GVRDC XC Schooling

This schooling was the definition of last minute. It ran from 10-2. Hubby and I spent the morning tidying up the last few things from our cancelled Utah trip (#sobbing), and I decided that if we managed to get that wrapped up by 10:15 I would go. It ended up being more like 10:30, but the appeal of doing something by myself got us out the door anyway. 

I threw a borrowed jump saddle in the trailer with water and a loaded hay bag, grabbed Opie out of the field, and off we went. 

Pretty much everyone was already back at the trailers getting ready to leave or heading off the course when we got there, but I was fine with that. Opie kept an eye on any horse he saw, but he never made a peep or got distracted from the jumping by them. 

He was pretty lit though, so I went ahead and sent him into a big hand gallop and let him do a couple of giant laps to get that out of his system. He was with it from there on out. I, on the other hand, was obviously very out of practice with the whole jumping package--I didn't trust that Opie was going to go over anything even as he was dragging me to fences, and just generally felt loosey goosey in the tack. Jumping more than once a month usually helps with that...

After jumping the Intro log for the first jump, we came around to the BN first fence which had a little line of mulch with some yellow flowers poked in front. I was sure Opie would take offense to them and stop, so of course the correct course of action there was to pull him to a stop in front of it instead of just letting him jump it. He stood there very confused for a second before obligingly giving the fill a quick snoot and jumping it with zero issue two times in a row. 

Moving on, we did the second Intro and then I was "brave" and jumped the BN bench as well even though I have a deep seated dislike of them. 

me: ohgodohgodohgod

opie: wheeeeeee!

We did the next two Intro jumps (a cabin and a log stack) and skipped the third BN jump which was a table-like thing covered in straw with a log on top. Opie probably would have jumped it because he was game for whatever, but I wasn't mentally ready for it. We did do the next two BN jumps though.

intro cabin

bn table

bn house

He did stop at the above house the first time--his only refusal of the entire day. The sun was blasting off its light grey top and I think it just took him a bit by surprise. He came right back around and jumped it twice without issue. 

We took a quick break to play in the water:

watching a horse disappear over the horizon but who cares because water

opie says this is why i'm here

We did a couple more BN fences:

he is the gamest horse with the cutest form.
i should really get on his level.

And then we moved on to the bank complex which was one of two things I wanted to work on--the other being ditches. He started off wiggly and uncertain about the tiny step down, but after one successful drop off, his confidence rocketed right up every time after until he was picking up the trot on his own as soon as I pointed him in that direction.

"ohgodohgodohgod"

"actually that wasn't so bad"

"bish i got this"

no drama

the actual most handsome

I decided to wrap that up with going up the Novice bank on the other side and cantering off the tiny drop we'd been doing. (I actually didn't even see the flagged BN up or I would have worked on dropping off that, too. Oh well.) It was hands down the most giant up bank Opie has ever seen in his life, but bless his Dopie heart he launched us up it no questions asked and went right off the other side.

Ditches were next. He could have cared less about the BN ditch and cantered over it without blinking multiple times.

That was such an unevent that I brought him around to the Novice ditch which was the same width but significantly deeper. He was like, "Yeah, yeah, it's just as ditch." until he went to jump it and saw the gaping chasm beneath him and launched it. But still went without question because A Very Good Boy.

"I AM CLEARING THE DEATH CAVE"

I was disgustingly overheated by this point and feeling a bit queasy from it. Fortunately we'd jumped the vast majority of the BN course by this point and were at the very end of it. We went through the hedgerow, did the last two jumps on the Intro course:

And then finished with jumping the last jump on the BN course twice (because the first time we got in too close and I wanted to finish on a good note).

So BN is definitely well within Dopie's wheelhouse even with both of us having way too much time off and me riding like a worried monkey the entire time. Not that that matters since I won't be paying the obscene fees related to USEA events around here when I want to have a full dressage show season. And that whole stadium thing being literally the worst on the planet.

As we were heading back to the trailer, a woman I know was the last to arrive and didn't have a partner or groundsperson so asked if I would go around the Intro course with her quick. I agreed, but on the condition I could grab a gatorade first. I snagged one of those, ditched my vest, and Opie and I trotted the short loop around with her, chugging cold liquid with one hand and neck reining on the buckle with the other. 

Did I mention he's A Very Good Boy?

Four Ring Horse

Opie really carried the weight of the adult ammy horse this past week. Listen, sir. I don't always ride so great, often I get distracted by shiny things, and sometimes I need you to carry all the weight. In return I will give you every cookies that exists and make sure your physical and mental wellbeing when I'm not in the saddle are the best I can make it.

well. i do the best i can with the mental side. i can't be held accountable for
his own choice to lick the fly spray off the bottle.

There were a whole bunch of factors going on both at the barn and at home that had me pretty much over everything in existence. All I wanted to do was ride my fucking horse in a peaceful and solitary way, and as much as I tried to plan around that, it wasn't to be. 

But we did end up doing all sorts of things, in all sorts of different tack.

roof construction next door made for great posing

Ring 1: Dressage

I ordered Dopie a fancy new double with lots of padding and a monocrown awhile ago because he still feels a little sore in the poll area, but alas it has yet to even leave PA yet. Fuckers. On Monday I just put him in the Micklem anyway because I was destroyed both mentally and physically after a weekend of being at an event with a bunch of barn kids. We did a short warm up, ran through BN A just for funsies, and had a quick stretch before I had to cut our ride off to hold BM's asshole horse for the farrier.

The next day we went back to the double and had a really good w/t ride in the outdoor. I wanted to work on him really pushing into the bridle and taking the contact instead of being wiffly waffly with it. He had one moment right when we started where he wanted to bounce off of it, but instead of just throwing the reins at him and being like, "sorrysorrysorry" I took more contact and booted him up. You're capable, do the work. And he did.

was really hoping the rear cinch would make him look legit. instead it just
made him look fat lol. but the saddle did seem much more stable!

Ring 2: Barrels

I had wanted to play with the barrel pattern on Wednesday, but as I was turning horses out a full on monsoon let loose. Aside from flooding the outdoor, it also flooded me and I went home and bought my troubles away with Dopie's first very own jump saddle (which will hopefully arrive sometime this year). 

I regrouped the next afternoon. Since it was his first time with the rear cinch on, I stuck him on the longe first to see if he would react to it at all. He could have cared less. I got on and started warming him up with some circles and bending. Right when I was ready to start working on the pattern itself, BM came in the ring and commandeered the path between the first two barrels while on a rant and would not get out of my way. 

I was trying very hard not to get pissed, but I was pretty fucking annoyed that I ended up on my horse for nearly an hour and got to run the pattern two whole times. 

Ring 3: Show Jumping

I saw that there was a cross country schooling at the show grounds where the event was held last weekend and vaguely thought about doing it over the weekend. I figured if it was even going to be on the table I ought to at least throw some jump tack on for the first time in a month and see if my horse was feral and if I could find my way over a fence without being a complete mess.

Once again, despite my best attempts, I got waylaid by BM but finally managed to scurry out back to jump around in the field. I had set everything at 2'3-2'6 and fortunately that still remains our happy spot. Nothing looked big despite the time off which usually leads me to mental anguish. 

I did my typical not enough pace to most of them, but fortunately everything still came up pretty easily. Good Boy Dopie went no matter where I put him, had his head firmly attached, and we put several courses together with zero trouble.

Ring 4: Cross Country

I didn't commit to go xc schooling until about 10:30 the day of. It ended up working out well because even though it was blazing hot by the time we got there, everyone was finishing up and we pretty much had the place to ourselves. 

That will be its own post though, but the long and short is that Dopie packed my ass around like a better boy than I probably deserve and got rewarded with being parked in front of his fan with half a bag of carrots and couple of apples thrown into his pile of hay when we got home. 

I'm so grateful for this horse sometimes. I mean, I had to quit our ride on Friday early because my back still gives me trouble sometimes from him fucking it up with his rabid changes, but most of the time 11/10 would recommend a Dopie Horse. 

3-1 Run-through

I've kept to my promise to myself and haven't gone back to the snaffle yet. It's been the double or a halter...although admittedly the halter got more use than the double last week (Only four more trail hours until we hit 100 tho!). 

Knowing it's going to get balls hot out the first couple days of this upcoming week, I wanted to log a couple of structured dressage rides in over the weekend. Yesterday was good. We didn't do anything too exciting, but I kept him coming forward in all the lateral work, he was steady in the connection, and I spent about five seconds playing with some half-assed, half complete changes before quitting there. Turns out I'm pretty gun shy about them now after how badly he fucked up my back the other week. I definitely want BM to get on for a ride and see what she can do with them, and I'll just have to live with her then expounding about how she put changes on my horse and fixed everything that was wrong with him for the rest of his life. 

Or maybe I don't want that, I dunno. Fucked up back and do it myself, or.... We'll see.

This morning I had Hubby come out because I was overdue for some video to check on progress. Thanks, Pivo, for not doing this for me, you useless fucker. 

It's always discouraging to see the things you think are going well looking a bit like shit, but on the flip side, the things I thought were absolute fucking trash didn't look so bad. EVEN IF THEY FELT LIKE IT.

So. A few things of note:

• If I want to warm him up on a long rein, fine, but he better be stretching into that long rein. Otherwise it's just me with floppy long reins, broken wrists, and my elbows behind my fat roll.
• But really. Why are my elbows always so far back?
• Probably because my reins are always too long.
• Probably because my horse is back to being inconsistent in the contact.

• We still have a medium trot. Will we ever get an extended trot?
• He can do lateral work while going forward. SO MAKE HIM.

Things were going pretty well--he was popping around on the contact a bit, but worked out of it--so I decided to finally run through 3-1 for the very first time ever.

Minus the flying changes. Because. 

Turns out this is a really easy test. If you have a change and a ballin' medium trot you can pass off as an extended trot (not us), you can sneak up to Third without much trouble. 

The turns on the haunches still sometimes want to sneak in as pivots, but sometimes not. We'll get the planted foot eradicated eventually. The half passes need some smoothing, but we don't work on those a ton--time to do that! 

And then the "extended" trot that turned into a giant tantrum at X. He was so sucked behind my leg the whole test, even though it doesn't look like it, that when I finally dug my spur into him to finish like a grown up, he was like, "FUCK FUCKING YOU." 

But it also comes back to the contact issues. Steady contact has always been Opie's number one bugaboo. The head wagging even on the buckle was a huge thing when I first restarted him. Also the tongue flopping out of his mouth like an angry fish (Still here--yay!). The bouncing on and off it. The whole shebang. He's been so good about it lately, that with it cropping up again now I wanted to write it off as a new problem. 

But I think we've just circled back around to: the work is getting harder again, he's learning new things, he's in a new bridle that I'm now asking him to carry all the time, and he's expected to step up to the plate for all these things.

Opie's life is hard, man.

While I got off a little frustrated with the finish, I still think we're on the right track. We just need to keep crawling along. I need to push my elbows forward and shorten my reins. Opie needs to get better about accepting the contact. 

And also maybe keep being abused by the changes. UGHHHH.

I am glad we ended up with an entire year to work through this stuff. I'm not so sure the winter alone would have been enough time to produce this horse to Third by next show season.

Double Up

In the past three rides, we've had some good, some bad, and some downright fucking ugly. Also my desire to chuck the Pivo across a vast distance into something hard has not diminished whatsoever. Why it thinks the walls both inside and outside the barn are its target, I do not know. But it makes me very angry.

The bad and the ugly both stem from the double bridle, of which I have made a new and more dedicated commitment to. I have somehow fallen into this three rides in a row pattern with the double that goes like this:

Ride One: Re-getting used to the contact.

Ride Two: More honest in the contact, remedial work through Second and Third movements.

Ride Three: Full work, no problems with contact.

And then I put it away for two to three weeks to repeat the cycle again. 

This, unsurprisingly, might not be the best way to go about things, especially when I try to break the three ride, three step program by trying to get Ride Three results in Ride One like I did on Thursday. 

Thursday was one of those mornings which kicked off an entire day. I ended up not putting a single bite of food in my mouth until dinner because I woke up frazzled and then spiraled into mental meltdown mode from there. I got on with thoughts of running through 3-1 in its entirety for the first time which was a pretty stupid choice since I hadn't used the double in forever. (He's been great in the snaffle though.)

Right off the bat he was bouncing around on the contact and tight in his body. Just like he is every time in Ride One. I tried to hastily push through and persevere, and then I got even stupider and was like, "Let's just hit these changes quick before doing this test!" And that's where shit went off the damn rails.

We actually ended up going back to the L-R being better and fairly reliable if also flying through the fucking air and bolting afterwards, but the R-L he would change...and then change back and forth ten fucking times in the space of three feet. It fucked my back up royally--I could hear my spine cracking and crunching multiple times as he launched through the air like a rabid pogo stick.

every time he saw a hoofprint, he'd drop his head
to the ground to follow it like a hound dog. it made
for a nice stretchy workout lol

He got two days off after that which was much needed for my poor back. We ended up not going to the hunter pace because of sketchy weather which was A-OK with me. Instead, on Sunday, I put the double back on and did our Ride One work--lots of trotting and cantering without asking for anything but reaching for the bits and being quiet and relaxed. We finished up by working on the simple changes.

We'll go back to the double tomorrow and for all our dressage rides here on out until he's totally solid in it--and that includes being confirmed in the changes. I feel almost guilty riding in it--like I have to prove to myself that he can still do all these things in the snaffle. And I do have to get that last score at Second which will require the snaffle so I feel like I have to keep riding in it. But he needs to be just as comfortable in the double. The double also helps refine all my asks, so really there shouldn't be any harm in training/finessing all the Second stuff as well in it. 

That said, we ditched bridles all together this morning and did a stroll around the park in his halter and western saddle.

He was completely relaxed the whole time. Got some splashies in, had a couple good gallops, and did lots of stretchy walk up and down terrain. 

Tomorrow back to dressage in the double, Wednesday back to trail riding. 

Pacing and Dressage

Dopie got Saturday off after his cross country school on Friday and then went out and had to pace his ass off at the barn's home hunter pace. We went out three times--as the first ride with K and Royal where we jumped pretty much everything, half an hour later as an escort for Easy and Wym, and then again an hour later with my favorite barn child and another kiddo. 

Opie was LIT for the first time out and spooked violently several times at such terrifying things as freshly trimmed bushes and a knocked over milkweed. The Dumbs, he had them. But he jumped everything with ease as long as I put him in the right canter which was definitely a bit of a struggle for me that morning. 

Fortunately he was more settled for his second trip where he was tasked as being the good leader for his two rowdy Thoroughbred friends. He was slightly grumpy about being asked to just stand and chill while the other two got to jump around, but tbh I went into the pace feeling pretty burnt out and over jumping. Too much of a good thing!

he actually did a good job brushing through my brush jump
instead of launching over the standards like the other horses

He did end up doing his job when we were getting close to the end and his BFF Easy out of nowhere kicked the shit out of him and then started hopping and rearing because even though he's only a year younger than Opie, his mentality barely hits three. Opie jumped to the side and right when I looked back to see wtf was going on, Easy's rider hit the dirt. Easy started porpoising which set Wym off. I yelled at his rider to dismount, and right as she swung her leg over he also reared and helped her on her way. Those two fucktards took off towards the barn while I slid off Opie who hadn't done more than bounce on his front legs a couple times. 

Both girls were totally fine, Wym was caught back at the barn, and Easy bolted directly for Opie when we got to the field he'd run into. Opie was totally unfazed by this and let me reach out and grab Easy's reins when he came bounding over, and then walked back to the barn cool as a cucumber. So we might not have kept everyone from being the idiots we'd predicted they were going to be, but at least he didn't add to the dumdum OTTB drama. 

I threw on my dressage saddle and clipped reins to Opie's halter for our third ride where we thankfully had no theatrics, and my kiddos got their blue ribbon. 

if only he could be clean always instead of snuggling into his
own poop all the time

He obviously got Monday off as well, but we did a couple of easy yet productive dressage rides yesterday and today.

This morning we started off with a trail ride while yesterday we started off with a good long stretch. Actually both rides had lots of good long stretches in them. Neither ride was very exciting as I really just wanted him to touch on all the things: SI, HI, leg yield, half pass, simple changes, medium gaits, turn on the haunches, halt, and reinback.

I was super pleased with how soft he stayed in the sitting trot. Probably could have been more forward, but also probably would have given it to me if I'd asked. Nothing was particularly fancy or flawless, but he did the things in the places I asked which was about where my motivation level was. 

I think we'll end the week tomorrow by running through a dressage test or two. I really need something structured to stay motivated and focused. But I'm also so close to those 100 trail hours so we will gladly be chipping away at those, too, including another hunter pace on Sunday.

Black Points XC Schooling

It definitely feels like we're doing more jumping--specifically cross country jumping--than dressage work this year, but I think it's just because that's what I have the most media of. Hopefully I'll get the Pivo sorted out eventually and I'll be able to document the exhilarating nitty gritty of shoring up Second and working our way through Third.

Which feels pretty fucking awesome to write out.

get your life together, pivo.

But this is another xc post! And it actually has next to no relevant media.

sorta sleepy, sorta ready

We joined Friday's group at Black Points. We went here for the first time last year when Dopie was still very much green to the whole jumping thing. He relied heavily on Momo's presence and needed me to help him out way more than I started off doing.

I brought a totally different horse this time around. He was the experienced traveler, experienced jumper, and all around Good Boy.

We popped over two logs on an easy rollback to show the kiddos what they were doing, and then BM took the four of them down the hill to work on more little logs while the other experienced rider and I stayed up top to jump whatever the fuck we wanted.

Opie and Royal both threw a minor shit fit over this development because OH GOD WE'RE BEING LEFT BEHIND. While Royal was flinging herself around with much drama, I was trying to trot Opie to a log stack while his head was cranked around in the other direction staring at the horses disappearing down the hill. Needless to say, he stopped. Needless to say, he then got spanked and told to pay the fuck attention to me. It was clear sailing from there!

K and I took them over every single jump Novice and below. (Ooh, except for the oxers. Will definitely do those next time and maybe hit some of the Training jumps that are set by themselves and not on crazy lines.) The only time Opie ran out was coming up to a gate thing where I had him in a quiet canter that felt like it was going to meet the jump perfectly so I softened way up. He was like, "Whaaa--where did you go?!" and scooted to the side. I held the contact coming back around and he went right over.

The other riders came back up to work on some things, and we jumped the big coop towards them. Opie saw his BFF Easy and whinnied as he was going over, but he was smart enough to jump the jump and not kill us, and he let me take him off and do things on the other side of the field afterwards. Herd bound, but capable of being a grown up.

K and I went down to the water by ourselves first and played with the banks up and down. No problems going up, and going down the smaller one Opie picked up the trot on his own and stepped right down. I wanted to get him to do the next size up going down, but he hesitated at first. He finally slid/fell down with his front legs and was like, "Welp, we're committed now!" and launched off with his back legs. I went full frog above him, but we landed together at least.

I also made him do the super deep but narrow ditch with water trickling through it. That also took some negotiating, but he went over both ways with a giant leap.

We did a couple more jumps in the top field before going back down to the water with the rest of the group. Opie hung out snoozing while one of the horses had a CTJ about being a grown up and walking into the water by himself instead of throwing a giant tantrum before he got called on to pony Easy in.

We led him through a few times before finishing there with my reins on the buckle as he picked up the trot on his own and hopped down the bank into the water to join the group to walk back to the trailers.

On the walk back I made him go over the shallower ditch a few times because being a ditchy horse is not going to be a thing. He wanted to say no the first approach, but I got him over and then the next two times he went right over.

Overall though he was SUCH a confident, relaxed, schooled horse. I never felt like either of us was overfaced, and he was just totally game for anything I asked of him. Hopefully one day he'll feel that way about the extended trot and flying changes!

Battle of the Counter Canter

I had two things I wanted to work on specifically for this morning's ride: the counter canter and the medium trot.

I was out the door just after five so I could do the barn and still have plenty of time to ride without feeling rushed before I had to haul a load of ponies out for xc schooling. My plan worked out perfectly and I had Opie hosed down, dressed, and out the door by the time the first people started pulling in.

I had tried him in BM's double jointed baucher the day before thinking I might be able to get him even lighter in the snaffle with slightly more bit, but he fucking hated it and just spent the whole ride leaning on my hands. He was noticeably back to being much softer in his fat, hollow single joint loose ring.

He warmed up well w/t, lost a little bit of the forward when we started the sitting trot, but quickly regained it and stayed pretty supple. I was riding with Mr Tappy because I wanted more bend in the shoulder-in yesterday and was working way too hard to get it. He was better, but not great tracking right. He got his massage on Friday (he was super sore in his poll, and slightly sore in front of his withers and his hammies--all dressage horse muscles), but he might need another chiro visit soon, too.

new feets on monday

We took a break before beginning the canter to work on the TOH. Again, that RH was sticky and I had to use Mr Tappy to get it moving, but they weren't bad.

Then the canter/counter canter. He picked up his gross four beat canter that he sometimes falls into and refuses to leave which did not bode well.

Thus began Battle Counter Canter. I picked my spot on my hill and made my stand. I was going to fucking die up there if I had to to get a counter canter serpentine that wasn't rabid/falling over/breaking to trot/involving flying changes. It was a fucking PROCESS. We went back and forth, back and forth between fixing the gross canter and holding the counter canter without it just being a canter on the wrong lead while I threw him around a serpentine-ish shape--while really it mostly was just that.

both our faces. the entire time.

I was finally able to end with some semblance of what I was aiming for, but that's going to be a big ole item on the to do list. By the time next show season rolls around (assuming that will be next year), I'm planning on showing 2-3 and 3-1 so those serpentines are sadly a necessary evil. But also one we are completely already capable of.

After a break to walk on the buckle to collect both our brains, we finished with the medium trot. He was still a little wound so the first was was a jack hammer with his head in the air, but I got him to settle and he gave me two in a row that I would be more than happy to show off in front of a judge. I'm relieved they stuck around for the snaffle and aren't just a double bridle trick.

it wasn't even hot for once, but he was literally dripping
sweat by the time we were done. the counter canter work
was A LOT.