Media Monday

Finally bought a couple pictures from our recognized dressage show! I was so excited for these pictures, but I really didn't like a lot of them surprisingly. The photographer is very talented and I always love her pictures, but I was leaning forward and Jetta wasn't moving as nicely as I know she can so that combined just made the pictures pretty meh. I do really like the two that I bought and in a way it's for the best that there weren't more pictures that I liked because they're quite expensive and I can never afford more than two. Two of my favorite pictures of Misty are by the same photographer.

Maybe someday I'll sit like a dressage rider and look where I'm going

While I will always try to support show photographers, it's hard to spend over $100 just for two pictures. Especially when you don't get the complete file. I paid $25 for her to take pictures of me at the show on one day, then I paid $45 for each of the pictures to get an 8x10" print and a tiny digital file that is only good for social media sites. Then I had to pay almost $10 for shipping the two prints. I tried making one of them my computer background and it was terribly pixelated, so that was a bummer.

I was a show photographer for several years so I understand how hard it would be to make a living from that. It takes me forever and ever to edit photos so you have to put a lot of time into these things and photography equipment is not cheap!

Regardless, I love these two pictures. I was so proud of Jetta at the show and I'm happy to finally have some really lovely show pictures of the two of us!


And I'm curious - what do you typically pay in your area for show photos?

Twin Rivers Classic - Day 2

Sunday dawned wayyyy too early for me. We had our ride at 7:30am so I had to be up at 4:30am to throw Jetta in the trailer and be on our way by 5am. Ugh. I am so not a morning person.

After I'd already been awake for far too long

I was super tired so Jetta got a minimal warm-up since she felt pretty much perfect. We went in and put in one of the best tests we've done recently! I was so, so happy with her effort and more than ok to end the show on that note. Previously I was bummed to not have 2 classes on each day, but I really couldn't afford it and it turns out that it worked out just fine! We ended up with a 67.8% which I was ecstatic about - last time this judge gave us a 64.8%. We got lots of 6.5's and 7's with several 8's - one for each halt, one for our free walk, and one for our canter-trot transition (AMAZING). We got a 5.5 on our right half circle because we didn't show any bend, and a 6 for our stretchy trot. We got all 6.5's on our collective marks with the comments "A bit stiff legged this morning, needs more suppleness and to bend right, obedient, just needs balance to relax muscles, rider needs shoulders more back and seat bones more forward to help balance." One of these days I'll get my equitation together.

And look up

Take aways from the show:

• I still need to work on my position, but I'm happy with the improvement from the previous show
• The stretchy trot it a huge weakness of ours, so we need to either fix it or hurry up and move to second level where we don't have to do it anymore! (jk... kind of)
• The verbindend bit was a success - I felt like she was definitley not as over her back into contact as she could have been because of the bit, but I will take that over having my arms ripped out of the sockets
• We need to figure out where our right bend went still
• I'm thinking it might be time to do some flexions and see if it's time to think about joint injections or at least some Legend or Adequan. She doesn't look stiff to me in the video at all, but I'd like just to get an idea of if she's needing more joint management or not as she's never had the best hocks
• We need to stop doing First 1 because no one else ever shows it, so it's cool to get first place ribbons and all, but it'd be nice to see how we stack up against other riders, so we need to work on our canter loop in order to show First 3!

Can't wait to see the proofs for the pro pictures, so I will post those when/if I decide to buy any!

We were the only one in 2 of our classes so we got cool stuff!

Twin Rivers Classic - Day 1

Surprise! I went to a show. And not just any dressage show, but a recognized show. You might remember our lackluster last show and how I was really bummed and thinking that a recognized show was just not going to be worth it for us. I really didn't want to spend a bunch of money on a recognized show only to not get any scores towards our bronze medal.

But then, our rides at home were really good. And I remembered the "magic bit" (Neue Schule verbindend snaffle). And I thought about how we've been at first level forever and I have never done a recognized show on Jetta and I just keep pushing that goal further and further back... So I signed up.

I immediately had buyer's remorse. What if I just wasted all that money? I'm perfectly happy doing league shows forever pretty much. And of course my rotation this month took me 2 hours from home so I was only riding Saturdays and Sundays (maybe with the occasional Friday). Would we be ready?

Long story short, it worked out well for us!
(warning: the BF attempted to take pictures. Key word attempted, but I appreciate his effort!)

Beginning of our stretchy trot

Luckily my rides on Saturday were in the afternoon, the first one being at 2:30pm. I had packed for the most part the previous weekend and cleaned all my tack on Friday, so I was able to leisurely pack the rest of the trailer, lunge and bathe Jetta, then drive to the show.

Of course, when lunging Jetta, she was being an absolute psycho and galloping around the arena with her tail in the air and snorting, resulting in the most epic wipe-out I've seen her do. She got up and trotted off like it was no big deal, but I was really worried that after standing on a trailer for an hour and a half, she'd realize that she really did hurt herself and be lame.

Anyways, when I first got on her in the warm-up arena she definitely felt stiff. Not quite lame per se and I didn't really know anyone around the arena at the time to ask and see what they thought. She ended up working out of it, so I'm not sure if her leg that she landed on when she fell was sore or if she was just stiff in general and the warm-up arena footing is a little bit hard or if she was a little bit footsore, etc. Overall, she felt normal after we had warmed up.

My goals for this show were to get 60's. Pretty low standards for me lol. But I also wanted to get no comments about me leaning forward or having flat hands, like last time. I was really disappointed in myself for those comments!

Our first test at First 1 was ok. I did ride in the verbindend to see how it went and I had a lot more control, especially in the canter. She still braced in one of the lengthened trots, which is weird because she only does it when we're going one direction, but not the other (doesn't matter if it's towards or away from the door, just when we go left to right across the diagonal). Overall, I felt pretty good about it. We ended up with a 62.2% with mostly 6.5's and a couple 5.5's - one for our stretchy trot, one for a lengthened trot, and one for a lengthened canter, and a few 7.5's for both halts and the medium walk. Our collective marks were all 6's with one 6.5 for rider's position and her remarks were "Capable team, work to improve her steady stretch to contact and develop more swing over her back. Have fun!"

The next test I decided to be a little bit more bold in our lengthenings since I felt like she wasn't bracing as much and we had worked at home to reduce the rushing a little bit (judges still say that it's rushed or running, but it feels oodles better than it was). I liked this test a lot in how it went - still a few bobbles, but definitely improved. We scored a 64.7% which I was happy with, mostly 6.5's with a 7.5 for our first halt and free walk, a 7 for both half circles, medium walk, and one of our canter circles. Again, a 5.5 on our stretchy trot, so we definitely need to work on that. Collective marks were all 6.5's with the comments "Fun team with bright future. Work to improve stretch over topline to contact in all work".

I definitely didn't regret signing up for this show, it was super fun and laid back, and Jetta was on her best behavior!

Stay tuned for day 2...

(Kinda) Back to Work

After our last show, Jetta has been kinda great. I was pretty frustrated with our rides at the show since I know we are both capable of so much better. My ride after the show we even ran through a test in full (which I never do) to see if there was any bracing happening like it happened at the show... There was none, she was soft and compliant the whole test.

This is definitely not a new problem. One of the last dressage shows we went to before Jetta got pregnant she was AWFUL - I felt like our whole test was basically a barely controlled bolt, she was running through and ignoring my aids. I walked out of the ring knowing we deserved a 50-something % and a low placing... then we miraculously pulled off a mid-60 score landing us in 2nd place. So obviously her being a freight train doesn't look as bad as it feels, but we're never going to be able to progress in our training if we don't get it under control.

But her neck is starting to muscle nicely!

Overall though, I feel like I finally have my pre-baby horse back, the one who is ready to school second level and everything. She's by no means perfect at home, but we're definitely improving. She's getting steadier in the contact, her trot feels really nice most of the time, and our canter-trot downward transition is kinda there. Two things we're struggling with right now, oddly enough, is our stretchy trot - Jetta is willing to stretch down, but kinda takes off - and our right bend disappeared. Not sure where it went, but I think it's a me thing, that I'm hanging on my outside rein too much, so we've been working on that. Our lengthened canter to working canter transition is still very resistant, so we're still playing with that a lot while trying to not let her get used to a big fast canter all of the time.

I haven't ridden her in the verbindend bit in a long time - I thought it might be our magic bit when I first bought it, but over time it was just a little too much bit for schooling at home. I put it aside to use possibly just at shows and then forgot about it. I pulled it back out again for the first time in forever and tried a ride in it and I'm not sure it was any better than the Myler. I think I need at least one more ride in it to decide if it's going to be a useful bit just to use in a show environment, so fingers crossed!

I'm trying to figure out how to budget some more shows into our schedule, but it's really hard since I'm not working right now and of course it's tough to schedule around 4th year rotations, but I'm hoping there'll be at least a couple shows in the books for us! Of course, I'm really wanting to ride lots right now since it seems we're on the upward swing in our training at the moment, but my rotation at the humane society is almost 2 hours away from home so I've been staying in the dorms which is a huge bummer. I miss my ponies, but I at least get to see them on the weekends!

Also, I went on this hike and it was amazing

Midsummer Night's Dream

I'm back with a show update! I have a few weeks off of clinics this summer, so I decided I might as well squeeze some showing in and this is usually one of my favorite shows to go to all year.

It was quite the ordeal getting things figured out for this show - my truck is still broken and I thought it would be fixed by now, I was going to borrow my dad's truck but then he accidentally took the keys with him when he drove over the mountains for the weekend, so I had to find a truck the day before the show. My 3 local options were all out - one friend had her truck currently in Canada for an externship, another was half disassembled because they're putting a flat bed on it, and the other didn't respond to my text because they're in one of the most insane rotations at school. Luckily the BF's parents have multiple trucks and said I could borrow one, not ideal since it was an hour and a half drive to get the truck (one way), but it was worth it!

The morning started off fairly excitingly when I went to load Jetta in the trailer, only to open the door and find a HUGE wasp nest in the trailer. I ran back inside and luckily another lady was at the barn and had it covered. I call her the "barn mom" for a reason. She grabbed some wasp spray and a broom and went out and sprayed it all down, killed all the bees and swept all of the nests out for me! It was awesome - I'm not allergic to bees but I am a chicken about them and I will run away from them, most likely screaming.

Partially destroyed but it was HUGE!

We did First-1 and First-2 at this show. I decided to suck it up and do both First level tests since I really feel like we have Training level down and we need to get it together to do First level. Typically I try to keep my expectations low for a show because I'm super competitive and I don't want to get bummed out if I don't do well. My usual goals are - don't fall off and stay inside the dressage ring! But for this show, my goals were to remember my tests (last show I had a reader for first level) and I really, really wanted a 65% on at least one test.

Jetta has been SO good all week. All of a sudden her canter has turned around and started feeling good instead of the weird funk we were in. She started being steady in the contact, listening to half-halts, and for the most part was carrying herself nicely. I was really looking forward to the show!

She warmed up pretty hot and wanting to either run or fall on her forehand. I got on pretty early to school her and thought we worked through things fairly well. She decided she no longer wanted to bend right, which I have no idea where that came from, and couldn't get her to change her mind about only bending left. We got in the arena and immediately the bell was rang for us to start, so I was bummed that Jetta didn't get to look around (she's never been to this barn) because the arena has 6 big openings around the sides so it's pretty weird for horses who aren't used to it to see people's heads strolling by or horses and cars all around.

Our test was tense, Jetta wanted to run through my aids, and half halts were forgotten. It was not helped by the fact that some sort of party was happening at the entrance of the arena where there is a sitting area for spectators - everyone was cheering, excitedly and loudly talking, wine bottles were popped, and paper bags were being rustled. Not the ideal environment for a hot spooky horse in a dressage test.

I was pretty bummed with how the test went. Unfortunately we didn't have time after to school more because I had to go right back in after one rider went. I had a couple minutes to memorize the next test, and then we were on.

This time I immediately trotted and did several trot-halt-trot transitions before the bell rang to try to get Jetta thinking and not pulling. I definitely think it helped a bit. For First-2 I didn't let Jetta get as forward in our lengthening trot and canters because she was pulling too much on me in the first test, so I tried to keep her soft but at least show a little bit of difference. I came out of the test feeling much better about that ride than the other one.

It's funny how every time I think a test went awful and the other one was better, the judge thinks the opposite.

We scored a 64.8% on the First-1 test. An improvement from our last show, both in score (we got a 64.2%) and how it felt to ride. We got a 7 for both halts, a 7.5 for one of the 10-meter half circles, a 7 on our trot-walk transition, an 8 on our free walk, and crazily enough, a 7.5 on our last canter-trot transition. Our comments were mostly how Jetta's gaits were "choppy" and that I needed to sit up (Jetta was yanking me out of the tack the majority of the ride - I'm disappointed in myself for not just giving her a big half-halt and sitting up).

Hanging out after our tests

First-2, also disappointing, got a 61.56%. I really thought this one would have scored better, but oh well. I was extremely bummed out about this test because this is a judge that consistently gives ridiculously high scores... I can't imagine how low it wouldv'e been with a judge that scored more normally. I thought our leg yields were attentive and accurate but she didn't like them - one of them was "crooked" and the other "leads with haunch all of the way". I wish we had a mirror at our barn because they really did feel straight to me! We did get a 7.7 for our walk, and an 8.0 for our free walk again. One of the lengthened canters, one 15 meter canter circle, and our final halt all got a 7. Jetta was not interested at all in doing a stretchy trot circle so we got dinged on that too. Final remarks were: "Capable pair! A bit too much in jumper position, with dressage position, she will be more supple, cadenced, and have more suspension". I wish!

Overall, this show made me unsure about my plan to do a recognized show. If we can't even get mid-60's at a league show (with a really lenient judge), I really think it would be a waste of money to do a recognized show when I'm trying to get scores for my bronze medal. I was pretty bummed with this show, we still have a ton of work to do at home obviously and so far the work we are putting in just hasn't shown yet.

The good stuff - I'm happy that I was able to memorize both tests! For some reason, maybe just being out of practice, it's been hard for me to memorize the First level tests. Jetta didn't canter in any of our trot lengthenings, or trot in our free walk. While she was spooky about the cars, and horses walking past the arena windows, and the noisy people, she didn't leap out of the arena or bolt. I was happy(ish) with our second test's geometry and all but one of the downward transitions. We still have a long way to go, but at least the work at home is getting better!

Congrats if you made it this far and sorry for the mostly picture-less post! I didn't know anyone well enough to pester them into taking pictures and there were no photographers at this show. Hopefully next time!

Clinic Recap

It has been seriously forever since I have participated in a clinic! I was SO nervous for our clinic on Saturday - worried about riding with a new-to-me clinician, worried about Jetta behaving, worried about whether the money had been well spent, etc.

Luckily, I needn't have worried about any of those things! This was actually my first time auditing JW but I had heard nothing but 100% positive things about her from quite a few people, which I feel is rare in the horse world, so I felt fairly confident diving in without seeing her teach first.

I got to watch the two lessons before me and I thought she was very fair and encouraging. I had heard that she was blunt, which worried me because sometimes people who are "blunt" are actually "mean" but JW was awesome. But I also don't want someone that tells me how amazing my horse is while we're failing around, I really appreciate honesty while at the same time providing structure for how to improve. I've had bad experiences with clinicians who tell me I'm "ruining my horse", but I've had good experiences with very blunt clinicians who will yell at you until you follow their directions, so it can be a mixed bag of what works for me.

I did get a little bit more nervous watching people in front of me because she liked to use a leg yield at the canter to get the hind end more under the horse and engaged, and recently that has been a sure-fire way to get Jetta completely amped up and running away from me. Luckily that wasn't an exercise she had us do.

Anyways, Jetta was on her best behavior. We had a TERRIBLE ride the day before, mainly because I got the idea to try a new bit on her - just a plain loose ring french link that was slightly fatter than her Myler - thinking that maybe she just didn't like how thin the Myler was. Hahaha you would think that I had put the harshest torture bit possible in her mouth. She hated it. She finally got to the point that she could somewhat put in work, but it was not a very good ride as a whole.

At least we were matchy?

And puppy was perfect for her first trip to the barn!

At the clinic we did a brief warm up and she was paying attention to me fairly well. I didn't canter but we did some trotting, counter bending, shoulder-in, and threw in a couple halts. JW called us over and I told her a bit about Jetta - 12 year old Thoroughbred, had almost a year off for a baby, then has been under saddle again for 3 months. Not currently riding with anyone, we've been having trouble with our canter-trot transitions and lengthened trot. Currently riding first level. She's fairly hot, forward, heavy in the bridle and likes to anticipate things and get wound up.

She watched us go for a minute and started right in on our issues. While I normally find it annoying if a clinician gives me the same exercises that we've been doing at home, this time I felt it was more reassuring than anything that I was on the right track with her, plus she did it in such a way that the exercises were building on eachother plus I had a person on the ground to tell me when I was letting Jetta get away with doing stuff only part way.

We did some transitions in the trot - she had me start with a big working trot, only a little bigger than what we'd show with. JW labeled this as a "5" trot, then had me slow her to a 4, 3, 2, 1, keeping her rounded and on the bit. The main thing I've been letting her get away with is not keeping her round on both reins. I have her nicely on my inside rein, but let her drop the outside rein. We kept playing up and down with this scale of trotting, and JW would occasionally call out a number for us to go to or tell us to make a 10 meter circle.

At home, we've been doing lots of 10 meter circles, figure-8's and serpentines. We've also been doing bending and counter bending. This theme was reiterated in our lesson. JW had us exaggerate our inside bend and counter bend, getting Jetta to accept my leg. That's the other thing that we really need to fix is her not accepting my leg, instead she's running away from it. I've been trying to work on it at home, but I guess I haven't been as committed to it as I need to be.

Then we really got to work. Enjoy my artwork of our exercises:

First exercise at the trot

Second exercise with canter-trot transitions

We did these until we were getting more consistent transitions. Still not great by any means, but Jetta was staying rounder, definitely trying to do things correctly, and the quality of her trot had improved quite a bit. JW ended by saying that while I think Jetta likes to come up with avoidance techniques for everything (and while I don't try to let her get away with it, she still does in some capacity), she liked how Jetta wasn't resentful about anything. I'm just needing to expect more from her, focus on keeping her round and on the bit at all times, keep my leg on in transitions and circles (especially my outside leg!).

Some favorite quotes:

• "Good struggle!"
• "Don't fight with them... think of it as a clarification of expectations"
• "Why do you let her do that?" "I don't know" "Well figure it out!"
• "Is she bending on both reins?" "No" "Then why haven't you fixed it already?"

Overall, I enjoyed the lesson. I like that she didn't go easy on us, she seemed to easily pinpoint the two underlying problems we're having. Her exercises made sense to both me and Jetta and didn't make Jetta upset or make things worse. She wasn't mean though and seemed to think that I was competent despite my many failings and that Jetta was a nice horse. I would definitely ride with her again!

More Learnin'

Baby continues to learn about life, you know, the difficult stuff like fly spray and clipping and being caught.

She thankfully has improved since her vaccine reaction. She didn't really want to eat for a couple days and I was worried she just didn't like her new food. I gave her some probiotics and she bounced back a few days later and is now eating her new food! She is not food motivated in any way, so getting her to eat grain is difficult. I got her a ration balancer so she only needs to eat 2 pounds a day and she'll be set for everything she needs, but getting to 2 pounds might take a while. We finally moved up from 1/2 a pound twice a day, to one pound in a feeding so she's gradually learning to eat it!

She dropped a good amount of weight and looked terrible, but luckily gained it back. She still hasn't shed out her winter coat and it's been in the mid-80's a couple days here and she seemed uncomfortable and I was over it, so she got body clipped.

I usually think it's silly to body clip in the spring since they're going to shed anyways, but she was taking altogether way too long. All the other horses in the area were shed out except her. The surprise? She didn't care one bit about being clipped. She even let me do her bridle path and chin! She even stood super well for the whole thing since it took a while, letting the clippers cool off every few minutes. I'm kinda bummed - I got these fancy brushless motor clippers by Wahl thinking they'd be cooler but they get WAY hotter than my last pair of clippers.

Before clipping

So much hair!

Anyways, I was impressed by the clipping. I didn't attempt doing her muzzle since I know that's a really ticklish area and we did plenty for one day. But we have found her new nemesis: fly spray. She does not like it one bit and dances around, bolts and just generally hates it. So I bought a spray bottle and now we get to practice with water every day after she eats her food! Very unhappy baby, she would like you to know she is being cruelly mistreated over here.

Naked!!

She is 9 months old now and just hit 14 hands at the shoulder! She weighs a little under 600 pounds. We are getting better at being caught (she tends to walk towards me now in the pasture instead of immediately walking away), she is a pro at tying and loading in the trailer. She hates fly spray, clippers are acceptable, treats are still very meh. We need to continue working on trailering away from home, tying in the cross ties, and our new adventures will include ponying and a bath as soon as I have time!

That's pretty much a complete update on little Miss Maisie.

Jetta continues much the same. Our trot work seems fairly good and we had a great ride yesterday. The canter continues to be a mystery as to why on earth we seem to be flailing around. I waffle back and forth on "it's all me" to "my horse is being a resistant idiot" and I'm pretty sure it's 50/50. We are playing around with different exercises, stirrup lengths, and bits or lack of bits to try and find SOMETHING that works. I'm pretty bummed that this is the place in our current training that I'll be taking her to see the clinician this weekend since I'd love to work on stuff more towards preparing us for 2nd level, vs. "how to canter" like we haven't been doing it forever. But oh well, at least she keeps me humble!

At least our outfits are matchy

She's getting pudgy! We just cut her grain back finally

She's lucky she's pretty

Dressage Debut

We had our first dressage show in a long, long time since baby made her appearance!

And it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be!

Luckily, the show organizers were very flexible and we were able to drop down from First level test 2 and do Training test 3 instead due to Jetta's terrible behavior these previous couple weeks. This was SO helpful in terms of having a positive show experience.

Jetta was very hyper the morning of the show. I turned her loose in the arena before we loaded up and she galloped around like a psycho for at least 10 minutes before she regained some semblance of a brain. We picked up a friend on the way to the show and he was quite amped up, whinnying and pacing the entire time once we made it to the show. Luckily, Jetta seemed to remember that she's supposed to be a seasoned veteran show horse and behaved like it, settling down to snack on her hay without a peep.

I helped my friend most of the afternoon since this was her first dressage show ever (she does hunters/eq) and called tests for her. She did great for her first time not having any idea what she was doing! It was super fun to have a group of friends at the show since I'm so used to going solo. Jetta warmed up ok. The show seemed to remind her that she can actually be a real horse, but she was quite heavy on the forehand and especially stiff going to the left, not wanting to move her barrel off my leg. We had a bit of a half halt and she was only sometimes running through my aids.



We did Training 3 first and it seemed fairly lackluster to me. Jetta was mostly obedient, listened to my half halts, transitions were acceptable, she bent when I asked her, etc. The worst parts were a couple steps of trot in our free walk (seriously horse? this is always our best movement!), our canter-trot transition at X that she completely ignored and we got late, and a stretchy trot that didn't show a whole lot of stretch.

Otherwise, it wasn't a bad reintroduction to showing for us. I didn't think it was great, but I definitely couldn't be upset about it.

I was pretty shocked to see we got a 72.5% to earn us second place. The judge was VERY generous (not a problem to me!) but I was surprised to see that it looked that good when it felt just meh. But I will take it! We got an 8 on one canter circle (very surprising!) and an 8 on our impulsion. Mostly 7.5's and 7's on everything else!

Our ponies are in love - and just too cute!

Shiny!

Our second class was First 1 and unfortunately we got a little too carried away taking pictures in front of the blossoming trees, so we didn't have any time to warm up for this class. Oops. Jetta was not very good for this class. She was WAY too excited about the lengthenings - she basically took off at a gallop for the second canter lengthening, then got sassy when I circled and asked her to come back down to a reasonable speed (judge's comment was "disobedient" = accurate). Her trot lengthenings were ok, but mostly just quick and on the forehand. We need to do a ton of work to be ready to put in an acceptable first level test.

The judge was, again, very generous and gave us a 64.25% which was much more than we deserved, but we placed out of the ribbons which was accurate.

Overall, not a bad way to kick of the show year!

Her favorite move - free walk

Trying to do a stretchy trot

Wheeeee!

I think our takeaways for the weekend were the same things we've been working on - get her off her forehand, get manageable lengthenings that are not just going faster, improve our stretchy trot and my equitation is awful and I really need to work on it!

Welp, Nevermind

Welllll... we didn't make it into the show yesterday. Apparently they had a TON of entries for the show, so I didn't make the cut. I was extremely bummed since I was getting really excited for it, but I think it's for the better. I get to save my money and wait for a league show so I get points. And I got to focus on finals instead of stressing about the show too and everything I needed to do to get ready (clean tack, organize trailer, bathe Jetta, etc.)

Our last two rides were WONDERFUL and then we had two awful ones. After two relaxed rides with lots of stretchy trots, I wanted to work on lateral work again. Jetta warmed up really nicely, then went downhill once we started the lateral work. She just gets more and more amped and then I get a shorter rein and she gets more and more "up"and it snowballs.

When we went to canter she launched into it with barely a cue, she was being super sensitive to my aids, so I tried to school it a little bit and she just got more anxious. We ended up dropping back to the trot and doing lots of figure 8's and serpentines, trying to get her listening, not heavy, not overreacting to my leg, etc.

It ended up being a pretty long ride and while I think we did accomplish things, it was frustrating. So probably another reason that it's good we didn't make it into the show.

Then I rode on Sunday and they were scraping the driveway, trying to get rid of some of the potholes and while Jetta doesn't actually care, when we got into the arena and couldn't see the tractor she was VERY CONCERNED and there was much prancing and general obnoxiousness so I got off and lunged her and she ran until she decided she was done and then we had a lovely but short ride.

Now it looks like our first show will either be mid-April with an indoor eventing show (just jumping, no dressage) or a dressage league show at the end of April. We will see! I'd like to know my exam schedule before signing up, but I also don't want to miss out again by entering at the last minute. So we'll see.

Here's our updated list of things we need to work on:

Training Level
Canter - reasonable speed, not on forehand, on the bit
           Better, but we need to work on not launching into the canter
Canter-trot transition
           Better, but still needs improvement
Stretchy trot circle
           Much better!

First Level
Fine-tune our leg yield
         It's going really well!
Lengthened trot and canter
         We've been working a little on the lengthened trot, but haven't touched the canter yet

Second Level
Travers - working on this, it's still ugly but has its good moments
Canter-walk transition - HA. hahahaha
Canter loop/counter canter - started our canter loops and they are not as bad as I was expecting
Sitting trot - sometimes we can do this other times we are too discombobulated

To apologize for the lack of photos, I'll be posting a baby update soon! I promise that one will have photos :)

Committed

Well, I finally sent in our entry for the show yesterday. I waffled back and forth but finally bit the bullet. It gives me motivation to work with Jetta and it will be a good opportunity to dip our toes back into showing. It just might not be pretty, lol.

Jetta continues to improve for the most part though! I finally switched her bit back to her usual Myler since the Herm Sprenger she likes isn't show legal. The HS is a mullen mouth with a port and the port is just barely too big. She just goes SO well in it. I think we're on our 4th ride in the Myler and while she isn't very pleased and we're definitely not going to get many points on acceptance of the bit, at the very least she actually listens to my half halts now!

Yesterday I feel like we definitely had a bit of a breakthrough. I went into our ride wanting to focus on relaxation. She tends to get wound up more and more the more transitions and lateral work you ask her for. So we warmed up with lots of walking, just focusing on her getting soft on the bit, accepting my leg, being bendy, etc.

Once we moved into the trot I worked on letting her stretch out and down. She LOVES stretching, the only problem is that she uses it as an excuse to either run away with me, get super on her forehand, or just generally become a freight train. So every time she got too fast, I half halted her. If she didn't listen to my half halt then I stopped her. If she just trotted nicely she got to stretch as much as she wanted. We did lots of serpentines and figure eights to keep her little walnut brain engaged, the changing direction also helped her not anticipate the canter when I used my leg to turn.

Once she got really soft and not heavy on the forehand, I asked for a canter. I mainly focused on getting her to accept my outside rein at the canter and not brace. Otherwise I didn't worry about where her head was at and she did a good job of not being too speedy.

Canter-trot downward transitions are still not very good, but at least we can do them at this point. They still aren't very accurate and she gets heavy and fast in the trot, but I'm able to bring her back to a reasonable speed in a handful of strides. So not ideal, but we're working on it.

Getting back to that pre-baby bod

We even managed to do a little bit of lengthened trot work! I'm not super happy with it, but it's a start. She didn't anticipate, she let me regulate the speed and came back to whatever speed/gait I asked afterwards without bracing. 

I think the break through was letting Jetta have a little bit longer neck without getting faster. She realized that if I half halt her and she doesn't get fast, I will let her have a bit longer neck, thus we get a nicer trot instead of a short, tight neck with a quick trot. It felt much improved, so hopefully it sticks!

Starting to enjoy our rides again!

Today definitely felt better. She definitely remembered that she got to stretch if she listened to my half halts. We can't always warm up like this because she gets rude about wanting to stretch down, but I'll take the progress!

I also forgot that I didn't post about our trail ride the other day! We had a pretty slow week coming up in school so a fellow horsey vet student came out to my barn to go ride the trails with me. It was super fun - she has THE CUTEST little QH mare named Remy. She's only 3 but she was awesome the entire time and I am seriously going to steal her. Her conformation is to DIE for, she looks and moves like a miniature warmblood in a little cutting horse package. She is super fancy. It was nice to get out and about with a friend!

In random school related notes... I did my first surgery on a sheep! An abomasopexy to be exact. It actually went super smoothly and our ram recovered perfectly. I was nervous and there weren't the best guidelines provided on how to perform it, but it turned out great!

I'm on the left. I have a unicorn surgery cap, obviously

And my office is coming along and getting cozier for the endless hours I spend in here!