Versatility

In the last week Cupid and I went on a trail ride, had a great jumping session, and are back to work preparing for an upcoming dressage show!  He seems to enjoy this variety, and tends to be a little more energetic in the arena the day after a trail ride. 

These cute little butterflies recently appeared in our arena, and I've been looking forward to jumping them!  I was almost tempted to try it in my dressage saddle, but managed to resist the urge. :p  So yesterday I put on my jumping saddle.  After a nice warm up on the flat we picked up a canter and headed towards a small cross rail with some Christmas decorations.  Even though we haven't jumped in over a month Cupid stayed steady and hit it perfect.  We did the crossrail once more, then headed for the butterflies.  I wasn't sure if Cupid would get distracted, not only by the butterflies but I had draped his blanket (to cover him for the walk to the arena since it was raining) over one of the standards but he didn't waver or hesitate.  Which is a good thing because I don't think I was fully committed to keeping him straight and going forward.  But I felt a lot more confident afterwards, and we did a little course with the Christmas jump, to the coop, to the butterflies, and ending with a small square oxer.  We had decent lead changes through the trot, and hit all the jumps from a good distance, I was very happy with how it went!

Butterflies

Oxer and coop

Blurry shot of the Christmas jump

The trail ride was in the park we most frequently ride, Huddart.  The trail was a little slippery in a few spots, but overall it was less muddier then I expected and the creek was barely flowing.  But the trees were covered with a very vibrant green moss which did make the woods feel a bit magical.

Creek crossing

Our first few training rides were a bit rusty, but now we are back working almost where we were in November.  We've been doing a lot of transitions focusing on trying to stay round. 

Merry Christmas!

I am back from vacation and Cupid and I are getting back to work.  We've had two light rides so far, and he was very well behaved.  We are going to trail ride tomorrow  if the weather cooperates, and we need to get back on a lesson schedule so we can start preparing for a show next month!

When to Say When

It was always my plan to give Cupid a break at the end of the year.  But when it felt like things were finally starting to click, plus the weather has been pretty reasonable (aside from some recent rain) I was struggling a bit with hitting pause.  I'm going to be gone for a week so the break was always going to coincide with my travel plans, but I was thinking of riding up to then.  We had a few really great lessons, but our last few rides were... just fine.  Cupid did everything I asked but just lacked a little sparkle.  He's also been a little more cuddly then usual, spending lots of time resting his head on me in the stall.  After riding him like that on Wednesday and Thursday, giving him time off now just feels right.  So in the next few weeks (aside from when I'm gone) I'll just be grooming him, handwalking and grazing if the weather's nice, and hopefully getting around to cleaning and conditioning my tack!

I also scheduled a few lessons for myself, so I can learn something new from a different horse and see how some of the things we are working on are supposed to feel like on a trained horse! 

Giving Thanks

Cupid and I have been having productive rides, but nothing really remarkable to share.  We did a bit of jumping yesterday, and after a few jumps got back into the rhythm of it.  I meant to post closer to Thanksgiving, but work has been keeping me very busy and I've been sick on top of it.  But I do want to express some gratitude for the many things I'm blessed with.

- To Cupid, my partner and best friend, who is willing to grow with me and continues to rise to the challenge when I keep asking more from him.

- To my wonderful, patient trainer who somehow hasn't given up on me yet, even after telling me the same thing a hundred times!


- To my wonderful and supportive family, for not resenting all the time I spend at the barn.

- To my job, for letting me afford this hobby and allowing me enough flexibility in my schedule to enjoy it!

- To all entire team who helps keep Cupid and me comfortable: barn manager, vet, farrier, saddle fitter, chiropractor (his and mine!), body workers.

- To my barn friends, and internet friends, who share this crazy passion and make it more fun.

- For all the progress Cupid and I have made in the past year, learning the ways of dressage.

- For me becoming not only more competent, but perhaps a little braver.

- That Cupid and I both managed to avoid any serious injuries or health issues.

Indian Summer

We've had a few chilly mornings when I was glad to be wearing fleece breeches, but overall it's been pretty warm.  Cupid was clipped in October, and it seems to be growing back much quicker then in previous years.  I've never had to clip him twice, but we'll see how long and cold this winter will be.

I guess there was a little overnight rain I didn't notice!

After Cupid's shoe got pulled, I did a CleanTrax soak followed by Animalintex wrap three days and he looked good.  Then it was another day before the shoer came out to replace his shoe.  I had been planning a trail ride on Veteran's Day, but that had to be cancelled so I cleaned my trailer instead.  And lost my phone in the process, so spent the next two hours walking around the property, retracing my steps and looking for the phone.  I gave up, but found it the next day, underneath the trailer next to mine!

Our first few rides back were not great, Cupid was just kind of distracted especially in the outdoor arena.  Luckily he was much better during our lesson today (just some minor staring at, and trying to shy away from, a chair several times as we passed it), it probably helped that there was another horse in the arena.

We ended up having a fantastic lesson!  The contact and roundness have gotten so much more consistent.  I still use the billet strap to secure my outside hand.  Hopefully that will help create muscle memory.  We played a little with trot lengthenings, first on a short diagonal but we were losing roundness so we did them on a circle instead, going between a bit of shoulder in to the lengthenings.  They were a bit too quick at first, so I tried to really focus on slowing my posting down.  In the canter we transitioned between a working and medium(ish).

We ended with leg yields.  They felt a little weak today; Cupid was ignoring my leg a bit and I was overbending him.  So we broke it up into moving off the leg, then straightening, kind of stairstepping down the long side.  They still weren't the best we've done, but overall the transitions and everything else were right up there, my trainer and I were both really happy.

We're going to keep working for a few more weeks, then I plan to give Cupid a few weeks off before we start readying for a show in late January.  I'll be kind of bummed if the nice weather continues during our break, then gets nasty right after!  But I'll be gone for a week anyways, and I don't want it too close to the show. 

I think he had hay in his mouth when I bridled him, but we'll just pretend it's good foam!

Back to Square One

I thought the pads had been working beautifully for Cupid and foot problems were a thing of the past, but alas last week I found him with abscess-type symptoms.  It was especially surprising because it hasn't rained at all.  I had to call the shoer to pull the shoe and pad so I can treat it.  After a few days of CleanTrax he seems fine now, so we just have to wait for our shoer to come back and replace the shoe and pad. 

I'm still undecided on whether to keep the pads on over winter or not.  If he keeps getting abscesses regardless then we'll probably take them off. 

A Difference in Opinion

Cupid and I were at a dressage show last weekend.  We showed T2 and T3 both Saturday and Sunday, but unfortunately they did not have stabling available so we had to trailer a little over an hour each day.  After doing two days of the Nick K. clinic recently I was feeling a little more confident about this.  But my ride times were early Saturday morning, and Sunday afternoon - I much would have preferred the other way around so I have more time to get Cupid settled the first day!

I debated whether I should lunge Cupid when I got there on Saturday, and decided against it.  Instead I let him eat hay at the trailer a bit, and got on him about half an hour before our first ride.  And then instead of trying to tire him out in the warmup ring, I tried to put him on the outside rein.  Yeah what a novel concept :p  We started out walking, instead of just moseying on a long rein I was thinking stretching down.  Then we shortened the reins and I asked him to come on the bit.  Then we did a long trot set, mostly with me trying to plant my outside hand by his saddle pad and applying inside leg.  We did just a bit of cantering each direction.  We finished with some transitions and a bit more stretching. 

Then we headed to the show ring, and put in what I felt was our best test to date.  The contact/roundness was still a little inconsistent, it came and went a few times, but Cupid was definitely less giraffe-y then previously, and I thought our transitions were quite smooth.  I came out of it feeling great! 

We had about 45 minutes before our second test.  We went back to the trailer, I took Cupid's bridle off and loosened his girth and gave him some water and let him eat a little.  Since he was being so good I got back on about 15 minutes before our second test.  We walked for a few minutes, then again trotted working on roundness, and finished with some walk-trot transitions (no cantering at all).  The second test good as well, though the serpentines probably need a little more bend / showing change of bend.  But I was really happy with Cupid!!

Looking like a dressage horse!

And then I was very surprised to see our scores, 57% and 54.5% respectively!  I honestly expected 63/64.  Most of the comments were "needs down stretch."  And we got a 4 in submission, which seemed very harsh to me.  I think we got that when Cupid bucked.  We've gotten better scores with clearly worst tests.  I don't think it's just my imagination, there were some scores in the upper 60s but a lot more in the 50s and low 60s, which is fairly unusual for this series.  There was a kid on a cute pony riding Intro A who got 55.  Granted I didn't see her test, but I saw her in warmup and she looked like she was at least meeting the requirements of Intro.  I'm not trying to complain, but I was left feeling a little confused like is my feel of what I should be doing this far off.

So after the disappointing scores, then losing power Saturday evening (and not getting it back for about 48 hours), and gusting winds on Sunday I had a bit of a pity party and debated whether I should even bother going back the next day.  But I snapped out of it and got Cupid ready.  Since it was already a reasonable hour, plus with the wind and traffic lights being out because of the stupid power outage I left extra early.  Turns out there wasn't much traffic so we got to the show about 2 hours before my first ride time.  During the lunch break I took Cupid over to the show ring and hand walked him around, trying to gauge how distracted he was by the wind.  He seemed fine, though I wasn't sure that was still be the case when I got on him!  The ring steward told me there were a bunch of scratches so I could go earlier if I wanted.

I warmed up similar to the day before.  The warm up is in the covered arena, and I tried not to get distracted by the wind noise or looking outside seeing the wind getting stronger and stronger.  There was one other horse and rider in the arena with me, and I heard her say she's scratching.  I was starting to wonder if I would be crazy to try it.  But... I was there so what the heck.

I ended up riding my two tests back to back.  They were both fine - not quite as smooth as the previous day I thought, but it was just the things we're still working on the wind didn't really faze Cupid at all!  We had one little hiccup in our second test, where Cupid kicked under himself in the canter transition then swapped leads, and a few moments with a little head twisting.  But I was still really happy with him for keeping it together. 

Again I was a bit surprised by our scores - a little over over 62% and 60% respectively!  I was expecting upper 50s for sure.  I think the judge maybe gave some extra points just for showing up.  So it kind of made up for the previous day, but again, it did leave me a little confused not knowing what the actual expectation is, or wondering if my feel is just off.  Part of me is disappointed we weren't able to finish the year at First level, but we've made a lot of progress and I'm excited to continue this dressage journey.

When it's gusting 50mph and your competition decides to stay home

Canter still needs work, but I'm sitting up a bit better

Not all good though, lol

And that's a wrap, at least for rated shows in 2019