What are You Willing to Struggle for?

See this article for title inspiration. 

Butterball and I have continued seeing PW weekly or even twice a week sometimes for the past several weeks. It's time to recap those lessons and training rides, mostly for my own journaling process.  

Immediately post HITS, PW put a training ride on Butterball where they worked through a one stride of increasing height and increasing distance between fences. The goal was to get BB comfortable with stretching for the long spot and still leaving the ground confidently. 

Then for our last lesson of 2025 we worked on gymnastics down the long sides with single fences across the diagonals to change direction. Approach the gymnastics with a 9' canter stride , but then he has to move forward on his own to get the normally set 1, 2, and 3 strides in the lines. Keep that forward show ring canter across the diagonals, then bounce shorter again to hit the next gymnastic line. 

Single oxer 

Single vertical

Overall it went well. He looks SO MUCH stronger in his canter than he did last spring. And we can adjust much more easily to a canter that is starting to carry from behind. But if you are dedicated and watch the video through to the end you can see the current struggle. We got deep to the single vertical once and he punched the front rail out. Then we got deep a second time and he declined. Fair enough, he doesn't like touching things. PW dropped the jump and since it wasn't a show I rode normally, and he pinged right over. He put it back up and we came through the gymnastics line again then around the corner, got a nice distance to it, and all was well. 

Part of the gymnastics line

Gah, he's just so cute

When the distances are given to us, this is so much easier

In our first lesson of 2026, PW started with a similar one stride warm up. Then I popped on and we did a little bit of course work. Related distances, a one stride, and bending lines. He stopped twice, at distances he could have taken, and this go round instead of just circling and representing, he was told that wasn't an okay answer with a quickly applied, one second reprimand. The canter is better, I'm riding better, he's strong enough to leave the ground, time for him to take responsibility for doing that. He took it seriously and you can see in the video where he's a tiny bit frantic to the fence the next go round. But the last run through we ended up relatively smooth. I did have a major adult ammy moment when he was drifting right through the one stride and I corrected it in one direction, but then actually opened my right rein and made it worse when we changed directions. I was thinking of moving him towards the center of the ring in the first direction, so changing direction I kept moving him towards the center of the ring, aka encouraging the right drift. Lol. 

We headed back down on Monday, trying to squeeze in as much as possible before his shoes get pulled so we can end on a good note for the time being. PW warmed him up and then did a trot jump repeatedly as I inched it up. With the idea of teaching him to leave the ground from a tight spot. It was a vertical with a placing pole in front. They ended up trotting about 3'6". Sheesh. As PW said, this is not lack of scope on Butterball's part. Then he cantered around with a loop in the reins and jumped various jumps, all around 2'6". Butterball buried himself at an oxer and stopped. Butterball was the one making the decisions, PW was just passively staying steady and out of his way, so the choice was in Butterball's hooves to adjust and make the distance better a few strides out. Immediately at his stop, PW told him that was unacceptable and they reapproached and had a nearly identical stop. After that though he was super, so I hopped on. We approached all the jumps off a very short prep. Hit the rail, walk to canter, turn to the jump. Butterball was absolutely game on. I was to sit with 50% of my weight in my stirrups and do nothing. Don't drop him, don't drive with the seat, don't kick, just nothing. And we got a few funky spots.  One that would either be a chip and scramble or a long spot; I felt him make a decision and leave the ground long, good boy. Then PW popped the jumps up higher, and we popped around again, including through a one stride where we got a bit deep to the in, but he moved up and did one stride and jumped us out. PW said "We're done on that!" And I hopped off immediately and inserted many cookies and untacked him and then hand walked around the arena to cool him out. Lesson being that you do your job and take care of your mom and you get rewarded for that with a short session. 

Without the pressure of an upcoming show, this is just another bump in the road. I think we're going to come out the other side of this with an even stronger partnership as well.