He's a typical thoroughbred I guess in that his feet are kinda soft, and we went through a not-insignificant phase at the end of last spring through the middle of summer where Charlie was basically on a 2-week shoeing cycle. That sucked just about as much as you would expect.
tell me he's not the most lovable thing
Obviously his feet had to undergo a fairly extreme transition in coming off the track: shortening his toes wayyyy back (for the record, while his original splint injury was self inflicted from weaving, I'm about 89% sure the subsequent flareups were all due in part to too-long toes....), and growing more heel.
These goals on their own were enough to motivate a short cycle - typically about 4 weeks.
But then just as we were thinking Charlie could graduate to a 5wk cycle, summer kicked into high gear with bone dry, rock hard ground and lots and lots of stomping at flies, and Charlie basically started walking out of his shoes in no time flat.
LH: surprisingly his one white hoof is the least problematic of the bunch!
Looking down the barrel of Spring earlier this year, I was absolutely determined to not fall into the same cycle again.
LF: you can sorta see how the outer wall chips away around old nail holes and clips
Charlie continues to get the supplements recommended to me by my vets, farriers, and trainers: Platinum Performance and Farrier's Formula. Both have all sorts of fun little extra goodies in them, and Charlie eats them well.
He's on a maintenance dose of the Platinum Performance now, but ramped back up to the full dose of Farrier's Formula once the faintest haze of sprouting green grass appeared this spring.
RF: fairly significant chipping around the edges. nails still tight tho!
Additionally he's back on a religious 5wk cycle, after going through a period of ~6wk cycles (sometimes longer, I admit, esp around his surgery) since moving to this farm last year. Including a couple times when I had him on the list to be done, but the farrier decided not to bc "his shoes were on tight," even tho his toes were getting too long.
Knowing what I do now about Charlie's hoof history and general soundness, that logic doesn't really work for me. So after some trial and error I've switched farriers and am satisfied that Charlie's current guy will basically do what I ask while also feeling free to make suggestions and tell me what he thinks is best for the horse.
front shoes have leather pads + clips
Case in point: Charlie's schmancy full leather pad boat shoes. The farrier at our last barn had Charlie in leather rim pads, which I really liked - but the new farrier says he doesn't like them bc they have a tendency to not stay put.
Personally I would prefer rim pads I think - esp bc of the freedom it allows for things like packing the feet with poultice or magic cushion as needed. But Charlie's been in these pads now for a few cycles and seems to be doing well with them, so I'm just trusting my farrier on this one.
hind shoes just have clips
Especially considering, knocking on all things wooden, Charlie hasn't lost a shoe since last winter. And even that was kinda a fluke - he was super lame from stepping on a nail and abscessing, and his other leg had to compensate and carry a heavier burden. Add in the extremely muddy conditions and maybe that shoe didn't stand a chance.
But so far, through the heat and hard dry ground of June and July, Charlie's shoes have stayed on tight. All the pictures above were taken at about exactly the 4wk mark, and you can see that the edges, especially around the old nail holes, are just starting to crumble a bit.
Luckily, in addition to all his feed through supplements, religious application of Keratex (usually just the fronts, with the hinds maybe 50%-33% of the time) around the nail holes has kept his hoof wall flexible enough to not grow brittle and completely break apart. All the nails except one are still on pretty tight.
So I'm optimistic that the approach I'm taking to Charlie's hooves is working for him. Fingers crossed lol. I never really knew much about the inner workings of farriery before. Obvi I didn't have to as a non-owner. And even tho I was responsible for Isabel's farrier appointments she had such excellent sturdy little arab feet that everything was always really straight forward.
Charlie, as a Size Large OTTB, has been a little bit more of a trial by fire for me haha. But it's interesting stuff! So we figure it out. Have your horses ever required special footwear? Or any extra care in keeping those toes happy? Any products you love and swear by? Or maybe you're one of the lucky ones whose horse's barefoot feet crunch gravel for breakfast?
Charlie is rapidly approaching his 2 year anniversary of transitioning from race horse to riding horse. His last race was Aug 9, 2016 and I met him just one month later on Sept 9, 2016. And, as you all know, he debuted here at 'Fraidy Cat Eventing ten days after that.
can we just pretend that the uber-long mane adds to charlie's aura of majesty?
He's my first horse, after years spent riding schoolies, project ponies intended to be schoolies (including a number of OTTBs in college), the occasional school master, some catch rides, and of course four transformative years leasing Isabel. In short: I've been waiting for this for a loonnng time haha.
lol it certainly makes him look extra fierce over this sma jompie!
And it's been a great two years so far! I think it's safe to say that Charlie isn't really "green" any more - at least, not in the roughest sense of the word. He's reasonably schooled to training level dressage work, and is pretty consistent through 3' coursework. I might even venture to say he's wellschooled to grid work and gymnastics. Maybe, lol.
gotta be honest here: i have no idea why i like this picture so much lol. charlie looks like a friggin pony lol
Overall tho, it's been a while since I've had to ride him like a green horse. He understands the job, knows the aids, and is more or less sorta kinda reasonably compliant.
Mostly what we're working on at this point is refining the pieces. Making things smooth. Seeking greater degrees of consistency and discipline - wanting to keep doing what we're doing, but more. And better. Forever lol.
casual about the oxer
Which works for me, ya know? I don't have to tell you that I'm a pretty serious planner. I spend a lot of time just thinking things through. Visualizing how I want any given ride to go, what I want to work on and where we might encounter potential issues or obstacles. Using all our past rides as input for estimating what the future might look like.
The less green and more consistent Charlie becomes, the easier this planning and visualization process gets for me. Right? Like, the better trained a horse is, the more predictable he is.
mighty cute over the swedish tho!
Only... Ha, well. Sometimes this intense compulsion to plan everything out in advance gets me into trouble. Sure, Charlie might not be "green" in the broadest sense of the word any more. But he is still "green" in terms of his technical proficiency.
Meaning: every time we expand Charlie's (or my!) horizons, whether by introducing greater complexity to a jump course or dressage movement, he becomes green again to this new level. Obviously this may seem like a huge "Duh!" moment to readers out there, but it's something I forget again and again and again.
ooooh but hey, lookie here's more kinda awkward cantering pics ;)
Because I get so caught up in my plans - riding the horse I expect Charlie to be based on the horse he has been in the past, and my interpretation of the factors contributing to his past performance - that sometimes I kinda miss the forest for the trees.
I miss the fact that, sometimes he's a different horse today than he was yesterday. And sometimes I need to adapt my plan to meet him where he is - and to change my plans on the fly if my expectations turned out to be way off base.
why so serious tho, charlie??
Obviously sometimes this can prove to be a huge problem. Like at Plantation where I kinda expected him to just cart my butt around the course like he had a Loch Moy, but he proved to actually need a much more decisive and firm ride than I had expected to provide.
Other times tho, his changeable nature catches me off guard in kind of a good way. Like when we went schooling at Shawan Downs and I half expected him to drag me around the grounds like he had at our season opener, but he was actually a perfect saintly gentleman about literally everything.
wheeeee!!!!!
It's tough for me to not want to plan things out so specifically. I love knowing what to expect, and feel more confident when I'm familiar with a situation and have a plan for how things might unfold.
Simultaneously tho, it's becoming clear that I'm way too slow in adapting when Charlie comes out to play in a different mood than I expected. Like, we can both be moody - but I tend to hang on to things. To dwell. Mostly bc that's part of the process of digesting everything that happened previously to better understand how to either avoid trouble or reproduce success in the future.
Still tho, sometimes I think I just need to let go a little more lol.
ok you caught me - these may or may not be the most awkward canter pics possible lol. dis charlie's lerd chernge
June was a really crappy month for me and Charlie -- but that doesn't mean I need to go into every ride in July expecting the same thing. Especially bc sometimes Charlie comes out and does his job and casually just jumps on around like the easiest thing in the world. And it sure would be nice if I could sit back and enjoy the ride haha.
he jumps tho! and that's what matters! also plz to enjoy the trainer K cameo as she legit tries to air-kick my horse up over the fence for me lololol
Like this past week's lesson with upper level event rider K, where we kinda just cruised around small jumps focusing more on some interesting turns and bending lines than anything else. It was a group lesson with some new members, so the jumps all stayed small. But Charlie didn't care. Just loped on along through.
Even when we kinda managed to land on every wrong lead, or miss a few turns, he didn't care. Nbd. He even proved that he learned something from last week's lesson with Trainer P where we faced all manner of placing poles all over the place. During this ride we revisited the same raised pole to the oxer that almost killed us last week - with added bonus of having "V" poles on top of the oxer. And Charlie slayed.
And trainer K had to keep reminding me to stay forward with Charlie - stay soft with him and not be too defensive or too driving with my seat. Just let him keep coming, keep cantering forward to the fences.
quick compilation from the lesson here!
Bc I spend so much time visualizing how I need to ride Charlie when he's very strong and pulling me around, or when he's sluggish and recalcitrant, that maybe I don't ever really remember how to ride when... ya know... he's just kinda going along just fine, thankyouverymuch lol.
So ya know. It's good food for thought lol. Maybe I need to meditate a little bit on how to not overthink things so much that I can't recognize or appreciate the good while it's happening. If anything, this all reminds me a lot of a lesson I had with Dan under very different circumstances, where he pointed out that the "greats" all have short memories. Meaning: maybe sometime's there's a real advantage to not always be thinking about how things went in the past such that you're too distracted from what's going on right under your nose.
Hopefully this proves to be good timing too, as Charlie and I have a few fun plans this week. While I am still 100% committed to the discipline and consistency that I've been writing about all month -- it'll still be important to remember to ride the horse as he is in the moment too. Tell me I'm not the only one who gets stuck in this trap of over thinking every single thing??
Happy Friday, everyone!! Congrats on surviving another week of summer. Surely I'm not the only one who feels like it's FLYING BY right now, right?? Like the days are already noticeably shortening. Wth, how does that even happen??
can we just appreciate what an inspired gift this is?? the quotes on each card are perfect too.
Who knows. All I do know tho, is that Sara's 2nd Quarter Prize for her 2018 Volunteer Challenge was absolutely spot on. This gift is so perfect in so so so many ways and I mayyyy or may not have gotten a little misty eyed opening it up!
oh man, so many pictures, so many memories!!! <3
Obviously the calendar aspect is perfect bc - again, I can't stress this enough - time is flying right now lol. More than that, tho, Sara spent a little time browsing ye olde 'Fraidy Cat Eventing blog for some of her favorite shots. Which, naturally given my fully fledged #mediajunkie status, there's no shortage to choose from lol!
Her selections are so great tho. So so so so many of my favorites here, so many special moments. Especially when I think about not only what's happening in the picture, but also what was happening just outside of the frame - my friends who were all right there cheering us on either from the sidelines, the saddle, or from behind the camera. Just so many memories, and I'm so freakin touched. Thanks so much Sara!
omg hand shit and shitting rainbows socks. yesssssss!
Plus there were also some awesome socks and the most delicious smelling Hand Shit too. Seriously guys, Sara gives great gifts. She's pretty committed to making her 2018 Volunteer Challenge awesome, and for rewarding those who give their time to making eventing such a great sport.
So definitely get out there and volunteer! Sara does random drawings monthly (except on the quarterly months) so even just a little bit of your time is enough to be eligible for a prize! Volunteers who have accrued the most hours in a quarter win special prizes too, so there's real incentive to make time for it!! So what are you waiting for, right??
moar saddle surgery!!!! bet you're not used to seeing their guts spilling out like this, eh?
Anyway. Tho it may seem like I spend literally all of my time volunteering (bc uh, yea I do it a lot and will actually be in the CCI1/2* Cross Country Vet Box tomorrow, much excitement!!!), I do actually do other horse stuff too.
Like, ya know. Occasionally ride. Lol, assuming the horse is sound.... Which, last I checked he was. So these are all good things.
but just like that, charlie's got himself a new gullet plate
I wrote after Plantation that we're doing a comprehensive wellness check for Charlie, which includes all sorts of little things like checking tack fit etc. Charlie's massage therapist felt like he was a little saddle sore, so I finally got around to changing out the gullets in my Bates jump saddle (after sending back that beautiful Beval monoflap.... much sadness).
mcta always has the best prizes. allllmost made me sad i wasn't showing this day!
It's hard to say if it's made much of a difference, honestly. Mostly bc it's not really clear if saddle fit was really the big issue anyway at Plantation, vs regular old attitude problems. In any case tho, I've jumped Charlie in the new gullet plate three times now and he seems fine. He's also been happy to stretch out for a gallop or two as well.
So we'll see. A new jump saddle is probably a little higher on the "Want" list these days, but it luckily isn't urgent. For now..
it was exciting to be cheering on friends tho!
And meanwhile I've kinda been bummin around other local shows too. Not always volunteering - sometimes I'm just the cheering squad and/or chauffeur. Like when I took a couple barn mates to MCTA's starter trial at Tranquility.
brita and bella are back in action after a little vacay. bella naturally looks like she never skipped a beat!
It was a really great day - the first starter trial ever for both riders and both horses. And they were all superstars! Did the dressage thing, jumped all the stadium jumps, and tooled around the same awesome little starter xc course that Isabel and I did at a Tranquility Hunter Trials all those many years ago.... They even had the same little stone wall and everything!
Brought back a lot of happy memories, and I was so happy to see both my barn mates kill it!
rachael and birdie meanwhile have been keepin busy!
I also got to go help Rachael out at Loch Moy's recognized event recently too. They had pretty tight times between phases so I was happy to hang out and groom for her while she rushed off to walk her courses.
usef blood testing!!
Which proved extra convenient bc Birdie got pulled for random testing lol, which I had never seen before and naturally asked about 1,000 questions lol....
Anyway tho they had a great day and made that course look like a cakewalk! Made me kinda sorry to not have anything on the books for a little while myself. Oh well, in time!
fireworks prep is very serious stuff, guys!
Bc for now we've kinda just been chillin. Enjoying summer. Relaxing. Like obviously everything I've been writing about being disciplined and consistent still holds and is still my #1 priority. But that doesn't mean I'm full on Gunnery Sgt Hartman all day every day, ya know??
this was the day i learned trainer P is also a licensed pyrotechnician lol
Bc c'mon, let's be real: we gotta make time for the parties, right?? I've heard tell of OF's epic 4th of July parties, but had never actually been to one before. I moved Charlie to the farm at the end of July last year, so clearly had just missed it. And despite coming to the farm for lessons for the past 4 years, I never really came for anything else.
the on-farm fireworks show did not suck at all
This year tho, I was determined to go. And I also learned this year that my weekly jump trainer P is also a licensed pyrotechnician. So... they definitely got the BIG fireworks. And put on a BIG BIG show. It was seriously impressive. Plus we were all basically right there directly underneath the explosions - they were so loud and so bright I needed my sunglasses lol, and by the end I was completely covered in ash. #worthit
horses are also just bein horses. way too smart horses lol
The horses had been kept in the barn until after the show was done, but they were all fine anyway. Like, annoyed and confused about being inside and eager to get out, but not at all crazy or anything. Apparently the golf course next door sets off fireworks fairly often too so I guess they're all used to it.
Which seems reasonable to me - Isabel lived next to a gun shooting range, and sometimes they'd be shooting some LOUD stuff. But the horses never really cared about that either. Go figure.
we've still been finding lots of time for this too
Anyway tho, things are just chuggin right along. After a seriously crappy June, July is starting to feel a little better. Charlie feels good again. And feels like he's responding well to my zero-tolerance approach.
they've been mowing like crazy and everything is getting brown :(
He's also been jumping well - like you saw from last week's lesson with trainer P. And I'll actually have more to share from another lesson this week with trainer K. Nothing ground breaking, but just good solid practice. Just what we need!
can't wait to get out and gallop, but just wish the ground wasn't so hard...
Meanwhile, the farm is finally finally putting the xc jumps back out in the fields after having pulled them all out back in May for Shawan Downs. The ground is harder than concrete right now bc it's so dry.... but we may be scheming all the same anyway. More on that soon ;)
For now tho Charlie and I have been just trying to get back in sync at speed. There are a couple great spots out in the trails that are perfect for some speed. And Charlie's been rarin to go! Like, we turn toward a clearing, I push my hands up his neck and get into half seat, and he just GOES! Now that is the feeling I want from him leaving the start box haha.
So maybe we'll do a little more galloping this weekend too haha, it's addicting. Plus obvi I'll try to take a lot of pictures in the vet box tomorrow at Loch Moy. I'm pretty excited about that - have never really been behind the scenes at the finish line for upper level cross country, so hopefully there will be lots to learn! Stay tuned for more later.
Do you have any big plans this weekend? Or is it more like the dog days of summer - weekend beach trips or backyard bbqs or quiet trail rides?
I'm moving at the end of the month, and things are starting to get pretty real with packing and preparing. It's been kinda intense bc I've lived in the same apartment for like... ten years lol. And considering my penchant for holding on to stuff, it's meant quite the amassing of like.... things over the years.
Luckily the prospect of having to move all those things has been inspiring and motivating enough to get me to actually, ya know, purge some of it. There have been many, many dump runs (actually, even more today...).
Still, tho, there's still just a lot of stuff that needs to get packed up and moved. Whether it's bc it's useful functional stuff, all those many books and whatnot, random decor items, or just the sentimental detritus I can't bear to part with.... There's just a LOT.
Which means a lot of BOXES. So many boxes. Most of them have already been packed up, but my friends (and the local liquor store lol) have all been really generous in sending more my way each week.
I would be annoyed by the clutter except.... Well. You can't deny the cat enrichment opportunities posed by all these boxes. I think my cats are the real winners here!
Hopefully the madness will calm down soon so it can stop consuming my weekends. Tho actually, there should be some fun horsey stuff happening in the next few weekends anyway. Hopefully. Fingers crossed lol.
Do you have pets as helpful as mine when it comes to cleaning, organizing, or packing? Lol....
The last few weeks have been quiet for Charlie. After Plantation I wanted to get more serious about consistency and discipline in my own approach to riding, and felt like Charlie was in a good place to move forward with that.
But then he kinda went a little lame, felt like something high and maybe muscular in his often wonky hind end. But didn't feel like his "normal" wonky that improves with strength. Idk. It's Charlie, and he's often kinda a hot mess in the physical department. Sigh.
if all else fails, at least charlie has magnificent hair
I tried to keep a delicate balance of working him through it - days off interspersed with low key flat rides focused solely on getting him pushing through his hind end and stretching. Since the reality is that he's often at his best physically speaking when he stays in regular work.
maybe he needs an emotional support therapy pupper lol
After about a week of this, he was feeling much better so we settled back into our more normal routine. It was convenient that during this time trainer P was basically out of town with weddings and stuff to attend (I guess even trainers get a personal life lol) and I had opted to bow out of the week day lessons with trainer K to let Charlie keep healing.
tho of course there's always plenty of riley dog to go around!
All this meant, tho, was that we were rapidly approaching the Fair Hill starter trial I had hastily entered at the last minute after Plantation. I entered BN, and planned to go 100% alone. With the idea being that Charlie would have to contend with being alone and not having a friend waiting for him back at the trailer.
And he would be in a familiar place, one in which he's previously shown some of that resistance to being driven forward out of the start gate. But by doing BN, I'd be feeling pretty confident in my ability to kick him up and forward (zero tolerance!) without really needing to think much about the actual jumps.
bc yea riley's always there with the moral support lol
It was a good plan (aren't they always?) but it didn't work out. Charlie was back to being pretty sound, but I was unsure about following through with that "zero tolerance" approach if he had any sliver of an excuse for bad behavior, esp considering the limited prep.
So I opted to do a quick solo jump school the night before the show to serve as my litmus test for whether we should even bother. A couple jumps in, and.... Yea. A decision was made. We'll go to a show some other day. Bc we have some important work to do before then. Sigh.
bc it turns out, sometimes this brontosaurus has feeeeeeeelingsssss
After that, I felt pretty dejected so I ended up giving Charlie even more time off. Didn't climb back into the saddle until our Hulsebos appointment the following week.
Charlie obviously doesn't mind the time off, and actually for the first time ever didn't find some new and interesting way to injure or maim himself despite days in a row of neglect. Maybe he's growing up?? Lol....
lol... also, in case you were wondering what our jumps at plantation must have looked like, just imagine this, over and over and over again
Anyway tho, Trainer P was back in town so I was eager to finally get a lesson in. Charlie came back into regular work in the days leading up to the lesson, and then it was game time.
He was actually the most willingly forward and relaxed in his flatwork that he's been lately. The zero tolerance approach is paying off and he's kinda figuring out that it's easiest for everybody if he just gets to work instead of fussing around. Trainer P still wasn't super satisfied with it tho, and encouraged me to keep changing it up on him and demanding his attention.
look, here's another variation!!
The warm up jumping exercises suited us quite nicely too. We have a new boarder in our lesson, and while her horse is very willing and capable, he can be very lazy in his form over fences. So trainer P decided it would be a day of "all the placing poles all the time!"
She had ground poles on takeoff and landing, and in between jumps in a line. Poles errywhere!
pep talks with trainer P are always helpful tho. dis y i <3 lessons
This was useful for us bc the reality is that Charlie is kinda in a "I don't wanna and I don't care and nothing you can say will change that!!" mind frame lately.
He was grumpy about being asked for more forward, distracted by his grumpiness, then surprised by the placing pole and subsequently a disorganized mess over the jumps themselves. For my part, I worked really hard to not get baited into his grumpiness. When he's snarky like that as we approach a jump, my subconscious habit is to soften a little bit so that I don't distract him from the fence and cause the awkward jump.
let's never forget tho: gosh i freakin adore this horse tho
I learned my lesson about that at Plantation tho, haha, where it turned out that not fixing that problem only begat more problems. Go figure.
So what I'm doing now is basically shortening the progression of aids in asking for forward. Normally in training a horse, you would think of the progression of aids as starting with the softest, lightest possible ask and gradually increasing the intensity of that ask (think: the spectrum from asking to demanding) until the desired response is finally achieved.
Conceptually, if you're consistent enough, the heavier asks fall away because you attain the desired response earlier and earlier in the progression - eventually with the lightest possible ask.
and i'm pretty sure he *does* actually like the job i've offered him
Charlie understands this process. It works for him. He's a clever pony and learns well through patterns and repetitions. But with his latest phase of testing out "No!" as an answer, he just tunes out through the lighter progression of the aids, only begrudgingly acquiescing when I finally reach the "demand."
So..... that's cool big guy. I'm picking up what you're putting down. I can adapt to work with you there. I'll still begin as always with that lightest possible ask - delivering an aid that I am confident that Charlie's prepared for and understands. And if he tunes out, gives me the finger, or otherwise just... doesn't? Well. There's no more progression. We skip immediately to the "That Was A Poor Choice, Charlie" aid delivery system.
Aaaaand he goes. Sometimes with attitude. Sometimes begrudgingly. But, increasingly, he's just going. And then he starts making better life choices the next time I ask softly.
sometimes it just takes a little extra convincing to get him clicked into gear
So back to the lesson, these placing poles set up everywhere were really effective as part of this process bc they basically recreated the same outcome - except it was just between Charlie and the jumps instead of being only between Charlie and me.
He'd be presented to the jump. Understand that there is a jump there. See the placing pole. All things he's schooled at and knows well. But he'd kinda just fart along, get distracted, not really feel like it, but then reach the placing pole and immediately realize the error of his ways when he'd kinda fumble and crash through awkwardly.
but once he's there???
And assuming I did my job of being clear in my aids of "Yes sir we are going forward to this jump" instead of sorta tacitly accepting his grumpiness and distraction, then the next time I put those same aids on, he'd have the fresh memory of the fucking awful jump to convince him that.... yea, probably he needs to listen.
It's honestly like a switch goes off with him too. Like once he gets his head in the game and starts going forward to the jumps, everything changes. He's happier, his ears are pricked, he's pulling forward in front of my leg, and we don't get that "dead" feeling at the base of the jump - that feeling of uncertainty about what the fuck is about to actually happen. Bc trust me, that feeling reeeeeally really sucks.
he's freakin THERE.
The placing pole exercises definitely helped in that regard too bc they really forced him to pay attention. We started by trotting into single jumps with the placing poles, then trotting into a 30' two stride line, an 18' one stride line, a fairly open three stride line, and a 36' two stride line.
And after a couple disastrous jumps (pictured earlier lol), Charlie got the point and started working more with me. It helped too that we finally raised the jumps up a bit, esp for our final course that was all set around a soft ~T height.
THIS is my horse. like sure, he's about to leave a stride out like his goofy gangsta self, but you gotta lovethat enthusiasm, right??
Trainer P was pretty clear that the reality is Charlie doesn't care about small jumps. He just doesn't. He doesn't look at them, doesn't think about them, doesn't give them any respect. Even with all the placing poles and whatnot we added to them.
Once the jumps go up, he gets more interested. Starts looking at the fence. Starts getting that feeling where he's drawn toward the fence - measuring it up, adjusting his stride all by himself, preparing himself for the effort. Which obviously is an awesome feeling, and coincidentally MUCH easier to ride haha, since he ends up doing the work himself.
i prefer this picture of him dragging me over a fence any day of the week, instead of those earlier shots of him kinda just barely climbing the jumps
Obviously tho we still struggled a bit haha. Like for some reason, we just could not with the 36' two stride. Idk why. We got the correct striding once or twice when there were placing poles set, but it was always kinda awkward and for some reason we kept trying to add. Which... wasn't cute.
but look! even after being all gung ho and taking a 30' distance in one stride, he still balanced up all clever and shit to do this 18' one stride too!
Then once we finally put all the pieces together for our final course (also in the video), Charlie managed to put three in the 36' and then did ONE in the 30'. Like.... uh.... ok? That's some serious #CharlieLogic for ya....
But I wasn't going to complain bc that feeling was freakin amazing! It's honestly been weeks and weeks and weeks since Charlie's dragged me to a jump like that, and even tho it was kinda awkward, it was like this refreshing feeling of "Phew, THIS is my horse! THIS is the feeling we've been missing!!"
that placing rail caused us a lot of grief earlier in the ride, ugh
The biggest deal of the lesson tho? In the course (and this is all on the video), we went from the 30' supposed-to-be-two-but-Charlie-had-other-ideas line, bent to an oxer at a related distance that Charlie jumped with equal gusto, but then had a very short tight turn immediately to an 18' one stride grid.
And? While the turn was hectic as shit with me basically manhandling Charlie around, the horse proved that, yes, in fact, he's learned something from this ride: he balanced, adjusted his stride, came back to me but stayed in front of my leg, jumped the very short one stride beautifully, then made another hairpin turn to come back up center line to jump the above oxer with placing pole.
And he did it perfectly. Kept his balance. Agreed with me about pace. But maintained that forward pulling feeling (but without being fast or flat!) in front of my leg.
he figured it out tho <3
And I couldn't have been happier. Like sure it's not beautiful, it's not smooth, etc etc etc.... But we finished the course with my horse being more or less his normal self: enthusiastic but learning to be schooled about adjustability and balance. He listened, carried me forward to the fences, and stayed in front of my leg even as we needed to compress the stride or make a tight turn.
video has some of the gymnastic warm up exercises, plus the final course
Trainer P and I talked at length about this whole process. She says Charlie reminds her a lot of one of her big horses, who was legitimately not fun to ride for the first year or two bc every day was that same battle, that same slog of insisting that the horse does, in fact, have a job.
And it can be a real drag to not ever let that guard down in schooling. I don't like feeling like a slave driver. I don't like feeling like I'm constantly picking fights with my horse instead of slipping effortlessly into some fantasy land sense of harmony. It's much easier to be tricked into complacency, to gradually and without realizing, be drawn into accepting less and less from the horse, and needing more and more effort from the rider.
But. Ya know. With horses, the proof is in the pudding. And Charlie showed me in this lesson that when I'm consistent enough in my own riding and expectations of him, all the distractions and grumpiness melt away into the horse I know Charlie can be: FUN and EASY. Not to mention he himself seems to enjoy this outcome much more, too. He looks like he's having fun by the end of the ride, despite the bumpy beginning.
So I guess that's just how it is. The horse can be fun to ride, and can have fun being ridden. But there aren't any shortcuts in getting there. Wherever "there" is....
Do you ever feel like you're having the same rides again and again with your horse? Dealing with the same issues ride after ride? How have you dealt with that? Or maybe you've had some similar sort of breakthrough moment where the horse finally "gets" it?
