April Wrap Up

 

 

	Butterball
Training rides	4 - 2 my friend, 1 PW in grids, 1 PW round at LCT
Lessons	1
Hacks	3 – 1 with EB
Flat rides	9
Cavaletti or jumps @ home	2
Conditioning rides	0
XC school	1
Shows	2 – LCT 3 days + schooling dressage show

The obvious fail this month is lack of conditioning rides. I've been discussing the three points I decided on after attempts to jump meter courses led to a loss of confidence for me and pony pants. And I've definitely failed on the fitness one. I can feel it too. He's blowing pretty hard after a single course, pretty much validating that we don't have the fitness base that I wanted. Rising fuel prices and hard ground have made conditioning away from home and at home challenging. I came up with a solution for May and the next few months, but that will be a surprise for a different post. 

But we still don't feel completely in sync and ready for increasing height even if I had kept up with his fitness. The gap between 90 and a meter is where he actually has to make an effort and where my eyes bug out of my head a bit. Bad combo when there's still bad riding going on. 

If you watch the video at 1:08 and 2:08, you will see a direct contrast at the same fence with the same distance. The first one I flung up his shoulders and didn't support to the deep spot. The second one I stayed back and kept my leg on and supported him. The first one would've led to a stop in December, January, or February. And now he's going. And I desperately don't want to ruin that. 

Said all that to say, while I am fine increasing height in very specific situations (PW on him in grids), I don't think our three month check in due in May is going to end with upping the heights for pony and me outside of a grid or placing poles to a single fence. And it feels good to be a very active participant in this decision. I was chatting with my friend who was talking about the virtues of having frank conversations like PW and I did back in February. PW knows I'm not going to dip just because we haven't made it to a meter by the end of the spring season. He knows that the horse's confidence is my primary goal. He knows that I am sticking with THIS horse and whatever we can do as a team, defining and prioritizing the team, not the end goal. And I haven't gotten any pressure about what I should be doing. And between Ms. GY and my two other friends who ride with him, we have a truly fun and supportive team. 

Anyways. Good things from April: a schooling dressage show; a fun weekend at Local Champions Tour; a couple of reasonably productive jump sessions at home; and a super fun cross country school at Majestic. 

Hoof Update: 

I'm still very pleased with my barefoot performance pony. We are going through a bit of a Scoot Boot issue, more on that later as well, which has also slowed down the hacking out. But I have taken a few walk only loops with just hind boots on. Knock on wood, so far he seems to be handling it fine, although he will put himself in the grass shoulder rather than walk on some particularly rocky spots. 

I think overall the medial/lateral balance is getting better in his feet. As mentioned, his trimmer took off more of his hinds this time to try to get them to stand up and develop his heel a bit more and they look great.

Left hind: 

Right Hind: 

Woohoo! There's some heel on this foot!

Right front: 

Still a little wonky medial-lateral

Left front: 

Isn't it lovely? 

Conformation Pictures: 

In process of self-trimming (I asked if he was chipping up to his nail holes. He demoed his unfortunate pawing habit when we were chatting, his trimmer pointed out he may be trimming his feet himself...) He's a perfect pony in every way except his dislike of being hosed and his pawing habit. Neither of these have anything to do with me letting him get away with things... definitely not. 

You don't want to know how many shots I deleted trying to get him standing square and looking straight ahead. Thank goodness we're not in the days of film still. 

Looking ahead to May... 

- Renewed focus on fitness

- JV comes back into town

- We double down on a few weeks with lessons and training rides with PW

- Plan for a June check in re jump height. 

One step forward, two steps back

After our first barefoot jump lesson that went extremely well, the next one was not all sunshine and rainbows. And I don't think it is due to the new barefoot status. The lesson sent me back to the drawing board. I LOVE this horse. 

Yep, that's the face

I don't care if he isn't my 1.10m horse or my training level horse. I don't care if I ever go training level again or jump a full 1.10m course. Want I do care about us that he is happy, that I am mostly happy, and that we are continuing to learn together. I don't want to sell him, and I honestly don't want to send him for full training just so we can jump around a meter at a show. That's not a knock at full training AT ALL. I'm happy to admit it's not a pride thing either. It is a $$ and his happiness thing though. Dude is SUPER happy hanging out at Ms. GY's with his buckskin buddy during the day and then Mr. GY's TB at night where they play extended games of bitey face. And due to the obvious reasons, that's not a situation he would have in training. Plus see prior posts about financial goals of getting to have this adorable face peeking at me from the backyard.

So what does this take? Well, here's what we've come up with: 

• More strength and conditioning. I've slacked since the fall, and as my husband pointed out the pony is not a thoroughbred and *does not* have the base fitness or the will to power forward as much when things get hard. So if canter sets and focusing on a minimum of 5 rides, ideally 6, per week, make it a bit easier for him to do the job, then that's my job to make those things happen. PW echoed this when he sat on him for a tough bending exercise and said he felt pretty weak to the left. 
• Keeping the jumps at 0.90m (novice height) and below for a solid three months while we work on fitness. Three months is admittedly a bit arbitrary, but is longer than we kept them low in the fall when we struggled in August and had it together by October. Come November though, we were increasing the height. 
• When the jumps do get bigger in May, assuming things have been going swimmingly between now and then, either having PW ride him around first or only increasing the height of one or two fences in the course and then calling it a day. 

When I was discussing all this with multiple people, Ms. GY sagely asked "well what are your goals". Which is what made me, yet again, lay out the above (Happy pony, happy person, learning). It's a bit hard to tell a trainer when there's no there there, but PW was very open to listening to me ramble about the above and thinks we're on the right track. Don't get me wrong, I would like to jump bigger fences. It was incredibly fun soaring over the few 1.10m jumps with him. But if that isn't a thing he can be happy doing with an adult ammy who sometimes misses, then that's fine. Or if we only do it in grids where we can both be confident with our distances, that's fine. Or if it takes a training ride every few weeks then that's also fine. 

Video from the first lesson putting all this into play. 

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. The canter is better, I'm riding better, he's strong enough to leave the ground, he got a quick tap instead of just a circle and representing. He popped on over with a bit of tension the next time. 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. 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. 

Taking the HITS

Butterball and I had an educational time at HITS. We took FULL advantage of the ability to swap out riders and PW took him around both meter classes. We schooled Tuesday and after I managed to pop around a few of the fences in relatively good style and NOT collide with one of the FIVE other people in the ring, I begged PW to let us call it good. 

Jumper land pony complete with open fronts and Pinsnickety number pins

So Wednesday, I wasn't expecting Butterball to be LOOKY when we got in the ring for the 0.90m. But he was. And I wasn't effectively half-halting. I was giving him the same light touch I had in warm up and it wasn't enough. Which meant we had that gross combination of too quick yet no power. We had THREE rails, definitely not the norm for him. We also did two strides in BOTH one strides. Ugh. But three months ago he would've stopped and he didn't even think about it, so there is that. 

This meant that PW popped on to take him around the meter. He had him MOVING his feet and they jumped a clear round so went on to the jump off and ended up taking SECOND in the large class. 

Friday was MUCH better in the 0.90m. In warm up he was having me ride him fairly forward. I told him it felt aggressively forward compared to the pace we've been doing at home. The video tells you it looks pretty appropriate. I tried an inside turn at the end of the course and didn't keep him straight over the last vertical, so we had that down. 

We wandered around for a bit after the class and then started warming up for the meter. The first large oxer that PW set we found ourselves sliding in to the base of. And unlike our lesson, I had zero idea what happened. I told PW I wasn't sure I could do this, which should've been my cue to let him get on right then. But I fumbled around and tried chasing him to the base of a few, one of which we jumped, and two more where he stopped. At which point PW called it and asked to get on. He warmed up fine, but then had a stop in the ring. PW reapproached and they jumped the rest clear. 

Afterwards, he analyzed the video and noted that the stop in the ring was the same as in warm up - a slightly long spot to a bigger oxer. He said we could fix this, we would move a one stride out to a long spot and teach him that he can confidently leave the ground from a longer distance. Which is what he set to work doing yesterday. 

Overall, a great learning experience for both of us. Not the show that I was hoping for, but y'know such is life with humans and horses. We're entered at WEC Jan 6-11, so we'll see what that brings us. 

Dolce is getting more environmental enrichment these days, including trips to the trailer tack room to hang out while I clean tack. She was pleased.