Month: August 2020

How is it Monday again already? And how is it almost September? I feel like it was just August 1st a few days ago. Time is flying. Although I don’t really mind if summer wants to move along a little faster, it’s hot as shit and I’m over it. We didn’t get a drop of rain from that hurricane and the triple digit days are starting to wear on all of us I think. Except maybe Presto, who still naps in the sun even when he’s covered in sweat. Gotta solidify all that awesome sunbleaching I guess.

Since it’s hot and gross, Henry continues to have a light schedule. He went for a hack on Saturday, but I try to be careful not to make him too hot, especially when the “feels like” is gonna be 115 or some shit by later in the day. The mornings have been pretty humid too, so… he’s living the chill life at the moment. Such is the way for him every summer. I have literally no future plans in mind for him at the moment, so I don’t feel any need to push things or feel pressured about it. He’s happy and perky and always a little wild. I can’t complain.

Presto got a little bit of time “off” after that particularly wild ride on my birthday. He just wasn’t himself that day, and was suddenly worried/anxious/spooky about the wooded areas that he had never been concerned about before. I got on him the next week after that for a few minutes and just walked in the arena and he still felt very on edge and spent a lot of time staring off into the trees. Really out of character. I’m not sure what changed from his perspective but my gut told me to dial it back, so instead I just spent the last week and half handwalking him out there, letting him graze, and doing some groundwork until I felt like he understand he was safe and fine and no longer staring anxiously into the brush. He’s naturally quite a brave and bold and confident horse, so if/when he raises a concern like that it tends to be pretty genuine, and I felt like if I’d tried to force it he would have ended up losing confidence either in me or in himself or both. We’re in no hurry. He’s 3. We’re laying the bricks that have to sustain him forever, so if we have hiccups I’d rather take a step back and let him figure it out than try to force him. Trying to keep making deposits into the trust bank.

He seemed back to normal by the middle of last week, so on Sunday I got back on him out in the grass field (where the original meltdown took place) and he was super. Back to his normal self. I kept it very easy and light, about 15 minutes of walking and trotting on a loose rein. He was interested in what we were doing, but not in a tense or worried way, just happy to go forward and listen and stay relaxed. After we were done in there we walked down the fenceline next to the brushy area and then stopped and hung out and watched some fence construction (which had just started the day before). He was super chill about all of that, not worried in the least, so hopefully he’s over whatever set him off in the first place. I still have no idea what that was, but… horses. Sometimes they just need a minute to recalibrate. I get it, so do I.

It’s also possible that I totally stalker/fangirled with Will Faudree over Mama’s Magic Way (Mason). The more I found of that horse the more and more he seemed identical to Presto, so I’ve become I wee bit fascinated. I found baby pictures and omg.

I was curious about his personality though, so I couldn’t resist, I had to ask Will. And the response was legit spooky. I’m relatively certain they’re the same horse. Will said “I describe him to people as a 5 year old little boy on a sugar high in a toy store. He is the biggest character and comedian.”. Sounds familiar. Very accurate description of Presto. He also sent me a video of Mason being Mason, and I had to laugh because I had a really similar one of Presto, which I sent back. He agreed, they’re basically the same.

• 

• 

Thanks for humoring me Will. God, can you imagine two Presto’s in the same place at the same time?

But if he’d like to take after Mason in other respects I wouldn’t really mind. Just saying.

Now I have a new “brother from another mother” to watch for sure. I see resemblances between almost all the MM’s, I can pick the majority of them out of a crowd, but I’ve never seen one that was such a carbon copy of Presto as Mason is. They have similar dams too, half TB half Hanoverian. How could I could I not take a shine to Mason? New favorite upper level horse.

I did stalk a couple more MM’s this weekend too on the live feed from Strzegom in Poland. There was one on the *4 Nations Cup team for Germany

and one in the 2*.

Thank you live streams for enabling me to be creepy AF worldwide. It occurred to me as I was sitting there at 5am on a Sunday watching the 2* that there might be something wrong with me. I’ve accepted it though, please don’t stage an intervention. It’s become a serious hobby and I don’t want to be helped.

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

So I’m sure anyone that’s been reading this blog for very long can vividly remember the story of that time Michelle thought Manny was a Maddy. In her excitement after his birth she didn’t get a very good look under the tail and he was a very pretty foal, so it took a few days for her to notice he had a ween. Hence the story that she will never live down (not as long as I have a say in it, anyway) and the occasional nickname of “Two Holes”. Because ya know… you gotta count the holes under the tail. Colts = one. Fillies = two. She’s been an exceptionally good sport about it all.

But anyway, she’s been waiting for a filly out of Stormie in particular. Last year’s foal was a colt, and obviously Ollie this year is also a colt (and he’s been dangling his bits since day 1, so there’s no room for doubt on that one). She was a bit bummed about that, because she was reaaaaaally wanting a grulla filly by Usandro out of Stormie, and she got SO close. And despite her extreme love for and devotion to Ollie, I think he must have sensed the minor twinge of disappointment somehow, because he did a thing. A real yucky thing.

No one is totally sure what he did or how (best guess maybe he was rubbing his butt on the fence or something and ended up with a poorly placed splinter? Who knows. Babies.) but he came in one day with a really really swollen… uh… under-the-tail region. Like at first it looked like a super big bad impaction trying to force it’s way out.

Here’s where you stop scrolling if you don’t want to see horse bumholes.

There is literally nothing cute happening in the rest of this post.

It starts out cringey and quickly devolves into horror movie status.

You were warned.

I’m not kidding.

Ok you asked for it.

Obviously that’s horrifying. Cue panic. Immediate veterinary assistance.

It took a little time to determine that it was actually an abscess. A really really big disgusting deep one, right under his tail. It must have been seriously painful, but Ollie was tolerant of all the poking and prodding and attention. And finally, they got it to open up to drain. And it was NASTY.

Look I already warned you to stop scrolling.

You should be questioning all your life choices right now, you sicko.

Ok fine here it comes.

And once there was a drain hole, drain is indeed what it did. It just kept going and going and going and going.

Clearly it was extremely important to keep it open and draining but also keep it clean, so Ollie had to go stay at the vet’s. This was just too big of a job, and closely monitoring that extra hole was going to be very important. So Ollie has been gone, hence why there isn’t a better, cuter, tremendously less traumatizing Foal Friday to share with you this week. Without Ollie, things are a little dull.

But anyway, as most disgusting drainage abscess holes do, it got worse before it got better. Like… so much worse. But all the puss that was stuck deep down in there finally made it’s way out and holy crap it was like Dr. Pimple Popper on steroids.

I seriously implore you to NOT continue scrolling.

Like you might not ever come back from this.

If you’ve eaten anything recently you should stop right here.

This image will be seared into your brain forever.

I might need you to sign a release.

Wow you’re disgusting, you know that right?

I KNOW.

I KNOW.

IT IS EQUAL PARTS HORRENDOUS AND AMAZING.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Poor Ollie, you know that thing really has GOT to hurt, especially being right under his tail. That drainage hole is like the same size as his little pony baby bumhole. He’s been a super good patient though, which says a lot about his character. He’s charmed his caretakers and added to his already large fan club.

And luckily, things are going well. The drainage looks to be pretty much finished now, and the hole is starting to close up now from the inside out. It seems much less painful for him, too.

He’s been given the all clear to come home, so that’s a huge sigh of relief. He’ll be happy to get back to his friends, I’m sure. Being stuck by himself is no fun, especially for his poor mother.

Hopefully it continues to heal well and poor Ollie can keep himself out of trouble. Valiant effort on his part to appease Michelle and convert himself to a Two Holes, but that just didn’t really quite work out.

For everyone who’s made it all the way to the bottom of this post, I’m not sure if I should commend you or be concerned about you. Probably both. But um… happy Friday? If that’s even possible anymore…

The only bad thing about buying a saddle from overseas is that crossing the pond isn’t always the fastest, and I’m an instant gratification kind of girl. Patience is not my strong suit when it comes to pretty things and the mail. It’s been 2 days and it feels like a week.

Also perhaps I’m weird (I am indeed) but the part I’m looking forward to most is giving the saddle a bit of a makeover. It’s got a two-tone look so I’m thinking it wants to be re-dyed to a nice even chocolate brown. And maybe this time I’ll play with a beeswax finish. It’s been a few years since I’ve dyed a saddle and I don’t want to admit this in from of witnesses but I find it really fun and gratifying. Crafting in general is not my favorite thing at all, but sign me up for some tack rehab. It’s possible that I grabbed all the necessary supplies already. Don’t judge me, it’s 2020 and I’ll get joy wherever I can.

I’m kind of hoping it won’t take that long to get here though. In all fairness the last two things I got – a rubber chicken from a place in NY state and a blanket from the UK – were interesting examples. The rubber chicken took 3 weeks and the blanket took 2 days.

The rubber chicken was highly amusing though. I figured if I was going to order a ridiculous toy for Presto, I may as well spring for the biggest one I could find, which was a 29-incher. When I pulled it out of the parcel locker the other day, I was cracking up. They had shipped it just in a bag, with it’s feet sticking out of the corner, which was hilarious in and of itself. It was basically folded in half to fit in the locker (thanks mailman!). It’s noise maker thingy is very sensitive, so any little bit of touch or jostling sets it off. And it doesn’t squeak, it MOANS like a dying cow. A very very loud one. Just walking back from the mailbox to the house, it was moaning constantly. I can only imagine it’s journey across the country to get here, with every truck driver, mail carrier, or sorter. Just stuffing it into the parcel locker must have been a sight (and sound) to behold. I was absolutely dying by the time I got home, tears of laughter streaming down my face, since it moaned loudly the whole way.

So far Presto seems pretty unimpressed by it (Henry is terrified) but hopefully it’ll grow on him. It’s a lot heavier than I was expecting and I think that makes it a little less fun for him to play with.

I also got a super sweet surprise in the mail from Michelle – a custom HERS Equine journal with baby Presto painted on the front!

HERS Equine does all kind of custom horse painting, on everything from decor to clothing. Not gonna lie, I kind of want a jacket with a jumping Henry on the back. Katie did a great job painting baby Presto, it looks JUST like him. Still hits me right in the feels to remember him as a foal. And what a great idea for a gift, who doesn’t like stuff with their horse painted on it? Now I just have to figure out what I want to use the journal for, because obviously I’ll want to keep it forever.

On the subject of Mighty Magic babies, I totally meant to post this the other day and forgot…. because I’m the ultimate stalker, I made a little compilation video of the ones that were at Grand Meadow. There were 2 in the 4* and one in the 3*, and all 3 were clear XC.

There were also some MM’s stretching their legs at Arville in Belgium last weekend – there were FOUR MM’s in the top 16 in the 2*. There wasn’t a live stream though, which was sad, but Figaro’s owner posted some video of him… he’s competed through 4* but hasn’t been out in a while, and it looks like he had lots of fun.

One of them in particular reminds me a lot of Presto. Which one do you think it is?

When it rains it pours, right?

Yesterday, the 25th of August, is generally what I think of as the shitty conclusion of what I’ve come to call my own personal annual “hell week”, bookended between the date of my mom’s passing and her birthday. The 25th is her birthday, which is not exactly the easiest day, as you can imagine. So then yesterday morning I get the call that my grandmother, my mom’s mom, has died from covid. That was a kick in the gut, universe. You can stop kicking me, I’m already down.

This is the first time covid has hit so close to home for me, even though I knew by the sheer rule of numbers that it would happen sooner or later. You know when’s an extra shitty time to have it happen? On my dead mother’s birthday. To her mother. Dying in a nursing home in Mississippi. A strong proud fiery woman who worked hard her entire life and certainly didn’t deserve an end like that. So let’s have a real talk, because I’ll be honest… I’m pissed off.

I know we’re all getting tired of this covid crap. Everyone is itching to return to normal, people are starting to get more lax and not take the guidelines so seriously. I see it every single day. People are tired of staying home, they wan’t to go out to eat and have a drink at a bar and go shopping and have parties (looking at you, neighbor behind us who has parties every damn weekend) and go back to school and go on vacation. Everyone’s patience is wearing thin, and I get it. I understand. I feel the same way. There is absolutely nothing fun about a global pandemic and I hate it too. The fact that this whole thing has been politicized from the beginning makes my blood absolutely boil. But this isn’t over just because we’re tired of it. It won’t be over for a long time.

So I ask you to please wear a damn mask (correctly). Please wash your damn hands. Please socially distance. Please avoid unnecessary gatherings and travel if at all possible, and if you truly must, please for the love of god be smart about it. Stop getting on airplanes because you found cheap tickets and need a weekend away. Please do everything within your power to avoid being the link in the chain that passes this disease on to someone vulnerable. Please don’t be the reason someone’s Mammaw dies of a brutal virus on her dead mother’s birthday.

I have had it up to my last millimeter with the “we’ve just got to get back to normal, we can’t keep doing this forever” and “but the death rate is so low” arguments. I just freaking cannot. Don’t even get me started on the people who won’t wear a mask. Which friends and family members are y’all willing to sacrifice to an end like this, you freaking sociopaths?

Horse show people, I’m peering extra hard over my theoretical glasses at you right now since y’all are the ones in my social circle. Please think long and hard about everything you do and why and how you do it. It’s easy for things to start feeling more normal again now, let your guard down, and start taking more chances or being less diligent. What we do is a luxury and superfluous, so if you’re going to do it, it’s up to you to 1) accept the very real that fact that you could be putting people in danger even if you do everything right 2) actually DO EVERYTHING RIGHT. All the time when you’re traveling or at the show. Every single thing in your power to be very diligent and minimize that risk as much as possible. So what if other people think you’re ridiculous. This isn’t a joke and it isn’t over and there are very serious repercussions.

Don’t be the idiot that kills someone’s family or friend.

I’m sure it will surprise literally no one to hear that my horses are not shaped similarly at all. Because of course, who would be that lucky (all of you people that have multiple horses that all fit perfectly into the same saddle: it’s possible that I hate you just a little bit). I know that I got incredibly lucky with Henry when it comes to saddle fit – he’s built like he was custom made for a standard Devoucoux D3D panel. A bit curvy and a bit wide, but not TOO curvy or TOO wide. I thanked my lucky stars for that when I bought his saddles, because I am a French saddle girl to my core and nothing pleases me more than sinking my butt down into some ultra-close contact buttery calfskin perfection. They’re the only saddles I’ve ever truly loved.

So naturally, Presto doesn’t come anywhere close to fitting in a curvy French tree.

It isn’t unusual for horses to start out with a bit of a straighter back when they’re young, before they finish growing and before their withers really pop, and before they start adding a lot of muscle. But Presto is definitely the straightest-backed horse I have ever had. His mother had a pretty straight back too when she was 3 and 4, and eventually curved up juuuuuust enough to fit the flattest possible french panel, so I haven’t lost all hope yet. But Presto’s profile from front to back, at least at the moment, is about as flat as a dang table. 

As it stands, Henry’s saddle is too wide and too curvy for Presto. I could help with the too wide part, with my shimmable half pad, but there’s only so much I could do about the curviness. I shimmed it 6 ways to Sunday and made it passable enough to get him started, but the reality is that this saddle would not work for him long term or once he starts getting ridden more often. I had kind of been waiting for his late spring/early summer growth spurt to finish up before I made a final decision (desperately clinging to the hope that he might magically get a little curvier I guess *cue sobbing*). Now it’s wrapping up and yeah… still flat as a pancake up there. The writing was on the wall and the truth was unavoidable: Presto needs his own saddle. 

Of course, he’s also 3.5 and will change A LOT over the next year or two. That means I’m not gonna go drop thousands of dollars on something fancy, nor is he yet eligible for anything custom. The real challenge was finding something that could fit him well enough and that I didn’t totally hate. Have I mentioned my intense love of French saddles and nothing else? It’s a real problem when your horse doesn’t fit in them. In reality I knew I was going to be looking more at the English-made brands, specifically one on a pretty straight tree with a straighter panel. It’s possible that I had a minor moderate internal temper tantrum about that. Once you go French it’s hard to go back. I’ve not particularly cared for 95% of the English-made saddles I’ve ever sat in. But Presto’s comfort is the most important thing, so I contacted a couple saddle fitter friends, got some ideas for brands, and started to hunt.

I didn’t get very far with my search in America.

Here’s where I’ll admit that I did back myself into a bit of a corner right out of the gate, because I was only considering monoflap jump saddles. The thing I hate most about a lot of the English-made saddles is how bulky they feel, and I’ve been sitting in only monoflaps for years now. If I’m gonna be forced to go English I’m at least gonna get a monoflap, okay? It’s the only thing that could slightly appease that inner temper tantrum. It was my only “must have” rider request, and I was sticking to it. But… it did greatly reduce the pool of saddles available. That and my budget, because you know who’s not spending more than 2k on a saddle that a baby horse will likely outgrow in a year?

I just cannot.

It didn’t take me long to shift my search focus overseas. I mean… I’ve bought a lot of saddles from Europe by now, and pretty much all of them have worked out. My current Devoucoux jump saddle came from England, sourced via facebook, and I’ve also bought saddles from France and Germany over the last decade. I think by now I’ve gotten fairly good at judging the shape from photos, plus I had my fitter friends to offer their opinions as well. I spent hours and hours scouring the internet looking at saddles. I’m relatively certain there isn’t single monoflap available for sale in the UK that I haven’t seen by now. Once I finally decide to embark on a task, I’m super obsessive about it, and this was no different. I left no stone unturned.

I was getting pretty distraught about it there for a while. There just weren’t many saddles that I liked the look of at all, most of them were written off pretty quickly because I hated the leather or the balance or the twist looked wide as an elephant (god I hate a wide twist). I did eventually narrow it down to 3 models, and then had to try to find one, in budget, in the right size. Not a small task. But I did finally find one, in the form of a Mark Todd Charisma.

As with literally all saddles, people on the internet either love it or hate it. But I have a pretty good idea of what I like by now, and the design looks right on par for my own preference. It’s definitely not French leather, but the general structure looks promising both for me and for Presto. About a dozen pictures and some videos and some fit debate later, it got the nod. The best part is that it was way under budget. Much easier to take a risk on something when it’s cheap, and much less painful later on when he inevitably outgrows it. I made an offer, we talked logistics, and the deal was done. Presto now has his very own saddle coming his way. Hopefully it a) makes it here with as little drama/delay as possible given the current world situation b) fits well enough to work for Presto for a while.

There is nothing worse than saddle shopping.

The only fittings I really need for it is stirrup leathers. My Free Jump irons are super easy to take on and off the leathers so I can swap those back and forth between saddles in a matter of seconds, but I don’t really want to be wrestling with swapping the leathers themselves. So I’m on the hunt for an inexpensive used calfskin pair, if anyone has seen some send them my way!