Month: April 2021

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.