Month: April 2019

Somehow the weather gods were with us at Pine Hill on Saturday, because we majorly dodged a bullet! While Austin was getting 3-4″ of torrential rain and flooding, we only got a couple of very brief storms. Aside from two lightning delays, it wasn’t enough to impact the show at all. And really, I think the little bit of rain made the footing perfect.

It was VERY humid though, which concerned me a little. It was warm enough to make the humidity a little miserable, especially in the morning before any kind of breeze picked up. Since my horse doesn’t handle humidity well, and we had a very long day ahead of us still, I opted to keep the dressage warmup a bit light. Ha.

Ha.

Ha.

The first half of the test was ok. A little tense, a little behind my leg, but not awful.

And then it started raining, which coincided with exactly when our canter work started. That was the excuse he’d be waiting for. So began the rodeo. He never actually bucked but his hind end bounced like a basketball through literally all of the canter work. If I put my leg on, it just bounced higher. The tail was spinning like a helicopter (I’m assuming for extra lift?) and I could practically hear Henry’s evil cackling.

By the second canter loop I couldn’t help but start laughing. What else do you do? There was no salvaging that. He even spooked at A as we came up centerline at the end, like he’d never seen THAT before. Real nice. Much grace. So dressage. And that’s how we got our worst dressage score ever, with a 40. But hey, there are worse things than having a horse that feels a bit too full of himself to dressage. I just could not stop laughing at him the whole way back to the barn.

Jokes on him, he has to go to a show this weekend and do ONLY dressage. HA.

I only had an hour between dressage and stadium, so I pulled his tack off, stuck him in his stall to pee (and he peed A LOT, which made me wonder if that contributed to all the bouncing…) and drink some water, then ran down to stadium to look at the course one more time. This was our first time having both a triple and a double combination in stadium, but the only jump I was really worried about was the big square oxer at 6. It came off of kind of a weird turn and looked a little big, and have I mentioned I hate square oxers? Surely you can see where this is going.

I should also say that the ground at home had been so hard for the past couple weeks leading up to this show that I wasn’t able to jump much. Henry has literally been living in Magic Cushion, and I jumped maybe two fences that were of height and maybe 10 total. We haven’t had a stadium lesson since before the last show, in February. We were definitely rusty, and rusty isn’t great for either of us when it comes to stadium.

The rain stopped by the time I got back on, and Henry warmed up great. The issues we had in stadium warmup last year seem to be resolved (knocking on wood) thank goodness. I went in the ring focused on getting the job done, and not feeling too terribly nervous. We had a rail at 2, a big vertical, where I think I just didn’t keep his balance rocked back quite enough. It doesn’t take much for him to pull a rail at Prelim, so millimeters matter. The turn back to 3 was fine, and I was actually really happy with how 4 and 5a/b rode. 4 was another tall vertical off of a tight rollback turn, so lots of potential to mess that one up, but we didn’t. Then it was around to 6, the big square oxer. In all of my carefulness to make a good turn, I really ended up hanging out a bit too far, and then the distance was long. I had to ride up to it quite a bit, and while he cleared 6 with room to spare, we landed with WAAAAAAYYY too big of a canter and I didn’t react quick enough to put him back together in time to make the striding work. That resulted in a gross yucky half stride out, taking the rail of the vertical with us. 100% my fault. Not a good ride into that line at all. I overthought that fence, for sure. Lesson learned. Maybe.

The rest rode well, although he did tick the front rail of the oxer out of the triple. I was happy with how I rode that line, so oh well.

Aside from my mistake in the line from 6 to 7, I was happy with it. That was the only real oops. Mostly though, I was pleased that Henry felt so confident at everything. He was looking for the next fence and taking me there (albeit sometimes a little bit too enthusiastically). The size of the fences are much more comfortable for both of us now, and I’m glad that we could make a mistake and keep going like nothing happened. I’m getting a lot more confident too. And honestly… I was kinda just thrilled to have our first two recognized Prelim phases in the books. I just wanted to get it done without doing anything monumentally stupid.

After that, it was time for the good stuff! Cross country recap tomorrow…

I’m getting ready to head out to a show (our first recognized Prelim! That looks a lot like it might get rained out…) and I’m short on time, so today you get a short PSA and lots of pictures. Happy Friday!

For anyone who, like me, was drooling over the Schockemohle bridles, RW has them 15% off right now (not sure when it ends, maybe today?). Buy me a black one. K thanks.

Moving on to the best part: more Nalah pictures! She is a week old now but these pictures are from the 4-day mark I believe. She is VERY active and spends most of her time in the air, bouncing from one place to another like a rubber ball. She’s pretty independent, loves to canter everywhere, and has already started jumping things in her pasture. These jumper-bred babies man…

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

I think it’s well past time to talk about Presto’s most special internet relationship: his friend Mimi, who lives in France. Mimi hasn’t always lived in France… she’s from Texas and used to ride at the same barn as me way back in the day. Like way back. Like damn Mimi we are getting old. But now Mimi is married to a Frenchman and lives waaaay over there across the pond. Thanks to Facebook and this blog we have kept up with each others exploits well enough, over the years. I have bugged her on far too many occasions when I was looking at saddles in France (as one does when one is cheap/poor and they’re so much freakin cheaper overseas) but she has been endlessly patient.

When Presto came along there was definitely a connection between the two of them… a little special something reaching out from behind the computer screen. In fact, Mimi says it was really this picture that started it all:

The hair, the swagger, the derpy lip, the nonchalant “whut you want” look on his face… it all spoke to her. Was this her spirit animal? The seed had been planted.

Not long after, I posted this picture.

This time Mimi couldn’t resist the urge, and she posted her own version.

And so began a trend. Over the past year Mimi has recreated Presto pictures of her own, becoming increasingly good at it.

It’s kind of my favorite thing on the internet. Every time I post a goofy picture of Presto (we all know there is no shortage of those) I eagerly await Mimi’s response. I am the middleman in their relationship, since obviously Presto doesn’t have thumbs or WiFi, but they clearly have a lot in common. Even from 5,000 miles away, Mimi really knows how to channel her inner Presto. They’ve bonded over their mutual love of crazy hair and even crazier expressions. It’s gotten to the point where when Mimi’s husband sees her taking selfies he says “You’re making fun of that weird horse again aren’t you?”.

I swear that someday this needs to be made into a coffee table book or something. I keep collecting the pictures, trying to figure out the best way to share this with the world. Because it really MUST be shared. It’s too good. Their relationship is too special. Let’s face it, Mimi is the hero we need right now.

It’s a little ironic that Presto’s internet BFF is in France, since that’s also where his sire lives. She assures me that his expressions and general demeanor are very typically French. Can’t deny your heritage I guess.

Anyone else’s horse have an International pen pal? No? That’s not normal? Weird.

Let’s just say that, hypothetically, someone was thinking about selling some stuff and getting new brown boots. Let’s also say that, hypothetically, this person wants something a little bit different, not quite so “off the rack” and boring looking. But of course, hypothetically, they have to be relatively inexpensive. They also have to, hypothetically, come tall enough to fit said person, who likes at least a 19″ height. This completely hypothetical person loves her Tuccis, but has a budget like 1/3 of that. So the standards are hypothetically ridiculously, probably unrealistically high. Oh, and they have to be pretty enough for showing, a nice chocolate color, but also hold up reasonably well to regular everyday type use. Um, hypothetically.

Hypothetical Boot A 

These are the cheapest of the bunch, coming in at under $300 USD, although I’m having a hard time finding them in the Tall height. They’re also probably the most average as far as quality, comparable to something like Mountain Horse or Ariat. The accents are patent croc, so a little bit fun. For the money though, they’re about as pretty as you can get, and they’re not boring.

 

Hypothetical Boot B

These are a semi-custom brand that has blown up lately due to the extremely reasonable prices in Europe. They’re a little bit more than the ones above, but not by a whole lot. The leather seems to be better quality. They come with a patent top but I think I can change it out for something else if I wanted.

 

Hypothetical Boot C

We’re getting a little more expensive now, but they’re a major brand of very good quality. I don’t love the grain leather, really, and I could upgrade to smooth but it would cost more. I like pretty much everything else about them though. Just not sure if I LOVE them enough to justify the higher cost?

 

Hypothetical Boot D

Another major brand, and reasonably affordable. I’ve never been much of a patent croc fan but it’s working for me on these. They have a few different options on the top but they’re like… glitter and snakeskin which are a bit much in that large of a quantity. They’ve got the longest lead time of the bunch, at 12 weeks.

 

Hypothetical Boot E

I’m trying to decide if that’s too much glitter for my taste… but same brand as above, different style to the top. About the same price, too. Maybe a little more fun/unique. I can’t decide if I really love them or really don’t.

 

That’s what’s grabbed me so far, anyway, that’s in the price range I was thinking (under $400-ish). I’m still looking around. There are waaaaaay more affordable brown boot options now than there were last time I was looking, which is definitely nice. Seen any really pretty, not super boring brown boots lately that I should go look at? I don’t need them necessarily, and I’m not in a hurry, but… we’ll see. Maybe something will go on sale? Hypothetically…

I was looking through some story templates on Instagram the other day, and one of them asked about your worst riding injury. There is no way that the tale of MINE would fit in the little place provided, or even on an entire story page. Out of all the things I’ve managed to do to myself, including cracked ribs, a broken tailbone, and a broken elbow, there is one injury in particular that was far far worse than any of those. It occurred to me then that I don’t think I’ve ever told this story here.

Let me set the stage for you.

It must have been somewhere around 2003ish, and I was working as the barn manager at Rising Star Farm. This is when it first started up and was located here in Texas, at a beautiful farm north of Austin. Now they’re in Georgia and have tons of stallions and mares and babies, but back then I think we only had a few mares and may or may not have already purchased the first stallion. We had an OTTB or two that I was working on to resell, and I lived in the apartment above the barn. I also had a little resale pony that a friend and I had picked up unbroke and cheap, as a project. We had named her Lexi, but we really just called her Po (short for pony. I know, you’re impressed with my originality.).

So one day I was riding Po out on a hack around the the farm roads – RSF was surrounded by other horse farms – at a leisurely walk on a loose rein. Po tripped over something, went down to her knees, and came up with a foot having somehow gotten over the reins. She just froze, and I went to jump off so I could safely unbuckle the reins before it turned into a wreck. Here’s where I made my error.

I did not make sure that I had completely cleared the left stirrup before I jumped down. In my haste the stirrup leather got caught between my legs on the way down, and I landed with my full weight, on the metal stirrup, on my crotch. I had somehow kinda slid down the stirrup leather like it was a fire pole, only the stirrup stopped me. In the crotch. Full force. WHAM.

I don’t really know a good way to describe exactly what happened in that moment. The best thing I can say is: imagine what happens when someone gets punched really hard in the mouth and their lip splits open from the sheer force of it. Yeah well, that’s exactly what it did. Except to my lady bits. Across quite a wide area.

I freed the pony from the reins and got back on before quickly realizing that I was bleeding. A LOT. It soaked through my pants within a couple minutes and by the time we got back to the barn there was blood pooling on my saddle. I quickly untacked and ran upstairs to the bathroom to figure out what the heck had happened.

Y’all. It was not a pretty sight. I won’t describe it in detail but lets just say there was tearing, and swelling, and things were ALREADY black and blue. BLACK. REALLY BLACK. In hindsight I definitely needed stitches, but I just mopped up the blood, got the bleeding under control, slathered some ointment on it, and proceeded with my day.

The next week was relatively awful. Wearing pants sucked. peeing sucked, showering sucked. Which… I was the only person working on this farm so I still had horses to take care of and ride. The state of my crotch had no bearing on the things that had to be done every day. I would wait to pee until I literally could not hold it anymore, and showered as little as possible. It stung. It stung real bad. The swelling and the bruising were the worst parts, though… there’s just no way to avoid putting pressure on that area with clothes.

There is still a scar to this day, you can see exactly where I slammed into the junction of leather and stirrup. Out of all the ways I’ve ever hurt myself with horses, nothing has ever been as bad as that. Nothing. It’s also by far the most random way I have ever managed to hurt myself. I didn’t even fall off! I can tell you what though, you never make that mistake twice. I’m very certain to kick completely free of my stirrups before sliding down, even to this day.

Please tell me that someone out there has done something even dumber and worse than this. It’ll make me feel a little better.