The air is crisp, the days are short, and we are in the middle of a blissfully quiet month at Sprieser Sporthorse. Everyone got the qualifying scores they needed for our Regional Finals earlier in the year, which means we didn’t need to hit up the last local recognized show, which means that we have had no recognized shows our calendar, which means we’ve been mostly twiddling our thumbs.
And it has been GLORIOUS.
My strategy used to be that the horses would go to the finals in October (or, if they weren’t showing, press on with serious training through the same period of time), and then for six-or-so weeks from mid-October to the beginning of December, they’d get to fluff around. I want them to have time to refresh, both physically and mentally, for a chunk of time in the winter and a chunk of time in the summer, and as we leave for Florida around January 1 and I like at least a few weeks to put them back into work before we head South, that schedule worked great.
Then the USDF National Finals came into existence, and we had a grand time last year, so no regrets. But they’ve required a tweak to my schedule. So now the horses get to fluff around in August and September for a few weeks, and then will fluff again for two weeks or so in November, and that will give them enough let-down time—or at least, I hope it does—to stay sharp and healthy.
The timing of that plan couldn’t have been better for Fiero. He’s got such a tremendously good character that one could easily just train on him 365 days a year without running into a problem… until one trained him right into the ground. He was High Score Champion (again!) at his last show, but just felt blah. I had my vet do a quick exam to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, and when Dr. Chad declared Fi to be healthy as the proverbial horse, I decided to just let him hack and maybe walk-trot-canter a few days a week for an entire month.
It scared the pants off me, but when Fiero came back to work on Tuesday with a song in his heart and pep in his step, I knew I’d made the right call. How many 7-year-olds are putting together the pieces of the Prix St. Georges, all while staying pleasant and fun for their petite amateur lady owners? Not many, and I declare that the ones that are and do are the ones who also get to flop around in the field for a month. So he’s back to boot camp in prep for the Second and Third Level Regional Finals the first weekend on October. Whee!
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Dorian is also aiming for the Regional Finals, but I’ve kept working him through the gap. He’s at an age where I don’t worry so much about the down time, as long as he stays fresh in his body and mind, which he has. I feel like he’s starting to be My Horse now, starting to have the instincts that Midgey and Ella and Cleo and Fender all had from their lives with me. It’s a fun journey, and while Regionals will be great and lovely and all that, I really want to get home and get training on the flying changes and more upper-level way of going.
Danny is the same age as Dorian, and he’s got places where he’s way ahead and places where he’s way behind, but on the whole is in about the same place. In the last few weeks he, too, has started to feel like Mine, and as such I’ve been able to touch on more things, like his trigger-happy approach to flying changes (I can now do them pretty much anywhere I want, including a serpentine loop from counter-canter to counter-canter yesterday; wahoo!) and raising the bar on my expectations of self-carriage and connection. He still feels like pushing a well-cooked noodle up a hill, but the noodle is getting more and more trained every day.
Johnny’s a bit of a mess. I keep meaning to put a stick on him because I’m pretty sure he’s grown another inch. Considering he started this year at 16.1 and was, in April, 16.3, I think he’s allowed to feel like puppies fighting under a blanket. I can’t seem to get him in front of my leg at trot, and then at canter he’s more than happy to fly around at a gillion miles an hour in a four-beat canter so disconnected it’s amazing his parts are even attached. But at least 3-4 times a week he treats me to a moment of genius, which is enough to keep me from getting angst-ridden, plus he’s just so ruddy cheerful about it all I just want to hug him all the time.
I’m most excited about Fender, who really feels quite good in his body, and just got the all-clear to start cantering. The canter actually feels wretched, but in that haven’t-done-this-in-four-months kind of way, not in the there’s-an-actual-problem kind of way, and the trot is all business. With any luck he’ll be cleared to start sideways and turning in the next couple of weeks (oh PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let me turn something smaller than a 25 meter circle, life will be so much better, pleeeeeease) and will be ready to hit the ground running when we arrive in Wellington. The jury is still out on what he does in 2015; I’d hoped to do some CDI Small Tour stuff, get a freestyle done, the works, but he just may be not quite ready to play at that level of competition yet, and he’s just 8 this year, so he could do the Developing Prix St. Georges tour one more year, and hopefully make it to the Championships. Dunno, ask me again in six weeks.
The barn is quiet too, with a lot of my clients also enjoying the down time. It’s letting me interview working students, since we are again one man short (sigh). I have two wonderful sale horses we’re plugging away at, and Goya will be home from being started soon, which I’m SO excited about. We even have some empty stalls, a tremendous rarity for us. I know that peace and quiet will come to an end soon, but we’ll be ready—this has been such a lovely time to recharge!
