The Green Horseman

When I began 2024 I had very simple goals.

1. Buy New Saddle
2. Help Stanley pick up the left lead easier
3. Get Stanley out to the world 2-3x/month

The third goal has been going well. The weather doesn’t get very reliable/stable until May , so since then we have:

• Gone to SOEE and just walked around seeing things (A Busy May)
• Went for a trail ride (A Busy May)
• Went to Trilogy as a non-competing rider and rode around the warm-up ring (Stanley Travels)
• Went to the Tik Maynard and Sinead Halpin clinic TWO days (Stanley Travels)

So far we trailered twice in May and 3 times in June.

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This past Sunday Stanley and I attended another horse show held by ENYDCTA and hosted by the lovely Winterwood Farm.

This time we signed up to ride in a class.

Every trip is a different goal, a different challenge, and I’m making them VERY small bite-sized goals. They make for small easy wins and Stanley’s confidence has been ever-improving.

We do not yet have a new English saddle, so I have been taking dressage lessons in my western. I decided to enter a Western Dressage class…WDAA Intro 3.

We arrived at the show and Stanley was probably the most laid back he’s been. I’ve been practicing walking him around the property to get a look before I get on and he’s appreciated that.

We watched a class and I practiced some of the techniques Tik taught me about personal space. As soon as he was standing 6ft away from me he took a deep breath and relaxed.

I warmed up in the indoor arena and to my surprise, he continued to be calm, interested, and engaged. He was infatuated with himself in the mirror.

Zac arrived right as the person in front of me started her test. He made it!

The WDAA intro tests are fun. There’s more to them so even though I’m just walking/trotting we are always doing a new movement. We went down the centerline turned left, crossed the diagonal, circled, crossed the diagonal again, and circled again. At C we walked and our free walk was on a half circle at B. This is where Stanley was SO relaxed that he decided he needed to itch his leg. As I pulled his nose up he came up and took a few trot steps. That movement got us a 5 and it was a double co-efficient. We had an excellent halt (7). We were sticky and unbalanced to pick the trot back up at C, crossed the diagonal from E to F, and went back down centerline to salute at X. Our professional photos here are courtesy of Q2 Photography

We scored 61.75 that day and I was beyond proud of his efforts. We stuck around to watch Marcia Kulak give her clinic and stadium walk. Stanley grazed and seemed content through it. We finally loaded him back up and made our way home. I could not ask for a better day.

Zac and I were warm and hungry so we cooled down with smoothies for lunch.

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The following week we took four horses to the Stockade Polo Club which was hosting another schooling show. We took Stanley and Tiger in separate trailers but Stanley had a friend, Cassian, with him.

The day began calm and relaxed. As Becky saddled up to ride I walked Stanley over to the warm-up ring and he was relatively calm. He looked back and noticed Tiger standing at the trailer next to us and called a few times. He was still willing to graze but called periodically. An improvement.

I got on to ride and he was tense but tried to stick with me. He wasn’t nearly as worried as the first time I brought him to these showgrounds in May 2023.

We rode our test. The same WDAA Intro 3 test. Our challenge here was simply the addition of friends. That will be plenty for us for a while.

The test rode well, he was obedient and listened to everything I asked of him and didn’t call out, but was definitely not fully focused on our job at hand. It showed up in our test but because we didn’t have a blunder on the free walk we still increased our score to 62.5. The judge said he was a charming horse but needed help with bending his figures. Being counter-bent through his lines and figures is purely his desire to be with his buddies, so as we get more shows underway he will show the judges his best self in no time.

Stanley enjoyed a protein shake at the trailer, so much that he didn’t even notice when his friend walked away. We had a nice time eating like a toddler and cleaned up just enough to take his photo with our ribbon.

He was ready to go home by then. He thought “We came, we did the test, I got my treat and my ribbon, now we go home.”

But we weren’t going home yet. Our friends still had to ride to do. I could have left him at the trailer but decided to bring him to watch. He was notably more upset AFTER our ride than before. We grazed, called, and circled….repeat.

He did his best and I’m beyond proud of him. Now he just needs to go to a few more shows with buddies before the end of the season. I have no doubts that we can get him over this hump, it’s just going to take a little while.