Month: April 2021

This is the time of year where Michelle and I are constantly researching stallions and offspring, watching videos, and debating which stallions would go best with which mare. After a while your brain starts to melt and your eyes start to cross, and you’re pretty sure no more information will actually fit in your brain. Granted, these are also some of my favorite discussions, bouncing ideas around together and digging into the nitty gritty of each stallion and mare.

This year seems more frustrating than most, with a lot of semen shipments held up, or behind schedule, or just not coming at all. A lot of the frozen semen brokers are out of stock with most of the stallions we want, so we’re having to dig deeper and think more creatively. We’ve finally got a tentative plan ironed out for most of them, although granted there’s always The Plan vs What Actually Happens. Shippers and mares and frozen semen inevitably never all actually read the playbook. But ya know… Plan A is in place finally so the gods of fate steer the ship from here.

My brain melts over this every year, because there are a lot of options and my opinion on what crosses best with the mare can morph a little after every foal, not to mention what the actual end goal is (top level performance horse? amateur horse? it makes a difference). Still though, looking at stallions and matching them with mares and having these conversations and doing this research… it’s super fun for me. It’s just basically playing matchmaker with horses.

While my own choices and opinions are very much influenced by the type of horse that I tend to like most, I’m always interested to see what other people would choose and why. So: Tuesday fun time. Pick any WTW mare and any stallion – what would you breed for yourself? If you’re feeling frisky, give me a more conventional choice and then an unconventional one.

Like for instance, if I was making something for myself personally to keep, I would pick Tullabeg Fusion for Grace as my conventional choice (granted he’s not actually available in the US so if that doesn’t count then I’d pick Mighty Magic or Connect to Grace), or Innenminister xx to Lissa. No I cannot narrow it down to one, please don’t make me, y’all know how hard it was just to get it down that far? For my unconventional off-the-wall pick I’d do morgan stallion Spring Hollow Statesman to Peyton. Y’all know I like morgans, we’ve talked about this before, and I really like how sporty that one looks. I was gonna pick a connemara or french AA but that didn’t seem “out there” enough. Be bold.

So here are the mares to choose from:

Lissa – competed to 1.50m grand prix. Bold, quick, long-lined and tall, very rectangular shape. Definitely a German type of horse.

Chanel – competed to 1.40m GP. Shorter, more compact, very careful, sensitive. Extremely well bred from Dutch and Holsteiner lines and the most proven of the bunch as far as offspring go – she had two in Europe and one is competing 1.45m with the other at 1.40m.

Sadie (Presto’s dam) – big trot, very tall, easy to ride and good work ethic. By a hunter stallion (from dressage lines) out of a TB mare.

Grace – Irish mare, cute mover, sweet temperament, genuine, good jump technique, was an amateur event horse. I kinda think this one could have moonlighted in the hunter derbies. A little on the smaller side of average.

Inca – little black horse with a big jump. She’s got some get up and go and is definitely careful but also very sweet and kind. Huge canter.

Vee – good mid-size TB mare with lots of bone and substance, more compact. Turf pedigree.

Peyton – tall TB mare, more refined and leggy with great natural balance. Turf pedigree.

Stormie – pocket rocket sportpony deluxe. Big mover with a big jump, quick and catty and athletic and brave. A little spicy but also kind with a super work ethic and tons of personality.

Daisy – breeding stock paint (so basically QH), homozygous dun. Extremely good hunter mover with a lot of elasticity and a huge step, believe it or not. A little smaller than average.

I think there’s literally something for just about anyone here, regardless of discipline or personal preference. Get your thinking caps on, pick a mare or two, and tell me who your fantasy baby daddy (or daddies) would be!

Someone is getting more and more wild as his time off for his owwie footie has been extended. This same someone may have come spinning and squealing out of his stall this morning like he was putting on a one-horse rodeo.

The good news is that Henry looks pretty much sound again as he goes streaking and prancing around the pasture, so today his 2 week vacation is coming to an end. Of course the tractor tire is dead so I haven’t been able to drag the ring, thus it’s concrete, and the ground elsewhere is getting really hard right now too (I’m getting concerned at how dry this winter and spring have been overall), so I’ll ease him back into things out on the hacking path in the back, where there’s plenty of cushion. I might get murdered, because he also loves to spook at literally everything back there, so ya know… pray for me y’all. He really needs to get back to work though before the hamster in his brain flies completely off it’s wheel.

While there was no riding this weekend, I did get one major thing accomplished – my second covid shot! I’m officially fully vaccinated, and it feels great. After the first shot my arm was pretty sore for a couple days afterward, and I fully expected to have some flu-like symptoms after the second shot since pretty much everyone I know has gotten some degree of sick after one of their shots. I was fully prepared to feel like crap on Sunday, I had some soup and some OJ and some Tylenol on stand-by, my schedule was clear… and I felt literally nothing. My arm was lightly sore for about 12 hours, otherwise nada. I actually felt weirdly good yesterday morning, like my body was saying GIMME MORE OF THAT SWEET SWEET RONA. So… ok then. I’m not complaining at all and ended up using yesterday to run some errands instead. I’m tired today but I have a feeling that’s got more to do with the fact that the dogs woke me up twice in the middle of the night to go outside and then I got an early morning wakeup call (okay I was pretty much already awake, but I was definitely awake after that).

Why did I get an early morning wakeup call? THE BEST POSSIBLE REASON OF COURSE. Lark had her baby this morning around 4:50.

It’s a handsome bay colt with a star and two socks who will definitely turn gray and he’s got some big ol’ knees and hocks on him – looks like he’s gonna be a thicc boi like his daddy. He seems very sweet and affable so far, which mostly just prompted us to be like “Pippa is gonna eat him alive…”. HA. He’s a stout little dude though and Lark had to push pretty hard, even with assistance, but they both seem okay so far, knock on wood.

And just like that, we’ve got two foals on the ground! It’ll probably be two or three weeks until we get to see the next one, which will be fun since that’s the full sibling to this guy.

I was so excited about this that originally I wrote the title in all caps and really struggled to force myself to go change it so I don’t appear 100% insane. But we FINALLY have our first Foal Friday of 2021, which I’m ecstatic about, and boy are we ever starting the year out with a bang with Pippa.

I’m used to a lot of the newborn foal pics being cute in that awkward baby horse way where they’re discombobulated and wobbly and 95% legs, therefore mostly just fuzzy and adorable. And while Pippa does have her moments of being discombobulated or silly…

for the most part she’s actually quite balanced, really light on her feet, and has a general air about her where she clearly thinks she’s special. I feel like she’s judging me and finding me unworthy in a lot of her pics.

Pippa also trots A LOT already, which… normally we don’t have our first decent trot pic of these jumping bred foals for a good month or so while they figure out how to work their legs. Usually it’s cantering or nothing. But she’s out here trotting around like a machine, and managing to look fancy in the process.

I’m… pretty impressed with her, to be honest. I mean of course I like Peyton, and of course I like her sire Leprince des Bois, but I’m not sure I was expecting the full Pippa experience. Leprince is a 5* event horse, his sire Yarlands Summer Song was a 5* event horse, and of course Peyton is a full TB. Pippa’s got a lot of blood, 81% for crying out loud, and a pedigree that screams eventing from it’s very core. I’d have expected her to be a straight up galloper for the first few months for sure. Definitely didn’t expect her to be performing her best baby Valegro impressions just a few days old.

To be fair, she does plenty of galloping too, and it’s nice. Like I said, she’s quite light on her feet and quite balanced, even when she’s flat out. Like a little sports car. She already seems to have a lot of quality.

I think the most interesting thing is how different she is from Remi. This is only Peyton’s second foal, so we only have the sample size of two. They also have very different sires, Remi’s being Ramiro B. He has less blood and is a much more typical heavier warmblood type compared to Leprince. And indeed Pippa is quite pretty and more refined… maybe partly to do with the fact that she’s a filly.

The differences aren’t just physical though. Remi was a little more meek, a little more inclined to just be a good straight-laced kid and do exactly what his mother told him to do. He wasn’t ever the first one to show up to play or investigate new things, because Peyton (the helicopter mom) told him not to. She might have her hands full with Pippa though, who has yet to look twice at anything, already trots happily through puddles, was jumping the hay pile in her stall over and over at 14 hours old, and has started directing Peyton and telling her where they’re going rather than vice versa. I think Pippa is a born bossmare, brimming with confidence and a little bit of spicy sass. She’s still sweet to and very curious about humans though, like Remi.

Granted, she’s only 5 days old, so these are the only observations we’ve been able to make thus far. I think foals do tend to start to show their personalities pretty early though, and she’s been no exception. Maybe I’m wrong but I get the feeling this one will be a little more sophisticated and little less goofy.

Pippa has already been sold to an upper level event rider, the same one who has Remi and Ellie, so she’s staying “in the family” and going to what I think will be the perfect home for her. I suspect that this one will be pretty talented and she certainly looks like an event horse.

Pretty darn strong start to the 2021 foal crop, I’d say! Healthy, beautiful, and already matched up with the perfect owner… you can’t ask for much more than that. Lark (Chanel’s recipient) is at 330 days as of today, and Chanel herself isn’t far behind at 315. We shouldn’t have too much longer to wait for more babies!

Happiest first Foal Friday of 2021, and here’s to the next 6-7 months of weekly foal cuteness. Yesssssssss I’m so glad it’s back!

I’ve been blogging for… almost 7 years now (JFC time flies). I like it, it’s fun for me, writing is cathartic, and I’ve met a lot of great people and had a lot of opportunities because of it. The only real downside, to me, (okay aside from the fact that it’s time consuming) is that making yourself “public” opens you up to a lot of criticism. Unfortunately the reality is that you have to have a bit of a thick skin to blog and/or have an active social media presence – when you choose to put yourself out there, people are guaranteed to have opinions.

All things considered, I feel like I’ve probably taken less heat than a lot of other bloggers, but I haven’t avoided it completely. Every now and then people just can’t help but to criticize the way you ride, or the choices you make, or, ya know… there was that whole ML debacle that I may or may not have started (my bad). For the most part I really don’t have a problem taking the heat. There will always be the ones who are just haters in general, and whatever, ain’t nobody got time for that. Of all the things I’ve taken criticism for over the years, none of it has really bothered me all that much, except for one thing: when I hand the reins of one of my horses over to someone who is a better and more experienced rider than I am and people want to judge me for it. God that really grinds my gears.

Someone is going to have to explain it to me because I legit don’t understand. When I had my trainer ride Henry at his first couple Training events because I had a little bit of trepidation about the move-up, the criticism was… confounding. I wrote about it then, and about the importance of the trainer ride for me personally when it came to helping me and my horse feel more confident. And hey guess what, it worked out pretty well because when I did my first T on him it was a seamless move-up, my horse was super confident and so was I, and we went on to have good success at the level. And now that I’ve handed Presto’s reins over to a pro for a little while, here we go again: I’m getting some of the same kind of comments. “Glad he’s doing well but sad that you aren’t riding him!” or “I would have a hard time putting so much time and effort into a horse and then handing the ride to someone else.”. Ya know… various passing comments (mainly in Instagram DM’s, why is that everyone’s dickplace of choice?) where basically people are saying that I bred the horse and raised the horse and put the first year of work into him, why in the world would I hand him over to someone else now?

It’s weird to me that I even have to explain this to anyone, but I guess there may have been a time in my younger years when I would have thought the same way. Back before I knew better, back when I was ruled more by pride and ego than by what was overall best for the horse. And for sure, I spent a lot of time not really being able to afford the luxury of pro training, so I get that as well. But the benefit of hindsight also allows me to look back on various horses and think “someone else really could have helped that horse understand xyz thing better than I did” or “we may not have had that big problem with x if I’d gotten help with it earlier”, especially the really green ones (which were almost all of them). There’s nothing quite like getting a few years down the road and realizing that your horse is full of gaping holes that you yourself helped install. I have never in my life regretted getting some pro rides put on some of my horses, but I can sure as hell think of many many many occasions where asking for help (or asking for help sooner) would have benefitted both myself and the horse in the long run.

I’m a big proponent of high quality early education for young horses especially. The things they learn in the beginning are the things they spend their whole life referring back to, and it’s SO MUCH EASIER to have it done well from the start than to go back and try to undo and redo things over and over again. Like, um… Henry for example. I don’t know exactly what the heck happened to him before age 7, only that he was “fried”, but I do know that he will forever be a tense tight horse that’s mistrustful of contact.

And when it comes to Presto, the entire reason I wanted to invest in a pro ride at this stage in his career is exactly BECAUSE of all the reasons these people are mentioning in their comments. They’re right, I DO have a lot of time, energy, work, blood, sweat, tears (so many tears), and money (so much money) invested in this horse already. And he’s a nice horse – so far he’s everything that I had in mind when I picked the stallion and the mare. You know what I want more than anything in the world? To do the absolute best I can by him and set him up as best I can for our future. Right now for me that means handing the reins to someone else, someone better than me, and letting him learn from her. Could I keep him here and ride him myself? Sure. But I have the luxury of being able to afford to do him one better, so why not take advantage of that?

Of course I’d be lying if I said that a part of me wasn’t a little wistful, watching his videos, mostly because I can’t wait to be the one in the pilot seat doing this stuff with him too. Granted, I’m a grown ass woman with a brain in my head, and I’ve had a shitton of green horses, so I also know that this is the right thing to be doing and it’ll pay off in the end. Our time together will come, but for now the priority is the horse I’m trying to give myself in the future.

What it comes down to for me is this: what good is it to be able to say “I did it all myself” or “No one has ridden him but me” if the end product is subpar, or has big holes in his education? I just don’t understand the appeal of that. He’ll be a more confident, more educated horse in the long run, which will make things easier for both of us. Win-win. So please don’t get at me with the thinly-veiled judgy comments about my choice to hand over the ride to a professional… if you don’t understand the choice now, I think you probably will someday.

I’m not sure there is any better group of people on the internet than Presto supporters. A lot of y’all have been with him since he was just an idea in a blog post, so in a way it feels a bit like he belongs to all of us and not just to me. The support he gets and the sheer number of people that are standing in his corner is really amazing. And extra shout out to Kathleen for today’s post – when I asked on Monday if anyone could get out to Majestic Oaks in Ocala early on Tuesday morning to video him, she volunteered. And she wasn’t even the only one! But Kathleen got a ton of great video, and I’m eternally grateful for her because it was a really important occasion – Presto’s first big boy cross country school. He’s been a couple times with me last year of course, just puttering through the water and trotting over very teeny logs and banks (like… very very teeny), but this was his first legit official school as a Real Boy, the first one with Megan, and the first one since he’s been in pro training.

He’s been busy learning to jump courses and getting a grip on his general enthusiasm about life. He thinks things in Ocala are VERY EXCITING (shocker, right?) which is really the whole reason why I sent him. Life experience like he’s getting there is exactly what he needed to help him grow up a bit. He needed to be a little wide-eyed and figure out how to handle it. But Megan finally deemed him ready to get out and try his hand (hoof?) at some of the fun stuff, and well… I think he proved what phase he was really bred for.

They started small, trotting some of the smaller stuff.

As he started to get more comfortable (and rideable), she pointed him at a fewslightly bigger jumps. These are the first over-2’6″ fences I’ve ever seen him jump and I’m pretty delighted with what he’s got in the tank. There’s definitely some scope in there, and he’s pretty quick and clever with his feet. Megan said she thought he had really good instincts, and I think you can see that. I thought he jumped well and safely no matter how he got to the fence, which is super important to me, and his balance is quite nice for a just turned 4yo.

a better view of the Novice table from that GIF, which is a little spooky with it’s cutout:

They strung a few of them together to make little courses. I think she did an exceptional job of waiting and supporting him without overriding or pushing him – if he wanted to come back to trot that was fine, as long as he stayed straight and kept going. She let him figure out his feet and his body even if it meant slowing down to do so, and as a result he really got better and better as he went, and never really looked unbalanced or concerned in any way.

Next was ditches. Presto has seen a couple of little ones in his life, in hand, but these are the first ones he’s met under saddle. No problem though, he popped over it each way, did the BN ditch bending line to box, then came around and did the N half coffin. Check that off the list.

Then it was on to the water, trotting through and jumping the BN table on the other side, which he did wiggle and peek at the first time. Figures that the only jumps of the day he really looked at were the smaller ones, he’s taking a page out of Henry’s book there. The table was white and blue and airy underneath, though, so that’s fair. He popped back over it the other way with no issue. Then he came back through doing a jump, water, jump a couple of times to string some things together. And then they capped off the holy trinity of cross country (ditches, water, banks) with popping up and down the smaller bank out of the water (which was on the N course), and finished by hopping down the T bank into water and cantering out over the little blue and white table again. He seemed quite pleased with himself at the water, and no hesitation to any of it. I think he had fun!

Here’s the full video if anyone wants to watch it. I left all the jumps in, just edited out some of the long canter stretches so it wasn’t quite as lengthy.

You can see a couple that he peeked and wiggled at, and the progression from the smaller questions to the bigger ones and how Megan strung things together. I left a few seconds of warmup in there too so you can see how he’s looking. Kiddo is growing up!

He has been deemed ready for his first event, so we’ll just have to see what fits into the schedule. She’s got a lot going on with her upper level horses in the next few weeks, understandably. I definitely have no regrets about spending all my money to send him to Ocala, I think it’s done him a world of good and I’m delighted with his progress. We’re finally starting to get a real true glimpse of what he’s really made of, and it’s hard not to be excited by what I see. He’s still got a lot of maturing to do, obviously, but from what he’s showing us so far I think he’s got all the qualities I wanted. It’s always a little iffy when you breed your own – you never quite know what you’ve got until you start asking the questions and seeing how they answer them. So far so good though, he’s really stepping up. Can’t wait to get to Ocala in a couple weeks and see him with my own two eyeballs!

First of all – very exciting development this morning. Presto went XC schooling at Majestic Oaks in Ocala and an Insta friend (who is now my new favorite person, my love is easily bought) was able to go over there and get some media! Everything will be uploaded later but I do have a sneak peek.

NBD, just my 4yo popping down the Training drop into water like the cutest animal in the world (no, there’s no bias here, why do you ask?). I can’t wait to see the videos!

On to our topic of the day. Good news, the filly’s owner did indeed approve my name suggestion, so Pippa WTW is official! I can’t wait for Foal Friday, y’all are gonna die at this filly. She’s too freakin cute. Ok ok one pic where you can see her tippy ears and her little nostril dot, because I’m feeling particularly generous this morning.

Anyway, I was talking to Michelle, and, riding the high of my name selection, I joked that we really should have named all the sportpony foals with onomatopoeias. Like… Vroom WTW. Pitter Patter WTW. Ping WTW. Sizzle WTW. Swish WTW. I mean come on, you’re with me right? Ponies are supposed to have cheeky names. I’m amused.

Not to mention that I’ve basically been practicing naming ponies for over 20 years. I haven’t thought about this in a long ass time, but I remembered that back in high school my friend Stacy and I had this dream of one day having a pony breeding farm. Back then the dream was hunter ponies, but ya know, dreams morph. I also had to take a second to laugh at that, because a lot of riders tell stories about how when they were teenagers they were sure they’d be at the olympics one day, or be trainers, or normal people wanted to get married or whatever. Me… I wanted to breed ponies with my friend. There’s weird horse girl and then there’s peak weird horse girl.

I even kept a list of all the “great” names I came up with. Back in those days Rosmel ponies were The Big Thing around here, all the cutest ponies had the Rosmel’s prefix. Stacy and I decided our farm would be Special T (oh man, weren’t we just hilariously clever…) so they were all Special T’s _______. My favorite name, which was going to be preserved for a horse (preferably a roan or a palomino, if I remember correctly. Man my knowledge of color genetics back then must have been hilarious) with a white snip or blaze that extended over the upper lip but not the lower lip. Because, ya know… color and markings were obviously very important to High School me. That one would be our PEAK PONY and be named Special T’s Got Milk.

That should be a dead giveaway as to what the big ad campaign was in popular culture at that time.

Remember those? Omg HAHAHAHAHAHA. Searching for these photos took me down a rabbit trail, but I learned that this was actually a 20 year long ad campaign that went all the way through 2014. Who knew? It was definitely really popular in the late 90’s, I can vouch for that much.

Too bad I don’t still have that list, I bet they’re all hilariously awful now. Maybe I shouldn’t be naming ponies after all, but I’ve definitely been practicing for a long time at least. I haven’t thought about any of that stuff in such a long time, it was kind of a hoot to think back on it now. Good to know I’ve always been extra weird.

Guess who’s still lame?

I was hoping it was an abscess but now I suspect it’s a bad bruise – it’s following almost the exact same pattern of the one from last winter (sorta bad, omg my leg is broken, sorta bad, a tiny bit better, a tiny bit better, pretty much the same…). Hopefully this one doesn’t take two freakin months to resolve because I honestly might kill him. He’s such a massive baby too, zero stoicism in this horse whatsoever, so sometimes its hard to get a gauge on reality when he’s always living at peak drama. I’ve got it packed with Magic Cushion, wrapped, and booted. Why can’t he do this crap in the summer when it’s hot and miserable and I don’t really want to ride that much anyway? Why do it at literally the only time of year when Texas is tolerable? Of course, it’s supposed to be hot AF this week so maybe that’s when he’ll magically decide he’s better.

Now I find myself having gone from not being able to fit both horses in to not having anything to ride. Feast or famine, man, feast or famine.

Naturally I’ve had to find some ways to cheer myself up. But, ya know, cheap ways, because all of my money is in Ocala. So first, I knocked something off my list that I’ve been wanting to do for a while anyway.

For the past couple years I’ve been alternating back and forth between putting burgundy or purple color over my natural dark brown hair. It mostly just showed up as a tint in the sun, but those were the only 2 colors that would really show up on my hair at all (blue just turned it black and green sent it even more mucky brown) and I liked them fine, so it worked. But I was getting kind of tired of those two colors, and really wanted to go for something in the blue or green spectrum. That would require lightening my hair first though, which is like… a commitment, so I’ve delayed it. But then I finally ordered the stuff I needed, and my horse is lame anyway so what else is there to do, so first I bleached it (I did like a balayage/highlighting technique, didn’t want to go all the way up to the roots or do my entire head because that requires more constant maintenance which CLEARLY isn’t happening with the hair that I generally only manage to get cut like once a year) then did a couple dye test strips to decide on color. One was just aquamarine, which is like a teal, and for the other I mixed aquamarine with purple, which managed to come out navy on my hair. Not intentional, but I’ll 110% take it. Navy wins every time, so on it went and now I have navy hair. Which is freakin rad. It’s brightening up my otherwise boring life, fo sho.

The other fun thing to cheer me up is this rainbow lead rope that I saw at Tractor Supply. I just stopped in for treats and dog food and they had rainbow lead ropes in the little bins in the front. Real rainbow, pastel rainbow, and a very Eastery looking one. And they were $6. And they’re the heavier cotton ones, which are the only kind I like and can be hard to find in colors. And like… you never really have enough lead ropes right?

It made me feel a little better at least.

But you know what made me feel even BETTER? Like A LOT better?

Peyton had her BEBE last night! And it was at a very reasonable time, so I got to watch on the cameras. She is a gorgeous, leggy bay filly by 5* eventing stallion Leprince des Bois with a couple socks and a star (and I think a little white dot on one nostril). It’s a P year for sBs so I suggested Pippa, because we saw her sire at the Burghley stallion show when we went in 2019, and Pippa Funnel won that year. Seems fitting! She is already sold so we’ll have to see if her new owner likes that or not, or if she’d rather pick something else. So she’s MaybePippa for now.

She’s still got some unsquishing and unfolding to do (she was cramped in there with those legs!) so we’ll give her a few days before we take her first baby glamour shots. I am very exciting to FINALLY have foaling season underway now though! FOAL FRIDAY SHALL RECOMMENCE! Lark has been acting pretty uncomfortable too so her baby might make an appearance sooner rather than later – she’s 326 days today. From here on out the babies are spaced pretty regularly through the end of May/beginning of June. Bring on the bebes!

Peyton has ruined all of my plans by not releasing her hostage yet (345 days pregnant today, but who’s counting), so I still have no Foal Friday to offer. Mare is indeed a four letter word. Maybe she’s waiting for Lark, Chanel’s surrogate, to be ready so they can foal together? Lark is 323 days. Sigh. What’s a girl gotta do to get some fluffy baby horse cuteness up in here?

But I have been meaning to go back and revisit my post from January where I offered up a contest related to Presto’s US Event Horse Futurity participation. To recap what I originally posted:

Each time there is a Presto post on the Futurity facebook page, anyone who likes (or loves… I’m a big fan of those loves…) his post AND leaves a comment will get entered into a pot to win a “Presto’s favorites” prize package, to be given away at the culmination of the Futurity – basically a box of items that Presto loves and fully endorses. If you SHARE a post, that will get you TWO additional entries for each post you share – just make sure the shared post is set to public on your privacy settings so that I can see that you shared it. So that’s up to possible 3 entries for each Presto post. Only caveat to win is that you must be following the US Event Horse Futurity page.

But I never actually went back and expanded on what the Presto’s Favorite’s prize package would include, so… here we go, I’m circling back around to it now. To make it quick and easy it’s all gonna come from one place (Riding Warehouse) so you get a whole box of goodies that were purchased on Presto’s (aka my) dime and mailed straight to you. Because honestly I SUCK at going to the post office and don’t even wanna. Let’s cut out the middleman shall we? Any items that involve sizes or colors will be of the winner’s choice. Here’s what Presto picked out from the RW website to include:

First and foremost, his favorite item in the world, of course.

He firmly believes that every horse in the world needs a ball, full stop, whether they want one or not (hence why he likes throwing his at Henry and laughing when Henry runs away in horror).

Not only is it NOMS (omg noms) it’s noms in the shape of a BALL. OMG.

This is the icky smelling spray but it keeps those big mean buzzy things that chase him (botflies, he means botflies) away so it’s really important, you gotta wear it every day to be buzzy-thing-free. Mean scary buzzy things.

But have you ever known the sheer pleasure that is holding a heavy duty cotton lead rope in your mouth? What about chewing on it until it’s completely soaked with spit? Omg, divine.

Water is really fun to stomp and roll in but baths are THE WORST. No good, very bad, much hate. So anything that helps him go longer in between baths, or avoid them altogether, like this stain remover spray, is Presto approved.

You know what’s sooooo annoying? When humans take too long to do things. Like feed him. Or give him treats. Or buy him new balls when he murders them. Patience is not his forte. That includes the amount of time that it takes for a human to put on and tie his rope halter. Like… ain’t nobody got time for that. This handy little hook makes it quick and easy, no tying required. Because standing still is dumb. (if you don’t own a rope halter yet then we’ll throw in one of those too!)

And last but not least, giramoose are very accident prone, which means they almost always have at least 3 wounds at any given time. To help them heal, we require a lot of antibacterial ointment. Like… a lot of it. A. LOT. OF. IT. This stuff makes his owwies feel better so that he can go back out and get more of them! Yay.

So there you have it, some of Presto’s most favorite items in the whole world, shipped straight to whoever wins! So far he’s only had 3 posts on the Futurity page – a January intro post, his breeding/pedigree vlog in February, and his starting U/S vlog in March. His next one isn’t due until May, so you’ve got a little while til then.

In the meantime there are lots of other starting vlogs still being posted too. They’re pretty fun to watch, to see how other people introduce their young horses to things for the first time. I’ve already gleaned something that I’ll be using in the future. While likes/comments/shares on Presto’s posts are the only ones that count for this particular contest, the Futurity does give away their own prizes throughout the year to people who comment and like and share and ask questions. I greatly encourage you to look through the videos from all the different entrants, if you feel so inclined. Your interactions with the page help bring it more attention and expand the audience, and that’s what we’re after. Plus, let’s give all the entrants some love – each and every one of these horses has been years of blood, sweat, and tears for someone, and they also represent some big hopes and dreams. Sometimes just a simple handful of likes can make someone’s day, so please spread the love if and when you can!

At least a couple times a month I get emails or DMs from people asking me to help them find information on their horse’s pedigree or background. As you can probably tell from my extreme level of nerdiness about all things pedigree, I have spent a lot of time falling deep into rabbit holes on the internet looking for information. Especially when I’m doing spreadsheets for my “It’s in the Blood” series… you’d be amazed how freakin hard it can be to find information on even the most famous of horses sometimes (especially the Irish ones, omg). Names change, details don’t get entered… it’s a mess.

So I figured I would make a little reference post sharing what websites I use most when it comes to pedigree research or similar information. There are some really useful databases out there if you know where to look, although I have to say that none of them are totally complete – hence why I use several instead of just one.

Thoroughbreds

Thoroughbreds are obviously the easiest, assuming you have their registered name. If you’re lucky the horse will be showing under their JC name and it’s as easy as making a trip to Equibase, where you can see their sale history, race history, and pedigree, all for free. You can watch race replays through Equibase too, if you have a subscription (or you can buy a day pass for $5.25).

However some tracks have race replays available for free, depending on how far back you need to go. If it’s a California track you can go to Cal Racing and search by date, track, and race (which you know from looking at the horse’s Equibase results tab). You have to have an account for that site, but it’s free. For other tracks just try googling the track’s name with “race replays” and see what you come up with, you might get lucky.

If you want to see if said horse has any siblings, you can go to the Dam’s Foal Search page and look for them that way. I usually then take that information to facebook and google and run a search to see if I can find pics or info about the siblings.

Another option for researching TB’s is Pedigree Query, although that database is not as complete and anyone can go in and edit anything, so I always prefer to use Equibase first. Sometimes there will be pictures of the horse or it’s parents or grandparents in PQ though, so it may be fun for a quick consult just to see (CANTER often puts pics in PQ if the horse comes through their program, so if it was a CANTER horse you might be lucky and find a fresh-of-the-track pic). You can also go in and put pics and info of your own horse into PQ if you want to, just in case anyone happens to come looking later. You just go to the horse’s pedigree page, hover over Maintenance, and then click Add/Edit Information.

If you don’t know the horse’s JC name then your options are slimmer.

For a horse competing at the national level you can look in USEF via their Horse Search and use the “All Aliases” option – sometimes you’ll get lucky and it’ll actually have the horse’s aliases (which might be the JC name) or at least list the parent’s names (and then you can use the Dam’s Foal Search combined with the birth year on Equibase to come up with a JC name) if the rider/owner put that information in. A lot of times they don’t, but… worth a shot. I think you need a USEF membership (even just at the “fan” level) to use this search function. However, you can pretty much always find a promo code for a free USEF fan membership. If you can’t, give me a holler and I’ll find one for you.

If it’s a lower level eventer you can look in the USEA Horse search database to see if they entered the parent’s names.

If you still come up empty, your final options are creative Googling – which is worth a shot because sometimes you can find a website or something and hit the jackpot – or facebook. If you’re super creepy (like me. Yes I’ve done this.), you can always try to find the owner, message them, and see if they know the information. There’s no shame in my game, and it’s paid off more than once. Worst thing they can do is ignore you (no skin off my back) or think you’re crazy (they’re probably right).

Warmbloods/Sporthorses

Things get a little more complicated on this side of the spectrum, mostly because there isn’t one centralized motherload database. So, bear with me here and I’ll run you through some options.

The first thing I usually do is go plug the horse’s name into Horsetelex and Hippomundo. Yes, I always do both. They’re both good databases, but each has their pros and cons (Hippomundo is sometimes missing horses that Horsetelex has, but Horsetelex often isn’t as up to date on performance results as Hippomundo). So I usually pop open two tabs and search for the horse in both sites. If all you want to do is look up a horse to view it’s basic pedigree, they’re both free for that function. Fun Fact: all 3 Belgian registries (BWP, sBs, Zangersheide) have a partnership with Hippomundo, so any horse registered with one of those 3 registries is automatically entered into Hippomundo (as of… 2012ish? I can’t remember when that started.). If you’re looking for a Belgian-registered horse, Hippomundo is your place. For example, Presto is registered sBs, so they entered him when he was issued his papers.

Ok, so… let’s say you want to do more than just view the horse’s pedigree. What if you want to find out if the horse has other siblings? You can use both of these sites to do that, however, keep in mind that they aren’t always complete. Especially if the sibling never did anything of note in sport, or wasn’t used as a breeding animal. If it’s sitting in someone’s backyard doing nothing, odds are that it won’t show up in your searching UNLESS it was Belgian-registered or it’s breeder/owner cared enough to enter it into the database themselves at some point. Fair warning. But, it’s still worth a look.

To find this on Horstelex, there are two steps: 1) go to the horse’s pedigree page. 2) Click on their dam (remember horses are only considered siblings or half siblings if they share a dam) 3) on the dam’s pedigree page click on Progeny

If you want to look at the sire’s production instead, you would use the same steps – click on his name in the pedigree, go to his page, and click on Progeny. Some stallions have hundreds and hundreds of progeny in there, and there’s a handy “Sport” column where it’ll show what level the horse has competed to. BEWARE though, this isn’t always up to date. And for the eventers, they haven’t yet switched over to the new star system (it’s coming) so… I wouldn’t totally trust what’s in there. If it says a horse has competed to 3* eventing for example, I’d go verify it myself by searching the horse’s FEI record.

Ok, so.. Hippomundo. This site is usually more complete and up to date, and has more fun features (plus is a lot faster, if you’re impatient like me). However, you do need a subscription to access a lot of the features. You can get a one month free trial of their Basic subscription with the code COTH21 or BIGTALK21 – that’ll give you access to the horse’s sport results, rankings, full pedigree, and a few other features. If you’re a supernerd or a breeder the Premium yearly subscription is worthwhile because you can add horses to track, get notified when they have sport results, get access to all kinds of reports, follow riders, use their foal planner feature, follow your homebreds, have a “my broodmares” database, etc etc. If you’re just doing a basic sibling search, though, do the free month subscription of the Basic plan and you’re golden.

For that function Hippomundo works similarly in that you just enter the horse in the search bar, click on it, and go to their pedigree. From there you’d click on the dam’s name, go to her pedigree, hover over Horse in the upper right, and click Offspring. That’ll show you whatever other horses are in their database that she has produced.

If you want to look up the sire, same steps. Hippomundo makes it easier to sort the stallion’s offspring though, like for instance I can go into Mighty Magic, get a list of his offspring and then say “Ok, I want to see how many have competed to X level in X sport” by using the dropdown

This is really handy if you’re looking to breed and want to research what a particular stallion has produced in what sport and on what kind of mares, obviously.

From my experience Hippomundo has tended to be more up to date with sport results, and Horsetelex has tended to include more horses. Hence me using both especially when I’m looking for offspring from a particular stallion or mare. If you’re a breeder Hippomundo also lets you create a Breeder page, so if someone is looking at one of your horses and clicks on your name, it’ll take them to a page with your contact info, where you’re located, a list of the best horses you’ve bred, etc. Pretty cool.

Ugh, the Irish

Ok, moving on to the bane of my existence: the Irish horses. OMfreakinG y’all, you’ve never seen such incomplete information in your life until you’ve gone searching for Irish horse pedigrees. The truth is that a lot of these horses, especially 20+ years ago, were bred by farmers who just did not prioritize putting information down when they sent in their registration paperwork. Because of that, there are huge gaps in just about every Irish pedigree, especially if it’s traditional ID/ISH vs Continental breeding. Not only is this frustrating for the sake of lineage, it also makes it really hard to get accurate blood percentages. Drives me batty.

Horsetelex and Hippomundo are especially lacking in the Irish horse pedigrees, probably because none of the aforementioned farmers have come along and put any of this information in, particularly further back down the line. So, if you have an Irish horse, my suggested database to use is the Irish Horse Register. You need an account but it’s free. You can go to their Horse Search page and search by any of the listed criteria. IF there is any pedigree data to be had for the horse, the IHR is the place that will have it.

When you find the horse you want, click into their info page

And then to get to their pedigree click on the Pedigree tab at the top. You can view by 4, 5, or 6 generations.

Seriously though, there are big gaps in their data that are unlikely to ever be filled and that’s just the way it is. Join me in my lament.

There are a few other features in IHR that you can play around with too… it’s a more simple tool without a lot of the bells and whistles of Horsetelex or Hippomundo, but it’s got the basics. It’s certainly your best bet if the horse in question is registered Irish.

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Those are my main sites that I use, although a few others are worth a notable mention:

AllBreed – I have all the same complaints with this site as I do with Pedigree Query (same site just hits different databases) but for some reason American breeders love to use it. I wish they wouldn’t, Horsetelex or Hippomundo are both WAY BETTER, but alas here we are. So if I’m struggling to find info about a horse and I know it was US or Canadian bred, I might try searching AllBreed just in case. Sometimes you get lucky.

FEI horse lookup – I mentioned this one briefly earlier, but it’s come in handy other ways too. Assuming the horse you’re looking for has competed to the FEI level, sometimes you can find a horse’s sire or dam listed in their FEI info, or the name of their breeder. IF their rider/owner chose to put that information in, anyway.

A couple other European pedigree sites:

Sporthorse Data – I find this one to be less complete than the other two main ones, but I’ll use it if I’m desperate and grabbing at straws.

Rimondo – this one is more complete than the above but the vast majority of their info is behind a paid firewall and I don’t like the site enough to pay for yet another subscription. They have a lot of pics and video though.

Now, what about if a sporthorse/warmblood is registered under one name but shown under another? Same advice as far as looking in USEF for aliases, BUT worth nothing that Horsetelex and Hippomundo include any known aliases in their search results as well. For instance – Off the Record was originally known as Cooley Stateside. Luckily someone put this alias into the major databases, so searching for either name will return a result.

Breeders and riders, take note of this and enter any aliases that your horses may have! You can do it by editing the horse’s information from their pedigree page. (I’m always happy to help anyone with this if they need assistance navigating any of these sites)

I think I’ll stop there, this is already a massive information dump that a lot of people don’t care about. There are more hints and tricks and websites, so if you try all of this and still aren’t having any luck, ask me and I’ll see if I can help. For most horses this should be sufficient though. Wait, no – one more piece of advice: never underestimate the power of a facebook search. You’d be amazed what you can find just by poking around there.

I swear I’m done now. Many gold stars if you actually read all this.