Some emotional decisions got made when I purchased 5 of the 7 pictures from Lisa Madren from last weekend. He's just so freaking cute I couldn't make rational choices.
The absolute cutest
Trit trotting with the cutest ears
Doing it!
Good boy, so casual about the ditch!
Wheeeee!!
Bonus shot that Lisa shared as one of the multiple photos in her Facebook post about the event, popping over fence 2 like the best baby horse ❤️❤️
Also, I completely forgot to include the actual video in the previous post, so here ya go:
The maps are behind a plastic board to weather protect them, so excuse the blurriness
Stadium looked pretty straight forward. AT said it was easy to get bogged down in the corners a bit, so to keep coming forward. The outside line was a 6, the bending line of 5-6 was an 8-10.
Goggles warmed up really pretty civilized. We were the first to go post break. They were dragging the warm up until 7 minutes before my scheduled ride time but that was actually just fine. We trotted the cross rail a few times then did a small oxer off both canter leads. He was being super pleasant so in we went.
Overall I was very, very pleased by the round. He was rideable and responsive. One to two rode well but then he wanted to drag down a bit in the canter after two so I made him trot three. I didn't really get him going in that line so it was a slightly short seven strides, but I'm not too fussed about that.
#1, good boy! Sorry for the incredibly blurry video stills. I'm waiting on pro pics hopefully.
#3
The bending line from five to six rode really nicely too. He landed on the left lead so I brought him back to trot and kept him there since the tulip standards at seven can be spooky. He didn't think they were at all spooky though. We kept landing on the wrong lead so we trotted the last three fences. NBD, he needs to trot things, picking the canter back up will come soon enough.
I couldn't be any happier with that round. He was so civilized and game, and I felt like I did my part and rode positively and (mostly) didn't jump up his neck.
We had an hour before XC, so he got the girth loosened and bridle off then got sponged off and got a drink. I got back on about 15 minutes before our ride time. They only had one warm up XC jump available for starter. I wished they'd left the BN house as well because it's always a nice feel to jump something bigger before starting. Oh well though.
We'll do a photo tour of XC:
He trotted nicely out of the box and was pretty game for 1. There was a little wiggle, but positive riding fixed it.
No problem to #2
Ditto for #3 this cute rolltop
It was a bit downhill to this, so we came back to the trot because balancing while cantering downhill is hard when you're a giant baby horse.
#5 was an option- the tiny right hand ditch or the coop off to the left. He's done these ditches a bunch, so we chose that option. I backed him down to a trot and over he went!
Good boy over this one too
There was a little wiggle here, but we trotted it and he was steady enough when I pushed him forward
We cantered this out of stride
And this as well
#10 was an option, through the water or to the left and over a somewhat spooky log
They had put new sand around the water and while he's been better and better each time we school, I still wasn't sure he'd go in on the first try
So we opted for this log. But he got overwhelmed by the amount of stuff around the water and was barely focused on the log. A pro would've whacked him 20 strides earlier and told him to quit sight seeing and do his job. But I'm an adult ammy. So I kicked him and kinda begged him to do his job, but he petered to a stop a few strides before the jump. I kept him square to it, wacked him once since he was miles behind my leg. Then we circled and popped over it with a big jump, but no problem.
No problem over this one
This is spooky and while he has jumped it before, he still thought carefully about it as we approached. But this time he responded when I closed my leg and popped over it to finish the course!!
Overall I'm super happy with both of us. He was a good honest egg the whole time and while we did get a 20, I'm mostly proud of my riding. I mostly succeeded in hands to the jump, shoulders up, and kicking him straight instead of pulling him straight. I felt him gain confidence as we were out there by ourselves. I think he had a good time, which is exactly what I'm hoping to develop!
Between a few time faults, our 20, and our objectively abysmal dressage score, we stayed in 10th, but I'm still very very happy with this as our first outing. I'm hoping to get him out again in June at the POP show before taking July off of showing since it's so bloody hot.
Goggles and I did our first full three phase and first recognized event at Majestic on Saturday. I would've loved to do a schooling show for half the price for his first time out. But the job that lets me have the horses involves a lot of weekends, so it wasn't meant to be. I was originally scheduled to work this weekend as well but got a coworker to switch with me for Saturday. Then due to entry numbers, Majestic ran as a one day. Excellent. I could've played show mom and delivered him to AT for her to ride if they'd kept it as a two day, but it was really nice to be able to take him out myself.
I had the super relaxed ride times of 1:19, 3:50, and 4:50. I got to the barn around 10 and bathed him and then loaded up. There was a bit of herd bound chaos between him and Ben, but I gave Ben trazodone and left him to sort out his feelings while we were gone, which he did.
This time I planned right and took him off the trailer pretty quickly to stand around in block one and let him feel feelings.
Gloves and long line with rope halter, see I can learn
He followed the usual progression- move around with some energy, eat some grass with anxiety still present, try to get too close, finally chill. His moving around was actually limited to walk and trot which was nice, I think we're starting at a better baseline most of the time now. I'd parked by XC warm up and he could see those horses galloping around but didn't care, good boy!
Then he went back on the trailer, and I applied my white breeches with some difficulty. Seriously, rolling tight white pants up sticky legs is no fun. It's a catch 22, you can either sweat longer in them or be a bit cooler for a while then have a whole fight to get them on.
I gave myself about 25 minutes for dressage warm up which was about right this time. He came out wired and then settled some when we trotted figure eights. His back had a huge hump in it though and he did some bucking at the canter each time. For a while that was his MO any time we cantered, even at home. To the point where I started to wonder about radiographing his back. But then he found some relaxation over his topline and quit. But when we lose that relaxation it is definitely his go to. We were able to do a few strides of relaxed free walk each time we walked, but then he'd get distracted and we'd have to start doing things again to get him focused.
Because he seemed better after he'd been trotting a little bit, we trotted straight over to the arena for our test. He was all alone in the rings this time, I don't know whether that is better or worse. We did a few walk transitions and he was less suspicious of the barrel marking the arena number this go round.
Overall I was happy with the test. He felt like he was trying for me most of the time. I was able to put my leg on and ride him, the exception being the right lead canter. He did have a GIANT spook in the medium walk, past a spot that we had already trotted past once. But at least he spooked into the arena, not out of it. Good lad.
We fairly scored a 46 for this effort. The judge had some helpful remarks again. It almost feels like when there is this much chaos they want to pat you on the back as much as possible. I did LOL at the collective though "you two will make a nice picture once those two essentials are established" aka - today is not the day where you make a nice picture!
I do need to practice halts and also work on myself - both horses want to halt with haunches right, must be a me problem.
Our 46 put us in 10th out of 10, which is actually a pretty relaxing place to be. Nowhere to go but up! Goggles got hosed off and put back on the trailer where he actually did chill and eat some hay while he hung out. I wandered off to see friends and watch a few stadium rounds.
I had a somewhat brain breaking lesson three weeks ago. As it goes with young horses, most of the time we're focused on him. But I had this charming new habit of jumping up his neck the stride before the fence. It is definitely made worse by trotting fences, but he definitely needs to be trotting fences right now.
First we worked to separate my arms (hands) from my body. Even standing there pushing my hands forward without tipping my shoulders was hard and gave me a somewhat disconnected feeling. I told JT "I can't actually touch his neck without putting my shoulders forward" and she countered with the idea that as he leaves the ground the shoulders and neck will come up to me and give me the crest to push my hands into. So we practiced that for a few fences, working on the same exercise that we did the week before. She had initially said she wanted to get back to playing with the related 5 to 1, but then altered that once she saw what crimes I was committing with my position. I'll be honest, the hands are HARD for me. It was HARD to separate my hands from my torso. Eventually I seemed to get it a bit better, keeping my shoulders TALL and my hands TO THE JUMP.
Then we worked on STAYING there through his landing. If I thought about watching the hunter pros finish jumps it worked out okay. Pressing my hands into his crest until I was positive he had landed, and THEN sitting down and telling him his job. Better a stride too late than a split second too early.
Once we had re-established shoulders TALL to the jump, I got the direction to allow my belly button down a bit over the jump (ie folding). But better to NOT do that and have soft hands and be a bit left behind than fling myself up his neck way before he takes off.
Goggles was actually being very nonchalant about the jumps. I was having to leg him off the ground a bit more and kick him forward in the line to get the 7 strides in the bending lines (it was a going 6 or a quiet 7). The oxer got put up to about 2'6" and reasonably wide and he felt SUPER over it. The smaller ones he was definitely kind of bored by at this point. Which is awesome! I'll take it over rushing jumps and it is a strong advertisement for keeping the jumps small for a looooooong time.
JT had sent me a link to a neck strap a while ago and I asked her to resend it after this lesson and finally purchased myself one. I got it with hunter green padding, but retrospectively maybe should have done burgandy to match his saddle piping. Oh well, you can barely see the saddle details unless you're looking.
So many straps involved now
A few days later I trotted over cavaletti at home and still had a shockingly hard time not making a big move with my body over them. We trotted half a clover leaf over two cavaletti until I stopped flinging myself around. It had the added benefit of helping him relax into a rhythm as we did the pattern.
The next week was Goggles turn for stress is enhancing. The liver pool has become A THING, so we started with that.
Once that was better, we moved on to the course. I pulled him to a stop at one, but otherwise we did pretty well. For a horse that was once super clutzy, he was shockingly clever with his feet through the one strides.
I don't know why I still find it so shocking every time I see a picture where he's doing the things
It took us a couple of tries down the two stride line to do it in two instead of three. But I'm still thrilled that he will take the short distance rather than the long sometimes. Plus we were trotting in, so we had to really get going once we were in the line to make it happen.
Thursday we came back down and he had a training ride with JT coaching and AT riding. He was again shocked and dismayed by the liver pool, so I ordered a tarp immediately after and that is going to be in his field existing. Then he's going to walk over it repeatedly. Then it's going to move. And we'll start again. He had one stop when JT put up a crossrail oxer to a real oxer and he was shocked. She dropped it back to the crossrail oxer and they backed up and then went over it. The next time through he did 6.5 strides to it, but went, and then the final time, he got it all together to do 6.
It is so helpful to see AT riding and hear JT's remarks so I can try to put it all together as well.
Goggles and I have ventured further and further from his barn recently, mostly strolling along on a loose rein. We've made it about half a mile down the road, which doesn't sound like much, but since we're progressing along solo, I'm pretty darn proud.
The kiddo is clever too. There's one house where there are usually people in the yard, under the trees, doing things. And he always pauses there for a minute to check out if there's anything going on. He also actually wanted to see the donkey and horse who live across the street and continued our little hack on longer on purpose to find them.
I've been using more and more of Warwick Schiller's methods recently. Our trail ride last week was a great chance to use his principle one in training: make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard. It's a different version of the approach and retreat I used last year on Ben. The second they turn away from a spooky thing, you trot a largeish circle, making them work a bit before pointing them back at the spooky thing. As long as they're facing it, they get to chill, but the second they turn away, work. Occasionally you ask for a step a bit closer. It's pretty darn similar to the cowboy's method for trailer loading - if you're straight to the trailer you get left alone, you just occasionally have to give us a new try.
Beautiful day
New territory for us- there are cows and horses in this field, but they were alllll the way in the back. He could smell them though and was definitely looking for a visual to match to the scent.
The spooky stump
That eventually we got close enough to that he sniffed it... and then started eating it... (he's got a salt block, but I'm going to get him a mineral mix too... weirdo)
You can't see the terrain very well, but this is what I have for hills at home - ditches along the roadside. We were doing some serpentines through them, very good for his proprioception
Home is to the right there, but he kept going past the driveway looking for the donkey and horse
Supervising work on the lawn mower once we got home
He's really, really found his groove of leaving the other horses and not caring at all. And I am just delighted. He's getting quite fun to explore on, power walking down the road on a loose rein for the most part. I saw glimmers of this when he first arrived, but then we went through a year long phase of feeling very very attached to our friends. I'm hopeful that through consistent, positive repetition, and maybe a touch of him just growing up, we've got a new outlook on leaving our friends.
Goggles: April was a pretty busy month with Goggles and I launching back into lessons full force - 4 jump lessons at JT's and 1 coached XC school at Majestic. He had a total of 19 rides, bumping us up to our goal of two days on, one day off. I think it is working pretty well for him, we're making steady progress with some pretty big break throughs in our lesson. We also went to our first event where Ben supervised Goggles to a clear jump round and a dressage test where we stayed in the ring.
Coming up in May, Goggles is headed to his first three phase. Unfortunately for my pocket book it will be at a recognized event, but that's what lines up with my work schedule. We're also aiming to keep to the once weekly lessons. He's also had a few VERY lazy days at home where I've taken advantage of that by heading a little bit further off property. So far he's rewarded me with excellent behavior - relaxed strolls with no big spooks and no anxious prancing. Good boy!
Ben:
It looked like Ben was going to have a great month: he was doing really well with my friend and I'd started adding a few jumps back in as he gained fitness. But then he bruised his front feet when I did a trot set in the GY's front pasture. Cue me throwing up my hands at his spring habits... more on that later. May brings a few big changes into his life that ultimately I am excited about.
Goggles mane... Cleaned up with scissors alone, WELL before he has to appear in public. But I'm actually pretty pleased. His hair is (sadly) so thin that scissors work pretty darn well.
I'm not sure I ever shared this from last fall... Ben's forelock kept ending up in his eyes with lots of goo attached. So I took scissors to it. It looked ridiculous. Fortunately he grows hair soooo quickly...
