Guess who turns 14 tomorrow?
Time is ticking by way too fast. How in the world is it possible that he’s already 14? He definitely doesn’t act 14, anyway, that’s for sure. Never change, Henny, never change. ❤
14
Month: February 2021
The Rainbow Box
I’ve been having some weird dreams lately, y’all. First, a couple weeks ago I dreamed that Michelle and I went on another horsey trip to Europe, looking at stallions and young horses as we always do (or, uh, did pre-corona) except this time we… took Presto with us? For the sole purpose, it seemed, of taking pics of him in front of various landmarks and in the beautiful scenery. We were stabling him at one of the farms we visited last time we were in France, and were in the horse van on the way to take him to meet his sire when I woke up. Clearly he’s my child, I guess? It was bizarre and hilarious.
Last night was another weird one, but to fully explain it I have to back up a bit. See, when I was building that Epplejeck order a couple weeks ago in which I got all the navy glitter stuff, for a brief moment I had something else in my cart. A (badass) rainbow grooming box.
I wanted it bad, but the sale code didn’t work on it and it was expensive enough to where I couldn’t really talk myself into it. Do I need a grooming box like this? No. Could I find stuff to put in it? Heck yeah. Is it beautiful? Of course. Look at it. But I’m also cheap, and if it’s more than I want to pay then I’ll just wait until it’s on sale, and if that never happens then I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.
Apparently my subconscious is still hung up on it though, because last night I legit dreamed about it. Let me set the stage…
Once again, Michelle and I were on a trip to Europe (this happens more in my dreams than I’d like to admit, clearly I’m suffering from adventure withdrawals). This time we had been to some farms in Germany and were on our way over to France, and I convinced Michelle that we needed to take a detour through the Netherlands specifically so we could stop at a big Epplejeck store. For the record, she wasn’t hard to convince. I stocked up on some things while I was there, but the focus of the visit was really the rainbow box. I saw it on the shelf, picked it up, and absolutely had to have it.
From then on the dream was entirely focused on the box, with the rest of the trip being just something that happened in the background. Like imagine that someone trained a camera specifically on the box, as if it were the star of a movie, and just followed the box around. I saw flashes of Paris in the background, then the Hills of Normandy. Mostly it just sat in the backseat and scenery flew past as we drove. Finally we were going through security at the airport, riding with the box through the little xray thingy, and ended with the box closed up in the overhead bin of the airplane on the way home. My view never strayed from it the entire time after I bought it.
So apparently I’m more obsessed with this rainbow box than I realized? Or something? I’m not even sure how to decipher this. I basically watched a movie of a rainbow grooming box in my head all night. Just… staring at the box as it traveled. My dreams are getting weirder and weirder. Send help.
Ew, Texas
This will probably annoy every single person that lives north of like… Oklahoma… but Texas is about to be plunged into a particularly nasty cold front and I am not here for it.
Especially since last week it was like 83 degrees and I was sweating my ladyballs off. Look, Texas, you’re miserable AF from May through October, please at least have the decency to only have one day of “winter” per year. You used up that day a month ago when it snowed (which was cute and wonderful, because it literally only lasted the one day).
You know what’s not cute? This.
Or, up where where Presto is, the forecast is even worse.
What the actual eff? Hard pass. HARD. PASS.
One perk, I suppose, if you’re making me look on the bright side, is that I finally get to bust out Henry’s PS of Sweden quarter sheet that I got from their outlet last year. At least his ass will be warm while my face freezes off?
Although honestly I don’t think my horses have the right blankets for this kind of weather. It’s not really a thing here. A few nights below freezing scattered throughout a few month time period? Sure. But several days in a row, and well below freezing? Is it REALLY gonna snow again? Girl, no. Get outta here with that. Where Presto is living at the moment won’t even get above freezing for FOUR DAYS IN A ROW. In Texas! And nights down to SIX? SIIIIIIX??? WTF EVEN IS SIX??? WHAT DOES THAT FEEL LIKE??? It’s a good thing Presto runs warm, I guess, but probably not that warm. Now I feel like a terrible mother for not sending him with real heavy blankets, but I’ve legit never had to blanket a horse in Texas for temperatures like that. Not even close. My horse’s “heavy” blankets are 250g and they usually don’t wear them very much.
Which just kind of makes me think that the universe is trying to tell me that I SHOULD totally buy one of the new Pony-O blankets in an actual heavyweight. This is a sign, right?
Thank goodness I do at least still have Henry’s old HUG midweight, so I can layer both together for him. I’ve only got a no-fill neck cover though. It definitely makes me glad that I was too lazy to re-body clip him again in January… he’s got a little bit of coat back at least. Quinnie is covered in a shag carpet and isn’t even comfortable until it’s 40 or below, so she’s less of a concern. She’ll be fine in her blanket. I’m sitting here thinking I should try to Prime a liner to Presto. They’ve got one on Corro too that could def arrive in time but my options are 75 and 81, and Presto is in a 78. Anyone know how the Horseware (or Shires) liners run?
I honestly don’t know how you real winter people do this. I mean I guess the plus side is that y’all don’t have 6 months of godawful heat, but still. I can’t really decide which is worse.
If anyone needs me I’ll be outside winterproofing my t!ny h0use and the barn, grumbling incessantly about how I don’t sweat my tits off half of the year just to freeze them off this severely in the winter. We really need to talk about this climate change thing.
Presto Goes to Camp
If you pay much attention to my Instagram stories then you already know this, but on Saturday Presto left for 5 weeks of pro training.
The reality is that for the next 6-8 weeks I’m going to be super busy at work, don’t really have time to ride 2 horses properly, need to get Henry legged back up while the weather is still cooler, and didn’t want to just let Presto sit and do nothing when he’d really just gotten started. Plus, like, let’s be real, I’m the only person that’s ridden him so far and while I’m fine, I have no doubt that his overall education would benefit from a better rider. I knew I wanted to send him to someone, I just wasn’t sure where and if I could make it work or not. It had to be somewhere close enough to make the drive there and back in a day, since I also have the horses at home to look after. When I talked to Michelle about it she was like “What about Megan?” – being Megan Sykes, the 4* eventer that Michelle had been riding with, who happened to just move to a new facility up near Dallas, and who’s husband Reed also happens to be a colt starter/groundwork/horsemanship type of guy that has worked with Michelle’s young horses. She’s the one who’s owners just bought Mari. As soon as she said it a lightbulb went off – that could potentially be the perfect fit.
Not to say that the thought of sending him somewhere didn’t still make me completely nauseous, but after talking to Megan on the phone about him and making a rough plan, I felt a lot more positive about it. I mean, I still spent most of Thursday and Friday internally panicking and wanting to back out, but ultimately I still felt like this was the best decision for everyone. Ideally I’d have liked to send him for 2 months, to get us all the way through Q1 at work, but Megan is leaving for Ocala in Mid-March so 5 weeks is what we could squeeze in. On Friday afternoon I packed his stuff, cleaned up his mane and goat hairs under his jaw (perhaps if he looks less trashy in those regards it will draw less attention to the fact that he has FIVE HUNDRED BITE MARKS?) and practiced loading him in the trailer a couple times since it’s been a while.
Still though, I tossed and turned on Friday night. I am really attached to and protective of the horse, probably too much so, if I’m being honest. I woke up on Saturday morning still kind of worried about the whole thing and second-guessing myself, and then he decided to refuse to get more than halfway up the ramp of the trailer. That’s a new one. In his defense, Henry did absolutely TAKE THE F OFF for the back of the property the second I started loading (thanks, friend) which freaked Presto out, but still. It took me almost half an hour of working with him to get him all the way on and the butt bar up. You know my biggest pet peeve in the world? Ok, that would be horses that don’t tie. But you know my second biggest pet peeve in the world? Horses that don’t load. Which is part of why he’s been loaded and trailered so much as a young horse. Why he decided to be a legit turd about it on that day I don’t know, but he bought himself some groundwork and trailer lessons with Mr. Reed while he’s away at camp.
On the plus side, I was so irritated about it that by the time I got there and unloaded him (he was a total freak coming off the trailer too – snorted and spooked at a wheelbarrow) that he had managed to erase all my doubt in one morning. The truth is that he needs a little bump from the nest so he can learn to exist within himself. He’s had a pretty easy, low-key, quiet life… even when he lived at boarding barns they were tiny, quiet ones where nothing much happened and things could be catered to him, in a sense. Going to a bigger boarding facility where he’s one of many horses, there’s a ton more going on all the time, and him having to adhere to their program rather than vice versa – I think it will do him some good. Time to cut the cord a bit, little one, you’re a real horse now.
He was definitely very wide-eyed about everything at first, but Megan says he’s settling in. She’s started working with him a bit, although of course we’re about to get hit with a major polar blast so that might affect his schedule over the next several days. Megan is used to dealing with enthusiastic young horses so seems totally undeterred by his shenanigans, and having Reed around is a major plus – it’s kind of the perfect duo in my eyes, ULR event rider plus good horsemanship trainer. The new facility is really nice too, so Presto is certainly not suffering at all, even if he’s slightly shell-shocked to learn that the world, in fact, does NOT revolve around him.
I’m planning on going up in 2-3 weeks to check in on him and bring some more feed, so we’ll see how things go. I definitely think that this is the best thing for him right now, even if I do miss him, especially at night check when his ridiculous little monkey face isn’t there waiting for a bedtime smooch. Such is life though, and it’s part of growing up. And for me I’m having to deal with being a bit less of a helicopter parent, trying to resist constantly asking about him (I’ve only asked twice in 3 days, that’s pretty good for me right?). I think he’s in good, capable hands, so that definitely helps.
I’ll update as I have news or things to share, but fingers crossed that Presto decides to be a good boy at camp!
Monday Menagerie
So I do actually have some big news to share but that’s waiting for tomorrow because I think I’ll have more to add by then. For today you get the collection of things I was gonna post about last Friday before I decided to post about Presto’s ponying adventure instead.
First of all, let’s talk about the fly on the wall – That Kentucky Situation. OMG. That was some drama.
LRK3DE won’t be making an official announcement until later today, but it looks promising that they were able to raise enough money over the weekend to “save” the Kentucky 5* for 2021. I admittedly have a lot of mixed feelings about the whole situation. The way the whole thing transpired was a total cluster, for sure. The fact that we could raise that amount of money in a weekend to save a horse show when it took considerably longer to come up with less money for the frangible fund… those are major major frustrations that we need to look long and hard at. But at the end of the day I did want to see KY run in 2021, so I tossed in $25 (in my eyes the cost of a t-shirt, and a fraction of what I give to USEA’s various safety projects every year) and shared a couple of Sara K-M’s videos on my insta stories. And omg y’all, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten so many hate DM’s before, which is mind-boggling to me considering that I’ve certainly said and done considerably more controversial things. The main tirades (and that’s what they were, multi-message tirades) were either about 1) upper level riders never appreciate the masses unless they need us to pay for something, why should we care about them and their problems, 2) complete hatred of USEA because their “mismanagement” has “killed yet another event”… which was a head scratcher considering the fact that USEA has zero involvement here 3) covid is still a major problem, no one should be having horse shows at all, they should all be cancelled (don’t disagree, but if the 5* doesn’t happen a 4*S and a GP and maybe even national divisions will, which would bring considerably more people than the alternative 5* sans spectators would), and giving money to something like this when we have actual bigger problems is just ridiculous.
To be fair, I agree with some of the complaints. Still not quite sure why everyone was yelling at me about it for sharing a couple posts, but… ok. Clearly there’s some pent-up frustration. Anyway, we’ll see if KY actually runs in ’21 or not! The fundraising effort over the past few days was certainly impressive (if not indicative of where the sport’s priorities really lie… sigh).
On a more fun note, y’all seen the new Pony-O prints that are about to drop? Hot pink unicorns, blue slothes, and a bright donut print. They’re going to be offering stable rugs, too. I have to be honest, I was real tempted to get Presto a hot pink unicorn one, even though he doesn’t need it since he’s already got the blue unicorns and the monkeys. I wish Henry could wear non-Hug blankets, he’d have a unicorn one FOR SURE. Anyway, the pre-order for these will be opening soon, so get yourself on their mailing list if you want to nab one. I love my Pony-O blankets, they really do bring a lot of silly joy.
In case you missed it, the US Event Horse Futurity has started posting all the entrants’ breeding vlogs. Presto’s is up, along with a handful of others that you can see on the Futurity’s facebook page. I always love these, it’s super interesting to see the parents and the offspring and hear why people chose the cross they did. As usual please like and comment on these posts, the Futurity greatly appreciates the interaction and support! (and speaking from personal experience it takes HOURS to put these vlogs together, so I know people greatly appreciate even just a like)
Speaking of vlogs, if y’all aren’t watching the Piggy March vlogs on her youtube channel, you’re missing out. She’s covering a wide variety of topics and I’ve found them to be pretty interesting. Also I’m just a massive Vanir Kamira fan, so getting to see more of her behind the scenes is a bonus.
Last but not least, fellow rule geeks mark your calendars for USEA’s Rule Webinar. I always love these, mostly to hear proposals that could be on the docket for next year so I can internally debate them with myself for days. But you know they’ll be talking about the new proposal where 5 or more rails equals elimination, so it’s guaranteed to be interesting discussion.
Hope everybody has a good week! Exciting happenings coming up tomorrow…
breedrideevent.com 