Month: February 2020

Premier Equine is an evil temptress

Confession: I bought a new saddle pad. In my defense, 1) I gave another one of my plain square pads away, 2) Premier Equine is having a 25% off sale on these pads AND I had a coupon code (AW919 will get you £10 off). It was $50, leave me alone. My only teeny tiny complaint about my all-navy pads is that colored wool of any kind does start to fade in the sun or with washing, so I wanted to get the navy with natural wool to use as my daily pad, to keep the navy with navy wool looking… navy.

I would probably have a dozen of these pads if they made better/new color combos, so even though I complain about it all the time maybe I should actually be thankful that the rest are so ugly.

Ponyo almost broke my heart

I pre-ordered Presto’s next season monkey blanket from Ponyo, and was crushed to see that there were no unicorn blankets available in horse sizes. Noooooooo. The sads. I mentioned this on social media and the owner responded saying that there had been a mix-up at the factory, so they wouldn’t have bigger sizes in the first shipment but they would have them later on. As soon as she knows how many and what sizes, those will be available to pre-order too. Shipping from the UK is expensive so she offered to hold the first one so they could ship together. Super helpful! So, crisis hopefully averted, because I was kind of dead set on Presto having monkey and unicorn blankets next year (and forever after because even if/when he outgrows or destroys them he will wear them until they’re absolutely in tatters).

Chewy for the win

I noticed yesterday that Chewy.com is carrying my brand of feed now. It’s kind of a PITA for me to get this particular feed, I have to drive about an hour round trip from work, the opposite direction of home, and on more than one occasion they’ve only had a few bags even though I called before I drove up there and they said they had way more. Their price is really good, the cheapest in the area by a couple bucks, and $4 per bag cheaper than Chewy, but by the time you factor in convenience/cost of gas/wear and tear on my truck and the fact that there’s no tax on the Chewy shipment… it’s hard to resist. I ordered a month’s worth yesterday so we’ll see how this maiden voyage goes. It only ended up being $17 more than the other place, and it’s a million times more convenient. I’ve gotten dog food from Chewy for a while now, but never horse feed. 2020, what a time to be alive.

This effing coronavirus

I think any and all of us who have any kind of remotely manufacturing-related job is already feeling the indirect strain of the coronavirus. A lot of the components that go on our PCB’s are made exclusively in Asia, and right now many of those manufacturers are shut down. If our own suppliers can’t get the parts they need to build our electronics, then we in turn can’t get the parts we need to build our products (which relate to the oil and gas industry). We are already feeling the squeeze, starting to see major part shortages, and it’s going to get way worse before it gets better. Kinda makes me start to wonder what else this could effect in our day to day lives, too, as shortages on certain things become more widespread, or as the virus itself spreads. I know there are already whispers of possibly having to cancel the Olympics if they can’t contain it, which would be such a bonkers situation. I’m not particularly a fan of the Olympics when it comes to equestrian sports (unpopular opinion of the day: I’m one of the few that would support a break from IOC altogether), but still… so much has already gone into it. Yeesh. That dystopian book is coming to life, folks. Has it started to effect anything in your life yet?

Side note: I’m starting to draft the post for the Hylofit review next week, if you have any questions or specific things you want to see, give me a shout.

With that, I leave you with my favorite meme of the week:

Y’all, I think I owe Presto a public apology. I’m pretty sure I wrongfully convicted him of a crime he didn’t commit. 

See, a few weeks ago I went out to the front pasture where the babies were turned out on a rainy day, and saw that SOMEONE had pulled down a chunk of ceiling insulation from the roof of the shed. 

I immediately blamed Presto, because let’s be honest it had his signature all over it. He’s mouthy. He gets bored and finds things to play with even when he shouldn’t. He could very easily reach that part of the ceiling in the shed if he wanted to. Plus I found the chunk of missing insulation over near the water trough, and he has a history of putting things in there that don’t belong. All the evidence certainly pointed to Presto. Truthfully I never really even considered another suspect, it seemed so obvious from the start. If this was a true crime podcast, you’d be mumbling something about shoddy detective work right about now. 

About a week later I came out one evening at night check and found a corner of ceiling insulation pulled away in the corner of JB’s stall. Hmmmmmmm… that’s suspicious.

I grabbed the ladder and staple gun and put it back up. Now I was a bit suspicious of who really pulled down the chunk of insulation in the shed, but still not quite ready to let Presto off the hook yet. I mean, JB has tried to copy Presto in the past in some regards, so maybe he saw him do it and wanted to try it out for himself. But JB is also much spookier than Presto, and was definitely a little wary of the flap of insulation he’d pulled down that evening, so after I stapled it back up I really thought that would be the end of it. He’d probably tried it, scared himself, and that was that.

Au contraire.

The next morning I came out to feed and found the whole strip of insulation hanging down. JB was snorting at it like he had no idea how it got there, and now I was certainly less convinced that I’d nabbed the right suspect in the original shed offense. I stapled the insulation back up, made sure there were no little edges sticking out that he could easily grab, and that was the end of it for a while.

Until yesterday.

I went to go feed around 5am, and as soon as I opened the back door, I heard urgent, high-pitched neighing. I got worried, and hustled out to the barn, flipping on the lights. I peeked in Henry’s stall, everything looked fine. I peeked in Quinnie’s stall, everything looked fine. I peeked in JB’s stall and… goddammit, the insulation was down again. Except it had gotten REALLY windy over night, and the long chunk of insulation was wildly flapping in the breeze like a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man.

Clearly JB had not accounted for the wind when he yanked it down, and he was plastered out in the back of his run, desperate for someone to save him. He screamed again when he saw me, like “LADY LADY OMG PLAAYZ HALP ME, DIS SKY DEMON FLAPPING AROUN IN MAH STALL TRYNNA KILL ME AND IMMA DIIIIEEEEEEE”.

I have to be honest, I laughed at his plight. Hard. For longer than was probably appropriate. Then I dumped his feed into his pan, took it out to him in the run, and proceeded to save his life staple the ceiling insulation back up again so he could come back in. I think now, after JB offense number 3, and none from Presto, that I might have had the wrong guy in the original crime. There’s no way anyone but JB could have pulled his stall insulation down, Presto wouldn’t be able to get to the place it was pulled from, with how the stalls are constructed. It’s still possible that Presto did the shed, for sure, but… I’m gonna overturn his conviction based on these further developments. All subsequent evidence certainly points to JB as the real perpetrator.

JB was sentenced to desensitizing lessons with the tarp, since clearly he’s got issues with flapping things. Oh, and I told him that if he pulls the insulation down again, I will staple it directly to his ass. I folded the end up this time so I don’t think he can grab it anymore, but we’ll see.

Sorry Pesto Pasta… 

I’m most definitely not a vegan. I could live without meat, no problem, and don’t generally eat that much of it, but the dairy… it gives me life. There is no point in living if I can’t have queso. The SO kinda sorta pretends/tries to be vegan (he’s watched waaaaaaay too many netflix documentaries if you ask me), but he like eggs, so he’s not particularly successful. Mostly he’s vegetarian, although he will absolutely 100% finish whatever I don’t eat, even if it’s meat. Still though, sometimes he comes home from Whole Foods with some type of godawful vegan cheese hoping it will be the holy grail, which is always 100% insulting to me as a turophile. And our relationship almost didn’t survive the vegan bacon that was actually coconut flakes.

But, if you want to be vegan, I fully support that. You do you, I do me. I totally understand the appeal of the lifestyle. I have a few friends that are vegan, and as long as you don’t preach to me about the evils of cheese, we’re totally good. I do wonder though… how do vegan equestrians go about finding equipment? There are a lot of animal-based products involved in riding, particularly leather and sheepskin/wool. For a long time your only real option was Wintec saddles, other plastic type materials for strapgoods, fake fleece, and rubber boots. Cringey.

Robert Dover released his Robert Squared line of “luxury” vegan bridles last year, although they were mega expensive at $500+. It was advertised to be eco-friendly as well as vegan, but there’s no mention of what material is actually used. The bridles no longer seem to be available on their website, and they appear to have switched to making vegan riding boots instead. Which, there are some really decent vegan riding boot options these days, with several brands now offering non-leather options, including Fabbri. What they’re actually made of seems to vary, but… definitely a hell of a lot better than those clunky old rubber nightmares or the really bad synthetics that would start to crack and peel after a few months.

It seems like more and more of the bigger brands are starting to respond to the demand from the vegan equestrian market as well, as more non-leather options become available. Just this week Devoucoux dropped news of a new vegan option for any of their existing saddle models, the GT Option, which is made of… cork?

I don’t think it’s what I would choose personally, I love my french leather, but I am admittedly super intrigued by this. I’ve not seen anything like it before. How does it wear? Do you have to do any special care for the cork? Does it “break in” the way leather does?

Ironically the handbag I wrote about last week, that I got from Outfoxed, also has cork accents. It looks identical (aside from color) to the material on the Devoucoux. This of course led me to grab and examine the cork on my bag more closely, trying to picture it on a saddle. I can actually kinda see it. It’s almost got the appearance and feel of grain leather, although is missing some of the natural tackiness of leather.

I haven’t seen a price listed for the GT option yet, but from comments on social media it doesn’t sound like it will be significantly (if at all) cheaper. And while I don’t want one, my curiousity is hella piqued. A cork saddle is a new one for me. It’s not something I’ve ever seen before on a product like that, and I’m dying to know how it feels and holds up over time, particularly parts like billets. I fell down a major rabbit hole googling cork vs leather to learn more about it.

What do you think of the cork saddle? Are there any vegan equestrians out there that are using some of these leather alternative options?

While part of the weekend was spent getting paint for my jumps and riding Henry, I also made some time to mess with Presto and do some stalking. I have made a bit of a hobby of seeking out and following all the Mighty Magic offspring I can find, especially in the US, (because I’m a creeper) and this weekend there were 3 showing at Pine Top, with 2 of them doing their first Advanced. One finished 3rd and one finished 5th.

It’s fun to see their videos on social media (do I follow several people just because they have MM’s? Maybe…) and go look at my dorky little nugget in the backyard. I wonder what Presto would think of his brethren and all those big jumps.

Last week I bought a $16 roll of extra heavy resistance band to play around with, and I figured that my best option for guinea pig was Presto. He’s level headed and relatively unflappable, and has had enough desensitization to where I’m pretty sure I could wrap him up entirely in a tarp and he wouldn’t bat an eye. If I’m gonna be messing with flapping straps and tightening things around a horse’s butt, I trust him to stay chill about it more than Henry (side note: this is the beauty of having one you’ve raised yourself).

I brought Presto in, brushed him, tacked him up, and then started messing with the roll. Naturally I dropped it, unrolling it entirely underneath him, accidentally left one end flapping in the breeze, got it stuck wound around one hind leg… it was 6 yards of chaos. But Presto just stood there, unfazed, while I sorted my shit out, got it cut to size, and figured out how I wanted to attach it. Gold star for the baby horse.

I just had him walk around me on the lunge line while I made adjustments until I was satisfied with it, then I asked him to trot a few circles each way. He was, all in all, relatively unimpressed with my ghetto invention. I’ve got a feeling Henry will have many more opinions about it when I make his, but luckily now I have a better plan of attack at least.

After I was done tinkering with the band, I untacked Presto and took him back out to the front corner of the property where you can kinda see the cows that he had a meltdown about last weekend. He sat there staring out into the distance for a couple minutes, but quickly lost interest. I’m starting to think Henry fed him some kind of horsey ghost story about evil Moo Demons and that’s where the sudden bovinophobia came from, but I don’t have any proof of those allegations.

And yes, he’s finally wearing the fancy navy leather halter I bought for him over a year ago. At first it was so big that the crown ended up sliding like halfway down his neck, even on the tightest holes. Just to get it on him this weekend I had to let it out a hole on each side. He looks cute in it though, even if you can’t really tell that it’s navy.

After we were done ogling the cows I put him back out with his friend, did a little bit of in-hand stuff with JB, and then went to clean the barn. As I was stuffing baling twine in a trash bag I had a stroke of genius (or maybe just a stroke) and had an idea for a new toy for Presto. I know that historically he’s been a fan of jugs, especially if they have a few rocks in the them for extra noise. And I know that he also loves holding onto ropes, since he puts every lead rope, crosstie, and lunge line in his mouth. I decided to try braiding the baling twine into a rope around the handle of the jug. It was literally a toy made of trash, plus a few pebbles for chaos.

But did he like it? Well… judge for yourself.

OF COURSE HE LIKED IT. He loves trash, he loves noise… there’s no world in which it was possible that he wouldn’t like it. He made a game out of dropping it over the fence and then pulling it back in. Naturally the other horses all hate it, although they generally find it less offensive than the ball.

I probably need to stop buying/making toys for the baby horse, this is a slippery slope. It’s just… far more entertaining than it should be.

First of all – thanks to everyone who weighed in last week about the idea of a monthly vlog for Presto. The results were overwhelmingly “yea” with 318 votes to the 10 “nay” votes. 97% of you have spoken. I’ve started outlining his first intro vlog, and I can already see that this is maybe more work than I thought. There’s just so much to say about him when it comes to summarizing his first 3 years! If there are any specific topics or questions you’d like to me to address in the first vlog, drop me a note. 

Aside from working on Presto’s vlog, it was a nice weekend around the farm. The weather has been doing this thing where it’s cold and wet during the week but nice on the weekends, which is frustrating from a horse-keeping perspective but definitely convenient otherwise. I got some stuff cleaned up and reorganized, and nabbed a couple more colors of Oops paint at Lowes (burgundy and gray – $1.25 each!). They’re small containers, but definitely enough to put stripes on poles. And last week at Walmart I found THE BEST STORAGE BIN EVER CREATED and it’s now holding a bunch of crap in my trailer. 

I mean how serendipitous is that? It’s got Presto’s motto on it and everything. If only it was navy it would be 100% perfect. Granted, if it was navy I probably would have bought like 10 of them. Living proof that I should not be left unattended in a Walmart ever. Just be glad I talked myself out of the unicorn lamp. For now. But I did also buy like a 50 gallon bag of sour gummies because I think that’s what you’re supposed to do at Walmart?

Aside from reorganizing and painting (and eating gummies) I also got lots of horse time in. Yesterday specifically was one of those days where I started messing with the first horse at 12:30 and next thing you knew it was 5:15. The famous equestrian “barn time” where 5 hours is actually only 1 hour. But I did get two good rides in on Henry this weekend. On Saturday we did flatwork, and he’s definitely feeling stronger and stronger pretty much every ride. He’s holding the counter canter pretty easily again now, and his canter squares are getting quite sharp again. He’s not quite as good in the contact as he had been last summer, we’re kind of having to re-cover some ground there (if only I could do all of his flatwork in his sidepull, we’d both be happy), but bit by bit he’s returning back to normal after his extended time off. 

On Sunday we did a short jump school, and things are really clicking again over fences too. He’s jumping well and being really rideable, and always hunting for the next jump. It’s really fun to be back in our element, and I think the time off really did him some good. He seems really happy to be back to work. And my eye is starting to return to normal too… which… it isn’t GREAT, but at least I can sort of see some kind of distance most of the time.

To help with that I’ve been cantering a lot of poles and doing my favorite “crazy eights” exercise. Basically you start at 1, and when you’re one stride out from the pole you say “one”, then 2, count down from two strides out, then 3, count down from 3 strides out. On and on up to eight, and going both directions. I usually just start at 3 and work up to 8 to save some time. Oh, and you can’t cheat and change the canter to fit what you called out, you have to keep the same rhythm and stride length all the way to the pole. If you’re wrong you try again. It’s my favorite game.

Henry is also – knock on wood – continuing to handle his new friendship well. He gets along really well with his mare friend Quinnie, but I haven’t had any problems separating them when it’s time to ride. Quinnie will immediately run off to go find the babies across the fence, and Henry will calmly watch her, but there have been no histrionics from either of them. They are actually quite hilarious to watch, because they’re basically the exact same horse. One’s just a 20-something ex broodmare and the other is a 13yo TB gelding. Henry has settled into more a level friendship with her rather than being her devoted slave like he was in the beginning, but they’re almost always joined at the hip. It’s so nice to see him finally have a real friend. 

Presto also had quite a busy weekend, too, but we’ll talk about that tomorrow!