was the number of recurring themes throughout the entire clinic: no matter who led the session for which phase, certain patterns and concepts emerged again and again. And one major theme related to techniques for warming up the horse, preparing for a ride in any of the three phases.
Shocking exactly nobody, the name of that theme is Adjustability. Also known as forward and back, lengthen and collect, transitions within and between gaits, forever.
every session had tons of auditors too!!
For the cross country clinic lessons, Boyd started by having riders find a light seat at trot, immediately working on adjustability in the gait off just the rider’s position: trot, nearly walk, then trot off again. Rinse, repeat, then canter.
In canter, riders would shorten the stride on a small-ish circle, maybe 15m, then ride forward again. With the intention of right away trying different lengths of canter — including opening onto a more open stride in a truer galloping position.
In Boyd’s demo rides, Peter Wylde offered a sort of live-stream narration (audible in the video below!), and in his words, “the warm up is intended to help the horse take a breath and get in sync.” The purpose is to connect and feel ready, and that just doing the short quick bare minimum in order to start jumping jumps can be less helpful in the long term (Editor’s note:guilty as charged!).
For the first couple jumps, Boyd suggested “don’t think cross country yet” — just keep it really simple. And in his demo with Bali, he started with a simple figure-8 over two inviting tables — focusing on politeness and turning both directions equally well on landing.
back to boyd, doing another demonstration — this time a serious but simple schooling ride with Cooley Nutcracker
As a schooling ride progresses, Boyd encouraged riders to try to recreate the feeling of being on course — taking longer straight approaches and big sweeping turns, vs more twisty show-jumpery type lines. The first few fences are really thinking about turning each way, checking all the aids, checking for politeness rather than “desperation.”
Relating to pace, Peter advised that when on simple flat ground — non-complex / combination scenarios — you’re basically looking to do one less stride to everything than you’d do in show jumping.
it’s insane how easy these two make it all look
Former steeplechase jockey Mark Beecher tag-teamed the galloping position sessions with Boyd, and encouraged riders to practice catching jumps on a more forward flying stride — the “minimal set up” type galloping fence.
While he said it’s inevitable that riders will make mistakes doing this practice (and therefore suggested practicing in low-consequence scenarios like with a ground pole or small safe slope-y type jump), he was adamant that it was a critical part of learning to be smooth in cross country.
Riding forward, keep coming forward — don’t necessarily commit to the forward with your body while you work on developing the feel — but keep riding forward.
Bali trying to act like he wouldn’t accidentally murder boyd while spooking at his own reflection lol
For each session, and especially for Boyd’s demo with Bali, he talked about the importance of keeping it simple. You don’t have to jump every jump every time — especially if schooling is something you can do more frequently.
The checklist is basically to practice the gears (forward and back), check the turning, try a little terrain (jumping up and downhill), and hit the three main hallmarks of xc (ditches, banks and water) — with any combinations as appropriate by level.
video from their schooling ride here — short and sweet!
Horses at Windurra generally jump twice a week — maybe one session is show jumping and the other is cross country, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be both.
Especially for the veteran campaigners, cross country days can be selected base on optimal conditions. For example, it rained on and off all day Saturday, so the ground was perfect on Sunday for Boyd to bring Bali out for his first cross country jumps since Kentucky.
tfw you get home early after an inspiring clinic and can’t wait to get on your horse, denim be damned!
I’m sure the riders had more takeaways from their various lessons — likely with specific homework related to posture, technique, or how to help their horse with various questions etc. For example, Boyd was adamant in his coaching about position details like keeping the upper body back with hands forward especially down banks or for jumps with stuff on landing.
But for me, the breakdown on how to approach the warm up is probably most applicable. Namely bc I’m literally notoriously terrible about just rushing through it bc Doozy is so much easier to jump than to flat lol… Sigh…
More than anything, tho, the cross country sessions just made me feel a little sad, jealous and #FOMO-y — and eager to get Doozy fully recovered so we can get out there for ourselves again!! All in good time, hopefully.
And in the meantime, more to come on the rest of the sessions soon — definitely lmk if there’s anything either from the xc sessions or from the stuff yet to come that seems particularly interesting to you!
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?
