Month: October 2019

When it comes to buying horse stuff, I have a few different categories that things fall under. There’s the “Long list”: things I’ll need within 6 months or so, or things I really want but can’t justify unless it’s a really good deal. There’s the “Short list”:  things I actually legitimately need right now. There’s also “Impulse purchases”: things we don’t talk about and I refuse to defend or explain. And I guess technically I do have one other category existing within my Riding Warehouse wishlist… mostly stuff I would buy if someone handed me a big pile of money or a really really generous gift card, but realistically most of it isn’t going to ever happen. Fantasyland.

As an example, that new clipper blade and blade wash that came in the mail yesterday? Definitely short-list. I legit needed that, and needed it ASAP. Horse is approaching yak status. So sensible, that purchase. Look at me being an adult.

The AmazeBrush that I demo’d at Burghley but thought I didn’t really need so didn’t buy at the time, yet have thought about several times since and now realize I could definitely use? Yeah, that got “added to cart” a few days ago. Maybe it falls more into the impulse purchase category, but I could probably manipulate it onto the short list with some excellent equestrian reasoning. Also.. ya know… it was cheap and there was free US shipping. Barely counts.

Lately though, it’s been a bit of a boon for my long list. I had several things on there that were more on the “if I come across a smoking deal” side of things, and it just so happens that several smoking deals have presented themselves. First it was the closeout Mountain Horse Opus boots. I KNOW I KNOW I just got a nice pair of Pioneer’s. But… that’s the problem. Now I have two really nice semi-custom pairs of tall boots (black Tucci and brown Pioneer) that I really don’t want to trash by wearing daily. I want them to last a long time, which is unlikely with the amount of abuse I tend to inflict on my “daily” boots… stall cleaning, baths, mud, lots of walking around, etc. It physically pains me to destroy my nice boots one day at a time. So I reasoned that if a good, hard-wearing pair of boots came along at a really good price, I’d pick them up.

And then Equizone clearanced their MH Opus.

$150 for a nice, pretty pair of brown boots that I can wear around the barn without guilt and completely destroy without feeling like such a garbage human? Sign me the eff up. And they’re Mountain Horse, so they should be able to withstand some abuse. And my calf size came in Tall (not a thing with the Sovereigns)! Score.

A few days after that I got the email from Dover offering 30% off a blanket purchase. The boys are fully stocked on turnout apparel, but I had been wanting to buy Henry a very lightweight cotton sheet for those in between temps. I loathe Dover, but they do get me a couple times a year with coupons. So I popped into the store on Sunday, figuring I’d just see if they had anything in his size. They did, and it was $20 with my coupon, so… sold.

And then I happened to peek in on Insta, where I saw a new story from The Tried Equestrian, who had just posted an Equifit bellyband for less than half of what it costs new. I actually HAVE had a bellyband on my list of things I need to buy soon, because Henry gets rubs from just my leg/boots in the winter and I’m tired of fighting it. I just… haven’t been excited about shelling out $140 for one. But for $59, I’m in.

I’ve managed to take care of most of my long list, completely by happenstance, in the past couple weeks. The stars are aligning for some reason, and I’m not going to question it.

I also got the shipping notification for that Hufglocken order I’d kind of forgotten about, with the navy shimmable Mattes sheepskin half pad. That’ll be Presto’s. I still need to get white versions of Henry’s Premier Equine sheepskin pads, because turns out I love those things more and more every day and will definitely be sticking with them. Which in turn means that I have a lot of other saddle pads to sell (among a ton of other things, because downsizing to tiny house). Ugh. Selling things is my least favorite. Kind of thinking I should just haul it all to a tack swap or send it to consignment. What have y’all done (and liked) in the past when you have lots of random shit to get rid of?

I also found out (or rather, Mimi told me) that you can actually buy those blue Decathlon gloves that I got in France in the US now. I am absolutely freaking in love with those things (like… I like them more than my Roeckl’s and they’re half the price) so I’m considering stocking up on a couple more pairs. I just wish they made them in more colors! But hey, tada… just like that the long list is no longer empty.

I think I may have talked here before about how downright violent Presto is with his food. He’s polite enough about actually being fed, but as soon as the food is in his bucket and he’s left alone to eat, my god… it is like a demolition derby. He puts his feet in his bucket, he smashes into the bucket with his head, he puts his head under the bucket and tips it upside down. It’s loud AF, and food goes everywhere.

Over the year and a half that he’s been solely in my care, I’ve tried pretty much everything. Pan on the floor, pan in a tire, food dumped on top of hay, several different kinds of buckets and feeders and different ways of tying them all down. Shit, there’s even been duct tape involved. He can break anything, given enough time. I just kind of gave up and resigned myself to buying a lot of buckets and Sand Clear. And then I had oooonnnee last idea.

I saw a lot of very positive reviews for the Cashel Feed Rite feed bag, so I figured… why not. Let’s just try it and see. Best case scenario it works and keeps him from putting his feet in buckets/breaking things constantly, and worst case scenario it would be damn funny to watch him eat with a bucket strapped to his head. So I ordered a black one, it showed up a few days later, and I found myself feeling pretty optimistic. It was a nice bag, with a reinforced mesh bottom and lots of heavy duty stitching. The weak point was, IMO, the strap. It was kind of thin nylon with a plastic snap buckle. I figured if he was going to break anything, it would be the snap (oh how close I was to being right).

So, step 1, I took it out to the barn to let him wear it and understand how it works.

In order to get all the feed out of the bottom of the bag, the horse needs to lower their head to the ground and let the bag rest on the ground. I figured this was the part he’d have a problem with (he is a lot like me in that we tend to just kind of come in like a wrecking ball of chaos with no actual plan) so I wanted to teach him to put it on the ground to get the food. First I had to get him used to it being on his nose/head, which was no big deal. He’ll tolerate a lot of things when there’s food involved.

Once he was okay with just wearing it, I set it the feed bag on the ground, held a treat, and led his nose down to the ground and into the bag to get the treat. We repeated that a few times until he was seeking to put his nose on the ground to get the treat. Then I just put a couple handfuls of food in there, strapped it on, and let him go. He figured it out really quickly.

I sat there and watched him eat, feeling semi-victorious. He pawed half-heartedly a couple times, and walked a circle in the beginning, but otherwise the typical bucket-bashing behavior was gone. I had taken all the fun out of it, by giving him nothing to toss around or make noise with. He settled down and ate the food like a normal freaking horse, for once in his life. I was hopeful that we’d finally found a good solution for him.

But in some ways he is his mother’s child through-and-through, and I should have known that my optimism was misplaced. This is a family of destroyers, after all. Remember that time Sadie sat on Michelle’s truck wheel well and smashed it to shit? Or all the baby trees, freshly planted, that she snapped in half with her ass? A natural talent for breaking things – definitely genetic.

After dinnertime that night (his first full official meal with the feed bag) I got a text from the barn owner saying that he’d broken it. More specifically, he’d ripped the strap completely off one side.

Of course he did. I was 0% surprised by this of course, although I had kind of been hoping to get at least a few weeks out of the damn thing. I thought that first he’d learn how to flip it upside down and dump the feed out, or maybe fling it off his head. Or… ya know… break the plastic buckle, the obvious weak point. But no, he completely removed the strap from one entire side. Top to bottom. Ripped clean off. How? Who even knows. How does Presto do any of these things that he does?

One meal in the feedbag and Presto was right back to bucket life. Of course, at the new place his feed bucket is screwed down, so it’s not as fun and he can’t tip it over. We’ll see how long it takes him to break that one though (which will probably happen with his feet)… we all know it’s just a matter of when, not if. I give up. You win again, Presto.

This year I didn’t have an entourage with me at Championships and I found myself really missing our personal photographer from last year (aka Michelle). She was on a flight to Italy on the day of FEH Championships, on her way to Tuscany for vacation. I know, I can’t imagine why she’d rather go to Italy than FEH Champs either. But the venue does have a really good resident photographer, so I signed up and paid my proof fee, because we all know that the most important part of horse shows is the pictures. And we also definitely all know that I really really suck at remembering to take pictures at all, and when I do take pictures they’re generally terrible.

The photographer definitely did not disappoint, and I got a proof folder full of 140 pictures. They were a bit pricey so I had to limit myself, and choosing just a few proved to be quite difficult… not a bad problem to have! In the end I settled for a social media package rather than the hi-res, since I could get more pictures for less money. Plus like… I’m about to live in a tiny house, there’s not going to be room for any more art or photos on the wall anyway (Hillary did get me one of those cool digital picture frames for my birthday that will totally be stuffed with pictures of my horses that shuffle through on repeat).

One of the few things I regret in retrospect with Presto’s mother is that I never really got any nice photos of her like this when she was a baby. Lots of cell phone pictures, and some badly posed photos with real cameras, but nothing like these. These are beautiful. And looking at Presto’s FEH pictures from last year compared to his pictures from this year is really fun, you can see him growing and maturing and changing so much.

But I think one of my favorite things about these photos is how I can so clearly see both parents in him. I see a lot of Sadie in the above photos, which makes sense because he inherited her big floaty trot. For the rest of him, though, I see Mighty Magic. SOOOOOO much Mighty Magic. I mean… look at this:

I swear I think Presto is looking more and more like MM as he grows. They’re two peas in a pod for sure.

Big thanks to Ernesto Photography for these lovely pictures. What would we do without these awesome show photographers?