There are pros and cons to summer in Ocala. The biggest con is the sweating. It’s like… so much sweating. SO MUCH. 24/7 sweating from every pore. But I have to admit that I love living here in the off season, despite being steamed like a pork dumpling on a daily basis.

Once all the seasonal people leave, the whole vibe of the place changes. We get back to things being more relaxed, less formal, more friendly. The traffic eases up a bit and nothing really feels like that big of a deal. There are still lots of horsey activities to do, but it feels more like having options and less like drinking from a fire hose. Winter season here can be really overwhelming in a lot of ways.

And as much as I have loved being in a regular training/lesson program for the past two years (and I have absolutely loved it) I have also really come to appreciate that downtime we take in the summer, too. I feel like I always get a little apprehensive right before we take longer breaks, because, well… I am a neurodivergent that lives and dies by her routines and schedules. Alas, we adapt and we move along, because we have no choice.

Having the breaks usually seems to end up being beneficial, really. I will never be the kind of person that wants to get super dependent on a trainer or having constant professional oversight, so having ample time to go off and do stuff on my own and play around with things… overall I think it’s good. Usually by the end of it I come back to the table with more thoughts and observations and things I want to address, just from having some time to play with it on my own. The same is definitely true now too, after the last 5 weeks.

I have certainly not been lacking for field trips for Bingo and Presto. Between jumper rounds and XC schooling I’ve been taking a couple little adventures every week. With Presto we’re honestly just kind of in maintenance mode, trying to make sure he doesn’t lose the few manners we’ve managed to give him in his 9 years of life. He does best if he stays in some kind of routine and gets proper schooling all the time (he is constantly surprised that he is expected to be obedient about literally anything).

And with Bingo, we’re obviously still in major learning mode. He’s really only been in actual racehorse re-training mode for 6 months, and jumping for about 3 months. Not only does he have a lot to learn, he’s also got a lot of strength and confidence to gain. This is SUCH a fun part of their training to me, though. They’re little sponges and they learn so fast. A month ago he did his first Starter event. A few weeks ago I cantered my first full course on him. Every single outing he goes on, he comes back a little smarter and more confident.

In the past few weeks he’s been XC schooling at 3 different places. The first time we stuck to mostly logs and Starter stuff, and worked out some steering and rideability kinks. After that he went to the jumper rounds show, where he was so good and did his first little BN round. Then I took him to Majestic (with Kathleen and Henry) where he literally could not have been better. We jumped all the BN and he just felt really confident and was pretty rideable. It was a big difference in only a couple weeks.

Wait, I must pause here to share this screenshot of Kathleen and Henry from that day. Is this not the cutest thing you’ve ever seen in your entire life? Henny’s still got it, and he loves Kathleen.

Anyway, back to Bingy.

The following week (which was this past weekend) I took him to Florida Horse Park to XC school. They always have open schooling the day before their POP schooling shows. FHP is where he ran his Starter event with Ellie last month, which was his first time going to that venue, but POP schooling days are an entirely different beast. There are always lots of horses and riders everywhere and a general air of chaos.

And he did struggle with some overwhelm in the beginning. Remember that he was actually quite horse shy when he came, to the point where the first time I tried to ride him with another horse he bolted multiple times. It’s also been really difficult for me to work on that at home, given that I’m the only person on the farm that rides with any regularity. It was one of the biggest motivating factors for me sending him out for a month of training.

It has gotten light years better, but every once in a while he does get overwhelmed sometimes with other horses doing too many things, and that expresses itself as little mini bolting sideways explosions. It’s not hard to stop him and it only lasts a few seconds, but it’s like he just can’t process anymore input and has to open the valve. Honestly, that’s fair. This is all still really new and weird to him, and he’s not wrong, it can be really overwhelming sometimes. As long as he’s trying, I really can’t fault him for that at this point. And to his immense credit, once I started pointing him at some jumps, he immediately settled down and focused on his job, and was really very good.

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I continue to be really happy with his progress. Slowly but surely I think he’s getting there! He for sure understands the jumping game now, and even when he isn’t sure about something, he still tries hard to figure it out. That’s a Thoroughbred for you. And even though he still struggles to maintain the balance for long periods, and sometimes forgets what to do with his legs, there’s marked visible improvement week over week. He is so dang big and long, it’s gonna take time, but in this sport so much of it depends on their heart and desire… so far he’s showing me both of those things.

Given his successful adventures, I decided it was time to Just Do The Damn Thing and enter our first horse trial together!

But you’ll have to wait til tomorrow for that story…

This is one of those things I’ll stand ten toes down on, especially today after seeing all the posts on our local community facebook group about injured horses, lost dogs, and sleepless nights. Here’s my OpEd that I wrote for TurnoutHQ last week. Thoughts? I hope your holiday was relatively uneventful.

We are officially entering the dog days of summer here in Florida (the fact that it’s almost July is somehow astounding to me) and the routines of spring have been replaced with new ones. Rides are happening earlier in the morning, we’re keeping things a bit lighter/shorter, and spending more time hacking. My trainer is also still in Europe, so we’ve had a few weeks off from our usually fairly busy lesson schedule. While we’re using it as a bit of a break, I also really didn’t want to just go a month or two without jumping or getting the boys out and about. They both had a pretty light spring, and I don’t want to lose the momentum we got in May. So I set a rough goal of taking both Presto and Bingo somewhere at least once a week, whether it was to trot the hills or do some XC or jumper rounds or whatever.

And so far we’ve been successful with that. The week following the POP show (where I ended up scratching after dressage because Presto’s shoe was about a millimeter from disaster) I took Presto to a XC derby. I looooove when farms have schooling show type stuff on the weekdays, it’s so nice to just be able to pop over there real quick in the morning. The Training division went first at 7:30am, which was perfect for me.

Presto definitely started out a little bit spooky, he’s never been out on the XC at that venue before, but he ended up being good.

I felt like it took the entire first half of the course for him to really get out in front of my leg and not hold tension behind the saddle, but we did get there eventually. I really liked the structure of the class, too… you started with 5 show jumps and then rolled directly into XC, basically like how the YEH classes are set up. The XC starts off softer and then builds in height and technicality as you go along. We had a nice variety of stuff that I thought really covered all the bases – a jump in the water, a drop into water, a coffin, skinnies, going up and down a mound, etc. Perfect little morning.

Bingo has been on a few more outings than Presto has, mostly because I really wanted to use this time for us to get to know each other better and see what I’ve really got. As I wrote about previously, he spent a month with my trainer, which culminated in him attending his first show, and I wanted to get him home and see how all that was going to translate, see how he felt, and start doing more stuff together.

And he really hasn’t put a foot wrong. I think he definitely gained some confidence in the world as a whole during his month away. He’s less horse shy, he doesn’t get worried leaving his friends or when his friends leave him, he’s going to new places like an absolute champ, and most importantly he seems to have a better understanding of his job – and really likes it. He just seems a little bit more settled within himself, in general. That was exactly what I was hoping to achieve by sending him off to school, so I’ve been very pleased with how he’s continued to come along since.

So far he’s been out for a conditioning day on the hills, XC schooling, jump schooling, and to a little jumper rounds show. He’s traveled well, he’s been pleasant, he’s been relaxed… for where he’s at in his training (we’re, what… 6 months in?) I really can’t fault him. His brain in particular.

It’s especially apparent when I switch back and forth from doing things with Bingo vs doing things with Presto, who is not exactly known for his mental fortitude. Presto is a spooky, emotional creature with a flair for drama. Bingo is… not that. At all. I mean sure, he’s a 6yo very green OTTB so a little spook here or a reaction there – totally within his wheelhouse. But his brain just works so differently from Presto’s.

A really good example of this was last week’s jumper rounds.

I took Bingo for a Starter round and a BN round. He’d been to this facility the week before to XC school, but not to the side of the property where the jumping ring is. He unloaded, looked around for a few seconds, then started grazing. I put his bridle on, walked him down to the mounting block, and got on. No fuss no muss. We walked past the jumping ring with it’s little pop up tents and into warmup, where he had one slightly fast trot circle before he settled into his totally normal Bingo self. I trotted and cantered a crossrail and then went over to the ring. He jumped around the Starter easy peasy, with the only dramatic moment being when I tried a perhaps too ambitious (given how gigantic and green he is) inside turn and we subsequently jumped an oxer on an angle, taking the rail. My bad. I had only jumped a full course on him once before so I overestimated his steering.

We came out, waited for a couple other rounds, and then they came and raised the jumps to BN. The whole time we were waiting Bingo just stood there next to the Kubota on a loose rein. Like he does this every day of the week, no biggie.

Then he went back in and jumped around his very first BN round. Well ok, he’d fallen asleep a bit and subsequently walloped the first fence, so we came back around and started the course again (this is why we love the schooling jumper rounds so much). He felt a little bit tired by that point but again, he was just a good boy. He went around and jumped all the jumps like no big deal.

It was a very drama free morning with zero spooks. I mean he’s green, sure, and there were definitely some green horse mistakes happening (keeping track of all 4 legs is sometimes difficult), but there was no naughtiness or drama. He waited happily while Henry jumped around with Kathleen, then we went back, untacked, hosed the horses off, and Bingo self-loaded back into the trailer. Just a really pleasant morning overall.

And then… it was Presto’s turn. To his credit, he is a very good loader and hauler. It’s what he does once you get him off the trailer that tends to vary.

When we got back to the facility they were watering the arena with those big sprinklers. After observing this from a distance for a minute, Presto decided he was going to die. Mind you, he’s seen a lot of arena sprinklers in his day. Even in the past few months. But he’s never seen THESE.

Sooo anyway, he stared at the sprinklers for the whole less-than-10 minutes they were on, and was completely incapable of putting his brain back in his head once they went off. WHERE DID THEY GO? Surely they were still lurking down there, ready to blast him off the face of the earth without warning.

After he finally took a deep breath, it still took me a while to get him near warmup because he was busy spooking at a jump standard. Then it took me a while to get him into warmup because he was spooking at the footing change. Then it took me a while to get him in the ring because of the Ghosts of the Selkies. Then it took me a while to get him anywhere near the corners where the sprinklers had been. It was DRAMA. I just had to keep trotting circles, working our way closer and closer to whatever the current offending item was. He spooked at everything that existed and everything that didn’t. It doesn’t help that he’s had a meltdown at this facility in the past when he discovered that there’s a horse and cows living just across the treeline from warmup. Still… he’s been here for jumper rounds like 4 or 5 times now. I’ll let you know when he runs out of things to be spooky about.

To his credit, I was able to work him out of it and he ended up jumping around the meter with no problem. It just took a while to get there because we had to take a side quest through Dramaland first.

By the time we were done I was getting overheated, so Kathleen and Lija took him to hose him off. I’m told there was only minimal naughtiness, so we’ll take that as a win.

Presto is, without a doubt, the most talented horse I’ve ever owned. He’s also the most challenging. I’ve gotten so used to his idiosyncrasies and the accommodations I make to help his mental state… having Bingo, who requires none of those (although he does have a few little idiosyncrasies of his own, as they all do) really highlights what a handful Presto can be. I love him dearly, and always will, but owning that horse gives me more of an appreciation for one like Bingo. It’s nice to have him to balance out my Drama King. Maybe Bingo is meant to be my emotional support creature?

Either way, it’s fun to have them both, even if (especially if?) they’re so wildly different. And I’m particularly pleased with how much Bingo has really stepped up this month. I’m starting to see glimmers of a really nice horse underneath all the awkward, I think!

The first 3 jumps are him:

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Which is why I decided to late enter him for the RRP Makeover. I entered him on Friday and we got accepted Monday!

If we can’t get into one of the jumping divisions I don’t know if I’ll take him, but I do think he’s the right type of horse to mentally handle that kind of show/environment really well. So, we’ll see. Our hat is in the ring, at least! If we don’t go this year, now he’ll at least be eligible for the Graduate classes going forward.

I did start a Make The Makeover page (these funds go directly to RRP, and I get refunds on some of my Makeover fees depending on how much I raise) if anyone is interested in supporting the journey!

As for the smallest member of Team Bay Boys, Neville is still stinkin’ cute.

He is, as of now, definitely the quietest of this year’s crop. He likes a game of Bitey Face, and he’ll run around a bit, but he’s for sure less rambunctious than the other colts. I suspect that this is because he’s currently the only one of the 7 colts on this farm that doesn’t have at least one descended testicle already. A couple of them already have two, most have one, some have just a hint of one, but Neville’s have yet to make even a glimmer of an appearance. Which is very normal in the realm of foals, but I do think it has something to do with how he’s less inclined to naughtiness than the others. He’s also just a clone of his mom’s temperament so far. Which kind of makes me chuckle, because she also really likes this foal. Her first one, she was fairly indifferent, her second one she found annoying, but this one she actually enjoys hanging out with. I think because he’s obedient and polite and acts just like her. Don’t worry, that could all change really quickly, and probably will sooner or later.

For now though, he’s cute and sweet. Please enjoy his one-colt Pride Parade.

@breed.ride.event

Happy Pride from Neville! 🏳️‍🌈✨🪩

♬ MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name) – Lil Nas X

In other baby news, Bear is officially sold so that means Tommy is our ONLY remaining available foal out of the 9 we had this year. Pretty crazy! Oh, and unfortunately Fey is not pregnant, so I decided to quit for this season and just start early next year. It’s just too hot here. So now I have many months to decide if I want to buy another dose of Diathletico (it did look really good quality under the microscope) or if I should try something else. We’ll see!

I was recently invited to be a guest on the Amateur Hour podcast to talk about everyone’s favorite subject – Henry! The host, Jessica Paquette, is a racetrack announcer by day and a h/j rider in her free time. She recently started this podcast and has already had some really good episodes, highly recommend checking it out if you’re a fan of podcasts! She’s tackling some really interesting subjects that are so relevant and/or interesting to most of us.

The episode where I talk about Henry is called The Horses Who Made Us and was just released today. You can find it here:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Audible

We’ve officially made it to the end of breeding season!

We’ve still got a lot of pregnancy checks to do, but the actual breeding part is finished. Whoever isn’t pregnant at this point will just wait until next year, because it’s already just way too late in the season here to be trying again. It’s hot! I’ll wait until we’re at least through all the black dots, if not the heartbeats, to give you a full list of what we’re expecting in 2027, but I can tell you for certain that we won’t be having as many next year. Some mares are retiring, some we opted to give a year off and start earlier again next year.

We’ve also sold all of the foals from this year now except for 2, ironically the two out of our best performance mares. Tommy, the colt by Ustinov (jumped 1.50m) out of Chanel Z (jumped 1.45m and has already produced a 1.50m horse and a 1.45m horse) is looking for a good showjumping home. He would suit someone who has high level aspirations and experience. And then we have Bear, Neville’s BFF, who is by Dia Corrado (1.45m jumper) out of Headleys Chatterbox (3* eventer and her dam was a 4* eventer). A horse by Dia Corrado was just 2nd in the 2*L at Bromont, piloted by Olivia Dutton. Bear is really outgoing and bold and people-oriented, I think he’d be super fun for either a serious amateur or a pro to bring along. Both boys are big and handsome!

As for Neville, I remain obsessed. He is pretty chill and well-behaved for a 5 week old colt, and I’ve been making sure I take 5 minutes a day to put my hands on him to make sure he stays that way. I put his halter on and off, loop his lead rope around the post (pre-tying lessons… we don’t hard tie babies because their necks are very fragile), groom him all over, pick up his feet, move him off of pressure, work on leading where/how he’s supposed to, the word “whoa”, etc. He’s still very young so it’s literally no more than 5mins a day of anything, but it’s where we start.

He especially liked the days where we were bringing his mom in to scan and breed her. He really enjoyed exploring the barn and putting his nose on everything. Like all of Vee’s foals, he’s so curious and confident most of the time. Exploring is his favorite. That and ear scritches.

Honestly, he’s so stinkin cute. It’s been a long time since we raised Presto… hope y’all are ready to give it a go with another foal.

As for everyone else, they’ve been busy too!

Presto and I have been fitting in lots of lessons (mostly jumping, one dressage) and things seem to have righted themselves. I got my mojo back, Presto has been jumping better, and things are really clicking again. We’ve worked so hard at the rideability, keeping his back soft to/away from the jump, making sure he doesn’t lock the bottom of his neck and use it against me, etc.

We entered the Training division at the POP show this past weekend, hoping to get some nice quiet soft phases in. And while he was exceptional on the flat:

he stepped on his shoe at one point, badly enough to where I thought he’d pulled the shoe clean off. Indeed he did not, but he DID rip away a big chunk of wall and loosen the shoe. There wasn’t a show farrier on site, so I opted to withdraw rather than jump him. I was worried that if he pulled it (which seemed pretty likely) that he’d take a god-only-knows-how-big chunk of foot with it. Not worth the risk!

A bummer, but ya know… it’s just a horse show, there will be more. He got his shoe fixed the next morning (it’s not too terrible but there really is very little wall left, which thrills me heading into wet season) and we had a great lesson doing a SJ round and then popping around some XC at my trainer’s barn.

The more exciting part about the POP show is that it was the culmination of Bingo’s month of training, and his horse trial debut! He spent the last 4 week’s over at Trainer’s place getting some expert riding and general sporthorse life experience under his girth, and I think it was really really great for him. He’s confident, he’s relaxed, he’s happy, and he’s for sure understanding the job a lot more. We entered him in the Starter and the plan was for her to take him, run him there, and then I’d take him home with me.

Originally the plan also included her taking Bingo to the open schooling at the venue the day before, so he could see the sights and pop around some of the XC before the show. Unfortunately she had truck problems and they weren’t able to make it. So, I have to brag on Bingo a bit extra here and how well I think he handled everything, especially considering 1) Florida Horse Park is a huge, busy venue. 2) He’s only been off-property XC schooling once before. 3) He’s never been in a dressage ring in his life. 4) He’s definitely never been in a busy warmup ring like those.

He was an absolute professional about the whole thing.

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The judge seemed to think his dressage test was boring (literally half the comments were “needs more energy”… HA) which to me is a major win for an OTTB’s very first time in a dressage ring. He scored a 35, which was good enough for second.

During his warmup for SJ he had just jumped his first crossrail when a small, fast-moving and chaotic little gray pony came in the ring and he really thought that thing was a demon straight from hell. Bingo is considerably less horse shy than he was a month ago, but Trainer opted to just go in the ring rather than have him spiral and get upset in the warmup. A bold choice but the right one, because he went in and cantered right around like a pro. I kind of figured he might have a couple rails in SJ because when he’s distracted he has a really hard time remembering that he has four feet, but nope… he kept all the rails in the cups for a clear round.

Then it was straight out to what I was probably most concerned about: the XC. The XC at the Horse Park is soooo sprawling, the start box was next to warmup with the first couple jumps going straight away from the rings/warmup/parking, all the jumps were still well-decorated from the recognized they just had… it was a fairly daunting ask for a horse’s first event and at a brand-new-to-him venue. Bingy really did a “hold my beer” on this one though, because he was foot perfect. He jumped everything happily and confidently and politely, and honestly seemed to be unimpressed by the whole thing. Trainer reported that he was straight and forward-thinking to every jump, and felt like if anything he needed some bigger jumps. Another double clear phase and what do you know, he finished on his dressage score at his very first horse trial to take home second!

To add icing on the cake, he was really good about the general hubbub of the day. He showed out of their big trailer with four other horses and stood on there like a good boy all day. He handled all the noise of the loudspeaker and the music really well (he’s noise sensitive, so this was a big one). He was relaxed and happy and seemed proud of himself. He handled the warmups pretty well too, all things considered. I think sending him for a month of training and having her take him to his first real show was definitely really helpful to him as far as building his confidence and just allowing him to see and do more things. Now he’s back home and he’ll have a lighter week or two, then we’ll be ready to start looking at some summer adventures!

Henny has also been busy too, with his buddy Kathleen. I’ll let her tell you their tales, though.

Trainer will be out of the country for the next month so things will slow down quite a bit here, but I’m still planning to get the boys out as much as possible. The goal is hopefully an outing for each of them every week, whether its for a jumper round or a little schooling derby or just some trot sets on the hills. It is most definitely off season in Ocala, but there’s still stuff to do pretty much all the time as we head into the dog days of Florida summer. Time to settle into that slower and easier summer schedule! I’m looking forward to it.