I finally got the pro pics from Texas Rose last month, and omg y’all this little noodle horse. I couldn’t choose just a few so I ended up buying the all images package like a creepy overly obsessed horsemom, because… ya know… baby’s first event. I had to buy them all, right? There are some really cute ones though, so no regrets.
Who’s horse is this even, it can’t possibly the same one that was sitting in my pasture 6 months ago murdering balls on the regular?
While I opted to end Henry’s horse show early, Presto was still having himself a grand time. He had about 4 hours between dressage and stadium, and he was the last of Megan’s 4 rides (or I guess 8 rides for the day, with dressage and stadium for each horse) to go. The morning hadn’t been TOO terrible with the cloud cover – humid AF but not that unbearably hot. As soon as the sun came out though, it got absolutely miserable pretty much immediately. Luckily Presto copes with the heat really well, and seemed more than happy to come back out and warm up for some jompies.
By this point the ride times had kind of devolved into a “sorta numerical order but also sorta whoever is just there and wants to go” type of thing, and he ended up having to wait for a bit after a larger group. Then there was a short hold when a horse slipped and fell in the muddiest corner, pancaking himself and his rider to the ground. It took her a while to get up but they were ok thank goodness. I have to admit that up until then I felt like maybe I’d been a little silly to scratch Henry, but when I saw that I was like nope I definitely made the right decision for him, I know he’d have been struggling in the corners. Plus like, if I’d been sitting on him in warmup when that happened I’d have been like nah fam, I’m out. Really don’t need a repeat of Coconino stadium where he slid through a fence, thanks. After she got up they came and put a load of sand in that corner, which seemed to help a little.
Of course, PestoPasta was still having zero issues with the footing at all. He had yet to slip or stumble or look at all unsure of any footfall. After the slight delay Megan went back to warmup to do some rapid fire transitions to make sure she had some rideability, then they went in for their round.
The course was set on the softer side for sure, it looked a little small and nothing was particularly spooky or difficult. It was a bit loopy though, with lots of turns and bends. Presto naturally didn’t look twice at anything and the round was pretty steady, aside from the outside 5 stride to 2 stride line that he REALLY thought he wanted to do in a 4 but Megan insisted that he must do in 5. Party pooper (Presto’s words). He lightly tapped a couple rails but nothing came down… I think his shape in the air is getting a little better.
He did have time penalties though, as did literally everyone except 3 people. Yes, that’s correct, only 3 people made the time out of dozens of rounds. I was standing there for a while during a few different divisions and even people who made pretty freakin tidy turns and left out strides were getting time penalties, and we’re talking an average of around 15 seconds over – not a small amount. I have a strong suspicion that it was either wheeled incorrectly or the math was incorrect, because there’s no way that a tidy round with appropriate pace should be that far over time. I personally felt like the time should have been adjusted early on in the day when it was first realized that no one was getting it (because, ya know, the last thing we should want to do at a schooling show on muddy ground is potentially encourage people to try to make tighter turns and go faster), but it was what it was. Presto’s round was very appropriately ridden, both pace-wise and path-wise. He was happy and eager to jump around and looked plenty confident and forward-thinking, so you can’t be unhappy about that.
After stadium I hosed him off, let him graze for a bit, and then he went back to his stall and fan to get away from the heat.
They didn’t finalize the XC course maps until later in the afternoon, because they were still out there checking the footing and deciding which fences needed to be taken off. The entire far field was extremely wet, along with patches all along basically the first half of the course. In the end 6 jumps were removed from the Novice (2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 12) leaving them with 13 efforts. There were definitely still some really boggy areas on the course, especially around the water and the stretch in between 5 and 8, but it all seemed manageable enough for Presto. All the jumps looked totally fine for him too, pretty straightforward, and I didn’t anticipate that he’d have issues with any of it. Which is… kind of a nice feeling to have at a horse’s second event and first Novice. I figured if anything he might spook a bit at the bridge crossings between the fields, which are narrow and dropped off on each side about 10-15 feet down to a creek. Those bridge crossings scare even some of the most veteran horses sometimes. By this point he’d seen them a couple times though, and they had to cross one even just going to and from the barn, so hopefully by Sunday morning it would be moot.
Sunday morning went by quick juggling Megan’s four horses, since she had two in the Prelim and two in the Novice. It was also extremely hot and sticky and just disgusting outside… watching her get on horse after horse was making ME hot. But we shuffled through them all pretty quickly, and Presto was the last of her group to go, just before 10am. He’d had to wait by XC warmup in his bridle so we could switch her saddle over to him after she got off the other Novice horse (something he had to do all weekend, which is good for him). We were standing sort of near the water while we waited and every time a horse came through he watched them very intently. I think if he could talk there would have been a lot of very enthusiastic Buddy The Elf type of cheerful feedback from Presto “Look at you, running and jomping! You look amazing! That’s incredible! WOW! You’re so fast!” while he watched the other horses go.
By the time Megan got on him I think the searing sun had baked any possible wildness out of him, because he went straight to business. She spent all of about 5 minutes w/t/c, jumped two jumps, and went straight to the start box.
We couldn’t see the first few jumps in the other field, but soon enough he popped out of the trees on his way to 8. He jumped the house, cantered through the water (like a big kid!), through the swamp and over the ramp at 11, then the little hanging log at 13. That all looked very easy. Hillary and I jumped on her golf cart to follow him over to the next field (it was too bouncy to try to video but it was kinda fun to follow along with him from a distance). There was a nice galloping stretch between 13 and 14AB, and you could see him starting to click into his gallop a little bit. He jumped the combination at 14AB beautifully out of stride, swung around to 15 which also jumped great, and then disappeared from view again into the trees. He popped back out pretty quickly though, having no trouble with 16 or 17, and cantered easily over the little ramp at the last. It was a really easy and very smooth round – quite professional!
He had a double clear round, finishing in 4th place. Most importantly though, he again put together three solid phases, and managed to make some clear improvements over his first show despite not having worked much in between. He’s in that phase where he’s learning so fast, and his confidence in his job is very evident. The XC especially seems to be his strongest phase, he just eats it right up.
With that we’ve got ourselves a Novice pony! Next up Presto is heading to Chatt (knock on wood that he doesn’t do anything dumb between now and then anyway) in Georgia for the first two weekends in July to tackle his first YEH class and run the Novice there. I get to go with him, so I can’t wait!
Well that horse show was… something. It was considerably muddier than I expected, with plenty of standing water and even more boggy mud. You know what horse is a terrible freaking mudder?
I’ve never really ridden one that feels as terrible in mud as Henry does, but bless his heart he just really sucks at dealing with conditions like that and always has. I can’t even really describe how bad it feels. He balls himself up and gets angry, and loses all confidence in where he’s putting his feet. His little downhill short-strided way of going really doesn’t help things. The only time we’ve ever really had problems at shows with him has been when it’s muddy. Plus he’s not drilled and tapped at the moment because, ya know, he’s not really showing right now, so I didn’t have the option of putting studs in (I definitely would have if I could, that probably would have helped significantly). So… I was pretty skeptical about Henry’s ability to horse show as soon as I saw the footing.
I hacked him on Friday when I got there and he felt ok in the higher areas of the field, so I was hoping it would dry enough by the next morning to be passable. I decided to do dressage and see how he felt, and well… that was a shitshow. As soon as he got down there in that boggy ring he got super up and down, and I ended up just avoiding the muddiest parts of the ring (had to kind of chuckle at the “not accurate circle” and “did not use corner” comments… yes ma’am you are 100% correct, that was intentional). Honestly though by the second friggin circle I almost just stopped him and retired, it felt that unpleasant. A few horses pulled shoes, some struggled as much as Henry did, and others didn’t even seem to notice the mud. Henry though – he just was not handling that footing at-the-heck-all, so I went and scratched him after dressage. The footing in the showjumping was a lot better than that dressage ring (except for a couple of the corners) but I didn’t see a point in potentially causing a problem or rattling his confidence over a Novice round at a schooling show. I’d rather be overly cautious and save him for another day. Plus it was WAY hotter and more humid than the forecast had originally called for, and y’all know that’s really hard weather for him. Just not worth it. So, Henry’s weekend ended very early.
Presto on the other hand… he was one of the horses that didn’t even seem to notice that it was muddy. That kid has always been pretty good on his feet and on all different surfaces and that’s definitely true under saddle too. So, we’ll recap his show experience instead.
They allowed schooling the day before the show started, so Megan took advantage of that and got him out to pop over some stuff. The plan right now is to do the YEH at Chatt in July, and 1) the 4yo YEH in the second half of the year includes a lot of Novice, 2) Chatt is pretty big and visually imposing anyway. Megan entered him in the Novice this weekend for that reason, but the Novice at this show was still soft, especially compared to Chatt, so jumping a couple bigger or more challenging things was a smart decision. Plus, like… Presto has yet to notice height or complexity in anything that’s been asked of him. He’s bold and willing and finds it all pretty easy. Megan hopped over a few smaller fences to warm up, then did a couple of Training combinations and called it a day.
It’s easy to forget how little this horse has really done and seen, or that he’s only been in training for 4 months, he comes at it so naturally. In the month since his first show at Texas Rose he’s had most of that time off, and had only jumped once. He’s only XC schooled a few times ever. But it just… makes perfect sense to him. Plus Megan has developed him well and prepared his basics so that the jumps just come more easily, and he definitely doesn’t find it to be physically challenging at all. I don’t think you’d look at him and guess he was as inexperienced as he really is. Definitely a different caliber horse than I’ve had before (plus, ya know.. never had the benefit of being able to put one in full time pro training, which… makes a huge difference)!
On Saturday for dressage, his warmup got a little bit interesting when a train came through. The edge of the warmup area has a fairly busy train track, and it is LOUD and kinda scary to see a massive train speeding by through the trees. He got a little worried and wound up (as many horses do there) but what I really liked about it is that he was able to go back to work and forget it once the train had passed. He doesn’t carry the tension around in his brain the way Henry does, or work himself up into brain overload. He has a moment, and then goes about his business again. It only took a few minutes to get him back together, and he was able to go in the ring and put down a solid test, train completely forgotten.
He scored 32.9, which was about a point higher than Texas Rose, but I thought it was a better test. He was more consistent in the contact and not wanting to look around/gawk quite as much. He maybe was a little less free in his ground cover, but given the footing I think that’s understandable. The stretchy bits are still hard for him (there’s so much to see, and wouldn’t you rather SEE ALL THE THINGS than stretch your head down?) but he did show a tad more inclination to want to reach down for the bit in the stretch movements in this test than he did in the last one. Considering that he hasn’t worked that much between the two shows, I thought there was still a clear difference, even if the score didn’t show it. Either way though, 32.9 is super respectable for his second ever dressage test and first Novice. He beat me and Henry by like 4 points hahahaha (literally no one is surprised by that, right?).
That was good enough to leave him sitting in 4th after dressage, off to a good start!
Tomorrow, the jumping phases…
I don’t have any time today to dedicate to spinning the usual little Foal Friday tale, so instead I figured I’d let the pictures tell their own story this week. One balanced with equal parts chaos and cuteness, because that’s really what foals are, after all, and this group certainly has plenty of both.
So… I haven’t been to an actual event in almost 2 years. Coconino July 2019, to be exact. We’ve done some things here and there, but quick one day affairs (generally jumper classes) – things that are simple and require very little preparation or brain power. And while the show this weekend is a schooling show, and we’re running Novice for the first time since… 2016(?)… it’s still a multi-day affair that is a couple hours away and therefore requires a lot more effort than anything else we’ve done in the past couple years.
While all the rain means that I’m definitely not very prepared on the riding side of things (who needs to jump a full course within a couple months of a show anyway….) it did at least give me plenty of time to get the rest sorted out. I tried on all my show clothes (some fit, some don’t), waffled over what to wear, and settled on just bringing “options” because decisions are hard. I’ve already been to the grocery store to get food and drinks for the weekend. I managed to remember to find my show XC boots and, uh… wash them. Nothing like using them, tossing them in your trunk, and forgetting about them for 2 years. They got a lot whiter than I expected. I also get to finally debut Henry’s sparkly Majyk Equipe leather boots, so that’s fun. I bodyclipped Henry about a week and a half ago (he does SO much better in the heat when he’s bodyclipped) and fixed up his tail last night. I didn’t re-sculpt the top but I brushed it out and dyed it and banged it, so he doesn’t look feral anymore. He’s officially ready to be seen in public again.
I still have to like… learn my dressage test (bleh) and figure out how to work the newer Cambox v4 that I got over the winter (why does technology get harder as I get older, someone help), but I think I’ve remembered everything. Hopefully. This venue has a weird outlet situation for fans so I’ve got approximately 9000 adapters and extension cords plus two fan options. Henry has to have a fan. I’m packing my trailer today so I guess we’ll see how prepared I feel once that’s done. I think I’ve got my bases covered though. Oh, and I stocked up on Oatmeal Creme Pies, so… Henry should be golden at least.
I can’t do as much about the lack of preparation for the riding aspect. We haven’t XC schooled since last fall, we’ve had one lesson in the past year, haven’t been able to jump hardly at all lately… it’s not ideal by any means but it is what is is. We’ve dropped down two levels from what we were competing at before, Henry feels GREAT in the work we’ve been able to do in between all the rain, and most importantly, this is just for fun. I have zero expectations whatsoever, and if at any point I need to scratch then I will. It’s whatever. Honestly it feels really casual and freeing and I’m excited about having no expectations. I can’t even remember the last time I went to an event and had an actual zero pressure type of situation. It’s exactly what I want right now, after so long away. Plus it’ll be good to ease myself back into things with Henry throughout the rest of this year, so that I’m back in the swing of it by the time Presto comes home and we can hit the ground running without me being quite so dang show-rusty. For now, though, I’m just going to enjoy a fun weekend away with my veteran Best Boy. And, BONUS, the nugget kiddo (aka the baby Best Boy) will be there too!
It was a little touch and go right up until a couple days ago as to whether or not he’d be able to go. Early last week he managed to hurt himself IN HIS STALL – cutting his leg on the inside of his thigh and causing a decent amount of swelling. When Megan found him he was fairly convinced his leg was broken, which was a little worrying because he’s usually pretty stoic. But ya know, an emergency vet call and some diagnostics later ($$$), all was fine. They cleaned the wound, gave him some antibiotics and NSAID’s, and said to get him moving around to help the swelling. Once he was active again he realized it wasn’t as broken as he was convinced it was, and within a few days it was better.
Of course, between that incident and his virus incident a few weeks ago, he’s not worked much since the last show. Megan wanted to jump him some before she decided whether or not to enter him, but he’s totally fine and goes around like he hadn’t missed a day, so… to the horse show it is.
I’m honestly looking forward to this weekend in a way that I haven’t genuinely looked forward to a horse show in a long time. Hopefully it’s a good one!
breedrideevent.com 