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.