Setting Up For Success

The past two months have been a bit overwhelming. When things didn’t go as planned with our first horse show and then subsequent illness I struggled. I blogged a bit about this on Eventing Nation. It seemed like we weren’t making any progress at all. I spent a lot of time getting down on myself and missing Annie.

Ride 1 1/5/19

When I first started jumping Dobby all of my goals seemed like they were miles and miles away. He is after all recently off the track and still very young. There is no rush and we have been taking things at his pace. It can still be hard sometimes to feel like such a struggle bus over crossrails though and really easy to miss how much improvement you have really been making. This is where having a lot of video evidence and friends/trainer to kick you in the butt comes in. I love being able to look back at where we started and then where we are today. It really highlights just how much improvement we really have made.

In April I decided I was going to do everything I can to be successful with Dobby. I also wanted to figure out sooner rather than later if he really wants to be an event horse. It was time to buckle down. Spoiler alert: he really loves XC!!!

In the past 2 months we have gone cross country schooling 4 times. That is almost more than the collective number of times I schooled in the past 4 years before moving to Texas. The only way to find out if a horse will like the job is to go and do it so that is exactly what we have been doing.

After our first schooling trip I tricked myself into thinking it would be totally smooth sailing. Dobby showed me how much he is capable of and how willing he was to answer the questions we threw at him. Our first outing he was trotting and cantering small questions and happily going into the water. Compared to a lot of horses he has been very easy to bring along. The day to day definitely hasn’t always felt like that though. Dobby is very honest and has a lot of try but I still have to help him.

1st XC (3/16/19)

I know these videos might not be exactly riveting to anyone else but if you are ever wondering what you can accomplish in 2 months with some commitment, a great young horse, and professional help these videos are a super example.

We dialed it back a lot for our 2nd schooling trip. Most of the weekend was spent trotting small courses of starter fences. This trip felt like a huge step back at the time. I could not get my mind and body to cooperate. I kept getting nervous that Dobby was going to stop and throwing my body forward a couple strides out. That led to exactly what I was afraid of because Dobby couldn’t figure out what I was asking. He really needed me to support him to the fences and I think it finally clicked that I really need to sit up and keep my leg on (SIT BACK OR DIE).

2nd XC (4/19/19)

After this trip I went home and committed to riding 5 days a week. I stuck to that schedule and you could tell we had been doing our homework. We were getting in solid jump schools at home and working on being brave. This horse needs me to believe in him to really believe in himself and we have finally got that trust going for us. We were stringing jumps together and even jumping some harder combinations! The bigger the jumps the more Dobby seems to understand and by trotting everything the trip before he had a lot more confidence cantering up to fences.

3rd XC (5/5/19)

I really put the time in prepping for our first show over fences which ultimately ended up getting rained out. Despite the rain we still got to go school and Dobby impressed the hell out of me with how brave and willing he was. This trip was just 2 weeks after our schooling weekend at Texas Rose and yet I had a totally different horse under me.

Getting to see the kind of progress that we could make if I committed to it kept that fire burning. We came home and continued to build our trust in each other by jumping a few jumps a few times a week. I didn’t drill this horse to get this kind of progress I just had to be consistent. By making it uneventful and a part of his regular routine jumping has become easy. I am happy to say he stays very relaxed regardless of the questions I ask him now. This has a lot more to do with who he is as a horse than anything I have done but a consistent program has set him up for success.

4th XC 5/18/19

Going into this past weekends trip in my head my only goal was to ride brave and trust my horse. I am pretty sure anyone there would say that we really found our groove. It wasn’t perfect but it is clear that Dobby is eager to jump all the things and that he is having as much of a blast as I am.

I really couldn’t ask for more from a 4 year old that has only been off the track for 6 months. I know that by introducing the job to him now and getting him used to everything I will have a happy and confident horse when we are ready to try to move up and increase the expectations.

4 comments

  1. Niamh says:

    Love seeing you guys progress — and all the help and supportive you’ve utilized along the way! He’s so special and you’re going to have so much fun together!

  2. RiderWriter says:

    I think he’s really getting the hang of this XC thing, AND having a blast! So cool to see the progress. Thanks for sharing!

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