Trail riding our way to success

I seem to have fallen into a tried and true training routine over the years when moving up a level or preparing for a larger than usual show. Of course the end result is mostly just that we somehow make it into the ring. Your version of success probably varies wildly from mine.

Opie is doing his first Second level test in front of a judge this Sunday, and while it doesn't count towards anything since it's more a quasi clinic set up, it is the only dry run he'll get before debuting it for real at a rated show in a few weeks.

Did I spend my time trying to ramp up those meager trot lengthenings into some semblance of a medium trot? Did I work on suppling the shoulder-in so it's not quite so stilted? Did I polish those often trashy left to right simple changes to abolish that rogue trot step?

Bish, no. We've been trail riding.

midget horse loves nature...as long as it's not touching him via bugs.

Last weekend we finally got to go hunter pacing, and while there were some disgustingly muddy spots, the weather was absolutely perfect. Opie was much more confident this time around than he was here last year for his first time. We jumped the majority of things and only landed on top of our ditch crossing leader one time. It took him awhile to get in the groove of going over objects again--aka not launching ten feet in the air from a standstill two inches away from the fence--but he's jumped maybe three times total so far this year, and by the end of the ride he was cruising over everything with ease.

I'd signed our group up for the slower section since we one junior doing her first off-property pace and a new-to-the-barn horse doing his first pace with us, but we had such a balling time and a balling group that we ended up clocking in our fastest time ever. Fortunately they were nice enough to switch us over to the fast time group and we all came home with blue ribbons.

hoovering his hay to gear up for runnies and jumpies

We followed that up by hitching a ride to the park with BM and her mom for a leisurely stroll complete with mandatory splash parties.

isn't a trip to the park until everyone's been soaked by splashing

Our young toddler brained friend here sucked his leather curb strap into his mouth while I was fucking with his throat latch and when I yanked it out, he'd gnawed the thing right in half. Baling twine curb strap it was, which was fine and kind of funny because those are cheap as shit to replace. Only the next time I rode him he sucked his Micklem chin strap into his mouth and was trying to go to town on that as well. Bad toddler!

He got Tuesday off, and then did a sort of serious dressage school yesterday afternoon. We touched on all the pieces of 2-3 at least once, and I made him push through the "We took a break and therefore we are done will all real riding" dredges. I'm going to have to time my warm up spot on for once in my life because he definitely hits a wall right now. There is willing to try Opie, and then there is dead to the world the sitting trot is now like riding a 2x4 cemented into the ground Opie with no in between. I think less is going to be more for this test, and trust that the training is there when we head into the ring with the focus on making sure the energy is also still there.

He's getting today off because aside from trail riding our way to success, I also like to load up on the whole not riding thing. Makes complete sense. Also, like most of the northeast, the weather snapped its fingers and decided we are now officially in the heart of summer death heat. Rude.

He'll get a quick spin on Saturday, and then we're off to make fools of ourselves give the middle finger to my least favorite dressage level EVAR.

just gonna do some more walking, let's be real.