part-time eventer

running beginner novice and having john kyle commentating the cross country for, again, BEGINNER NOVICE

i have never in my life gotten to consistently ride a made horse. i’ve ridden a couple of retired grand prix jumpers here and there but i have never spent months and years on a horse that knows what it’s doing.

cooper doesn’t really know what he’s doing yet and he’ll probably be a constant work in progress til the day i retire him, but at some point in the last week something clicked for him and he’s actually through now, properly, and not just in a training level frame. it’s not constant but he actively looks for it instead of fighting me about it. he’s light in my hand and he’s on all my aids and i have just never really ridden something that would do that. i never could make that happen and now it’s just there.

and like, i made that happen! i did that! obviously i did it under the guidance of my trainer, but she’s sat on him maybe ten times in the two and a half years i’ve been in her barn and at least half of those were just her taking him for walks while i was out of town. he learned it with me in the tack. we learned it together.

i did this on friday after doing five (5) practice braids on wednesday and having never braided a full mane before and i also did it half in the dark because the barn power didn’t come back on after tuesday’s storm until this evening

yes the forelock is sloppy but that was my last thing and we had no light left and then rode in the pouring rain yesterday so it hardly mattered anyway

they were tidy and they held overnight and the boss (my trainer) said they looked nice sooo people need to stop complaining about how hard it is and instead go buy some quicbraid and practice more

i talk to her more than i talk to anyone other than my family at this point and 95% of it is not actually about cooper lol

(half of it is truly just us sending each other dumb memes and me keeping her up to date on shit since i’m chronically online and she’s too busy to wade through a 200+ post coth thread to figure out what the root of the latest drama actually is)

on the one hand it’s weird cause i’ve known her since i was ten but on the other hand the fact that i’ve known her since i was ten is exactly why it happens

cooper’s back has changed shape dramatically over the last year and a half to the point where i had to ship my jump saddle off to have the tree widened two sizes and we had to switch out the gullet plate in my dressage saddle for the next width up. he’s developing a proper topline, he no longer has the hollows behind his withers that people love to insist are normal for thoroughbreds, and as soon as i got on tonight post-dressage saddle adjustment, he was immediately more willing to lift his back and come through. his canter was softer and more uphill as soon as i got my jump saddle back a few weeks ago.

Still need to wash my stuff but I don’t have to run the tub clean cycle after I do that so those things can wait.

I am getting a little annoyed with my dressage saddle because something about the seat makes me hollow out my lower back and it makes it really hard to actually use my body properly. I can’t decide if the saddle is that off and I never noticed before because we weren’t asking for so much from either me or him, or if the balance is just off because his back has changed a ton in the last six months / we’re due for a visit from our saddle fitter (happening in the next ~month once my trainer’s new saddle comes in) and that’s what’s causing it.

Had my first jump lesson in three months today (Cooper free-jumped once at the beginning of January so this was only his second time over fences since early November) and I am actually super pleased with how it went. He was pretty polite, he’s starting to be strong enough to adjust himself in front of fences to get the distance without my help (beyond me keeping my leg on and keeping a steady contact), and I didn’t completely lose my shit as I am prone to doing over show jumps. We did lots of turning (our indoor arena is only 100’ x 70’) and he was a champ about the whole thing.

Neither of us were bad in October or November, really, but he was bouncing off my half-halts and I was still a bit too in my head. Today he actually listened and didn’t fuss when I asked him to sit and put himself back together, and I didn’t panic coming into any of the fences (they were small due to the aforementioned little indoor, but everything I can be relaxed into is a good thing). We’ve spent the last three months doing tons of flatwork focused on putting him together and having him be adjustable and it has absolutely paid off already (and we’ve still got another ~month or so of being 95% focused on dressage before we switch to about 60/40 so he’ll be even better by the time we actually start showing).