Month: May 2021

That was a big and busy weekend. Presto of course did his first event, and I have a lot to share about that (guys, we officially have ourselves an event horse!) but I also need more time to put together that recap, so for today you get the other big news that definitely cannot wait until Foal Friday: Stormie had her baby – Ollie has a sister! And omg, she was worth the wait. Say hello to Pheodora WTW aka Teddy.

We’re pretty sure she’s grulla (and the friend who has been breeding grullas for 30+ years says she’s a classic grulla foal), but hair is being sent off to test to make sure. She’s definitely got dun factor, that much is certain, and NO GRAY GENE!!!! Michelle actually got what she asked for, what are the odds? Well ok,12.5% was the odds for grulla with no gray and then half that for it being a filly and her odds for grulla filly were 6.25%… time to buy a lottery ticket? Maybe this makes up for both of Chanel’s foals being colts.

I think she hit the absolute jackpot with this one. Teddy is very sweet and cuddly and basically wants to just sit in your lap and be petted. She’s very into people, for sure, so there are a lot of nose pics. Which is fine, because it’s a really friggin cute nose.

I’m pretty sure Michelle has met her soulmate in baby horse form and safe to say she may possibly have a favorite of the 2021 crop. Stormie really outdid herself on this one, and gave her some perfect markings to boot.

When Teddy’s not being cuddly she’s pretty darn spunky, so I think she’ll be happy to get out into a bigger turnout this week so she can fully master her legs and her speed. Time will tell if she’s quite as spunky or mischievous as Ollie was.

It’s fun to see another Usandro foal on US soil, too – I think this is his 4th now? His offspring in France continue to do really well so I think we’re all eagerly waiting on these guys to start to grow up and hit the show ring. Of course, Teddy won’t be for sale, she’ll be retained for the breeding program, but hopefully we’ll be able to get her paired up with a rider so she can compete too. So far she looks to have the best qualities from both parents so I think she might end up being a pretty fancy little sportpony.

Still waiting on Ginger (who has looked ready to foal for like a week now) plus Obi is getting ready to join Peyton and Patrick in their field, so we’ll see what else we’ve got to share by Friday. For now, hopefully this gets your week started off right!

Alright, I teased this kiddo to you guys last week but it’s time for his official introduction! Michelle was really excited when Chanel started shaping up like she was going to foal on May 4th. Star Wars day is fun after all (I mean I’m not into Star Wars but most people are and they say it’s fun so let’s go with that) and she was ready to go with the perfect P name: Padawan. But then Chanel foaled on May 3rd and kinda… put a bit of a wrench in that plan. I reasoned that she must still be on European time, therefore she thought it was the 4th, so it still counts. Close enough, anyway? By that point Michelle already loved the name Padawan, so… too late to be undone. The barn name options were between Obi and Jedi – she tried out both for a few days to see which one fit more. Obi it is!

He’s bay, like his full brother Patrick, but unlike our beloved Patticakes, Obi won’t gray out. He’ll stay bay, and he’s got 3 white feet and a big nice blaze as icing on the cake. Right off the bat I think he looks a little beefier than Patrick, but we’ll see what he looks like in another week or so. The game of comparing and contrasting the two brothers has already begun.

Michelle was a little bummed I think to get another colt (she really wanted a filly so she could retain it for her breeding program – we don’t keep colts, they’re all for sale automatically) but he sure is a super cute little thing. Fancy and nicely put together and pretty full of himself. He does have the whole “really really ridiculously good looking” thing in common with Patrick.

If those boys keep posing like that all the time these Foal Friday posts are gonna get really long really fast. Who can narrow down which photos to post when they’re THAT cute?

Aside from just standing there looking ri-damn-diculously adorable, he has a lot of things that he already really likes to do. While Patrick is more of a bouncing kind of guy, Obi leans more Pippa’s direction and is a big fan of galloping. A lot. All over the place.

He also was very quick to figure out the pole in his turnout, and showed a lot of intelligence in how he approached it. He popped over it a few times slowly, figuring out his feet, then gradually amped up the speed, the repetitions, and the angles. A lot of foals are either a little hesitant of it for a while, a little overly careful, or so bold that they just go at it 100 miles an hour without putting much thought behind it. Obi, not so much. He’s a thinker, this kid. And a couple times when he got the distance wrong he went right back and did something a little different the next time to fix it. Pretty cool to see from a week old foal, the instincts are fun to see on display.

He’s clever. Really clever.

And while he wasn’t bred to event, apparently he’d like to audition for the part, because he also conquered the “water” (ok fine, the puddle) straight away. He trotted up to it, took a little peek to make sure it was safe, and then marched right on in.

He’s an interesting mix of intelligence, carefulness, and bravery. At least initially. It’ll be neat to see how he evolves over time, especially once he’s introduced to the other foals and goes into a herd dynamic. Hopefully next week they’ll all be able to meet, which I’m sure Chanel will be really happy about. Obi is currently torturing her in any number of ways, like she’s his own personal jungle gym.

I’m especially interested to see how things unfold between him and Pippa. He’s a more dominant, in-your-face personality than Patrick, and he’s pretty big for his britches at the moment. I mean, my money is DEFINITELY on Pippa,… he might be in for a bit of a shock to find out that others won’t tolerate his nonsense quite as graciously as Chanel.

We did have one new addition overnight – Stormie had a filly! It’s too dark to get pics so y’all have to wait til next week. Ginger will be soon to follow I think, she’s 334 days and has some actual white milk that looks pretty close to ready. Hopefully by this time next week we’ll have two new faces!

I was trying to wait to post this video until after the US Event Horse Futurity page shared it, but I also wanted to try something a little different with this one and today is the last day for me to really be able to make that happen. So, y’all get a little advance screening I guess!

Since this is the first Futurity vlog video with Megan doing the talking/training I thought it might be kind of fun to open up a little Q&A opportunity. Part of the goal of the Futurity is spotlighting the young horse trainers and offering an educational opportunity to the public, so it seems on par with their mission. Basically how it’ll work is you guys can submit questions you want to ask her (either about the video, or Presto, or general horse training, young horses, riding… anything you want) and I’ll get answers for you and then write them all up in a post. Hopefully that sounds fun to anyone besides me? I feel like you guys will probably come up with some pretty good questions. Feel free to either drop them in a comment, or you can DM them to me on Insta or message me on facebook. I’ll collect them all, get answers this weekend, and then get it all posted next week!

If y’all like this idea we can do it after every Futurity vlog with Megan (the next one would be July), so let me know what you think!

May 12 is a pretty significant day around here. First and foremost, it’s Sadie’s birthday. I have a very hard time wrapping my head around the fact that she’s 14 today. How? Where does time go? I still vividly remember little bebe foal Sadie, which manages to simultaneously feel like a lifetime ago yet only yesterday. Aging is bizarre.

She’s worn a lot of different hats in her 14 years. She hit the trail early, going on all kinds of off road adventures as a 3 year old.

She learned about obstacle courses with a cowboy

She did the hunters

And then she switched over to the jumpers

And she even tried her hoof at cross country once

Before she went off to do her favorite job: making babies.

And, most importantly, making my favorite baby, who I adore beyond words. Sadie has had a big impact on my life since before she was even born and I’ve been lucky to be involved in her life in some capacity since day 1. She’s a boss mare with a lot of opinions, but she’s the best girl in every way that counts, always has been and always will be. Happy 14th, big mama, my original OG homebred!

The other thing born on May 12 was this blog. Somehow it’s been 7 years of this nonsense.

Lauren made me do it, and I have to say I think I actually did a good job of sticking with it. It certainly morphed into something I never intended or imagined, and I feel like it’s gone through a few different lifecycles along the way. I do still have every intention of rebranding and changing the name, I just haven’t actually done it yet. Maybe once summer hits and it’s too hot to do anything else. Either way… gosh. Seven years of at or near 5 posts a week. That’s a lot. Some of y’all have been reading since the very beginning, which is really the part that deserves a medal. Even I don’t know what I’m rambling on about sometimes.

Happy May 12th!

Am I the only one who can’t see the word shrubbery without their brain immediately going to Monty Pyton and the Holy Grail? Just wondering.

This post has absolutely nothing to do with that but I figured I’d just start with a tangent and get it out of the way early. Anyway, moving on.

The social media drama this week (aside from Bob Baffert’s drugged Derby winner, which I am not touching with a 10′ pole taped to another 10′ pole, Imma just sit over here and sip my metaphorical tea while that shit goes down, thanks) is Doug Payne’s DR penalty at Jersey Fresh. If you haven’t seen it, he talked about it on his facebook page and then the COTH forum picked it up and started a discussion.

Long story short, Doug made a creative route through some roped off galloping lanes (Doug takes “creative” routes a lot, just in very recent history you may remember him cutting through a bunch of landscaping at Tryon or jumping over a bush to tighten a turn at Kentucky) a few times on course and got handed a Dangerous Riding penalty. The debate is whether or not said penalty was warranted or fair.

To start with, let’s look at the current FEI rule for what constitutes Dangerous Riding.

525 Dangerous Riding
525.1 Definition
Any Athlete who, at any time during the Competition deliberately or unintentionally by
incompetence is exposing himself, his Horse or any third party to a higher risk than what is
strictly inherent to the nature of the Competition will be considered to have acted dangerously
and will be penalised accordingly to the severity of the infringement.
Such acts may include without limitation any of the following:
a) Riding out of control (Horse clearly not responding to the Athletes restraining or driving
aids).
b) Riding fences too fast or too slow.
c) Repeatedly standing off fences too far (pushing the Horse to the foot of the fence, firing
the Horse to the fence).
d) Repeatedly being ahead or behind the Horse movement when jumping.
e) Series of dangerous jumps.
f) Severe lack of responsiveness from the Horse or the Athlete.
g) Continuing after three clear refusals, a fall, or any form of elimination
h) Endangering the public in any way (e.g. jumping out of the roped track).
i) Jumping obstacles not part of the course.
j) Willful obstruction of an overtaking Athlete and/or not following the instructions of the
Officials causing danger to another Athlete.
k) Pressing a tired Horse

Exactly what scenario incurs this penalty and exactly how the reprimand goes down (warning, penalty points, yellow card, etc) is generally up to the discretion of the officials on site. Note that while many possible scenarios are listed outright in the rule, it also says “acts may include without limitation” – leaving it open ended for officials to apply this rule to any variety of scenarios that they feel may constitute a dangerous situation.

So, back to Doug. He posted some helmet camera footage of one of the times he left the specified roped off galloping lane to take a short cut through another area. According to people on site, he did it elsewher too, but we only see this one time so let’s just go with this one. He says himself that he planned this well in advance and even discussed it with the TD in advance, who warned him that if he did this he would be doing so at his own risk and could possibly open himself up for a penalty if they felt he endangered people, vehicles, equipment, himself, the horse, etc. As I mentioned above, he has a history of taking “shortcuts” through and/or around things that the course designer really didn’t intend. Whether that’s clever or dangerous probably depends on the situation and your own interpretation. Either way, the officials on site that day chose to issue Doug a DR penalty and penalty points when he finished his XC round.

To complicate things, someone else that day also got a DR (for riding through a pedestrian crossing), but instead of an actual penalty they got a warning. I have no idea if that person’s shortcut was intentional or accidental or what other factors may have been at play in that particular decision.

While jumping the ropes is clearly outlined in the DR penalty rule, it doesn’t really say anything about taking paths around openly roped galloping lanes or cutting through gaps at non-roped areas. Of course, I think it’s also safe to say that once you leave the track the course designer intended your horse to take, you’re quickly into a gray area. Will your path be clear of people, equipment, ropes, etc? Once you leave the specified track, who knows.

So the question is – did he deserve the DR penalties? Was it a fair application of the rule? What he did is not specified anywhere in the rule as constituting a DR. BUT, as previously mentioned, the wording of the rule allows leeway for other situations that have not been specifically listed. We can see from Doug’s video that other than passing sort of close to a photographer, he didn’t seem to come across any issues with the particular shortcut on that video. Not that time, anyway. I think that may be the reasoning though. If you make this kind of thing a standard practice, going in and out of roped off areas, crossing landscaping, jumping over decorations, etc, at some point it’s probably not going to end well. I have a feeling that intention (there was definitely nothing accidental in this case) and the repetition of the behavior may have had an impact on the official’s decision here. Of course, I’m definitely not an official so that’s purely speculation.

What are your thoughts? Do you think a creative route should be ok on cross country as long as nothing bad happens? Or should riders not try to take the risk of trying to “outwit” the course design/roped off paths? I love a good rule debate!