Alright, back to the regular Foal Friday gig! This week we’ve got Mr. Obi’s fancy dressed up glamour shots and boy did he ever decide to wear his fancypants for this particular photo shoot. A lot of the time Obi isn’t one to waste energy but I guess all he needed was a crowd, because he definitely put on a show for everyone. Where did these moves come from, baby hippo?
I kind of can’t believe that no one has snatched this dude up yet, to be honest. His brother gets a lot of love but I think Obi might be my “sleeper” pick of this year’s crop. He’s got an absolute ton of personality too, I think he’ll be fun.
Put some braids in him and all the sudden he rises to the occasion, I suppose! I think Obi is a lot fancier than he may seem most of the time. And bold. And cheeky.
Once the YEH wrapped up on Friday we were able to kind of switch from business mode to eventing fan mode. The spreadsheets got tucked away (well, the tangible ones anyway, the ones in my head live there all the time), no notes were taken, and we didn’t have to be at the showgrounds early since the 5* XC wouldn’t start until the afternoon. We took advantage of the relatively free morning and headed up to Bartville Harness & Tack.
Michelle went instant “grabby hands” when she turned the corner and saw all the halters
I don’t really need any tack (what a weird statement to make), so I managed to survive this particular trip unscathed. No money was lost from my wallet. Michelle though, who always needs baby halters, got a whole box full of them.
After Bartville we headed to the show and got dropped off over by the stabling so we could see the horse that Holly was grooming for and put some stuff down in their tack stall. As we were standing there at the barn I happened to glance over my shoulder and who did I see out for a handwalk?
MASON
I mean, I’ll totally admit that I’m a stalker but this time he sought ME out. I tried not to be super creepy watching him walk past but I’m not sure I succeeded in that.
From the barn we headed over to check out more vendors, getting a closer look at all the ones that were down in the infield. Again I didn’t fall victim to anything but I did quite enjoy creepily stroking a few saddles and bridles. By that point they were on the last few horses of the 3* so we headed out toward the cross country to see the last ones leave the start box and pick out where we wanted to wait for the 5* to begin. Ultimately we settled on the first water, since it had some bleachers we could park at to wait and post where we were on Instagram to continue our swag giveaway game.
we came home with zero of these cups, I was impressed by how many people managed to find us
We watched the first few horses come through the water and then packed it up and started to travel around the course. We stopped at all of the major points of interest like the owls, the coffin, the brush combo, the post rails, the down bank, the vee, etc. Since the track kind of ran back on itself we could usually see several jumps from any one location, which made it great for spectating. Pretty sure we saw horses jump basically everything on course.
By the time we made it to the far water (the point at which the course turned around and went back the other way) we thought it was the best place to see as much as we could, so we decided to just stay there for the last group of horses. The crowds weren’t too bad compared to other 5*’s I’ve been to, so we were able to get right up to the ropes for a good view of almost everything.
The longer we stayed at the water, the darker and darker the sky got. I refused to move until we saw Mason come through, and he was one of the last horses of the day. The rain that had been predicted for the afternoon was finally moving in, making for some pretty dramatic dark skies. I was starting to wonder if Mason would end up stuck in the pouring rain or not. Finally though, there he came out on course. Holly got her phone out and brought up the live feed so we could watch him come through the beginning of the course (not that they showed much since Boyd was finishing up at the same time and whenever Boyd is out the camera rarely leaves him). I had an ear on the announcer, an eye on the live stream, and the other ear and eye on the hill, waiting for him to show up. I’ve learned that I would make an absolutely terrible owner for an upper level horse, I was really nervous with him on course. It probably sounds weird to say that I feel very invested in that horse, but I do. He’s just so similar to mine, and I’ve been watching him since he was a 6 year old, so yeah… I’m emotionally invested at this point. It’s nervewracking when he’s going around and you don’t have eyes on him. All three of us were in the same boat though, and Julie sneakily videoed our whole ordeal in hyperlapse, which is funny as hell in retrospect.
Finally though, he crested the hill, hopped the big table, and headed for us at the water. He was really bold through there, although he stumbled a bit up the bank and just about gave me a heart attack. Luckily he’s catty and recovered quickly, hopped the log and the skinny, and galloped away looking strong. We could see him go down into the dip where the vee was (and we could sorta see the big screen in the other field) and then over the roller coaster and down the big bank. After that we tried to pick him up on the live stream but again they showed very little of him after that because now Lauren Nicholson was on course. Gah. They’re killing me with their lack of Mason coverage.
Not long after Lauren came through, the rain finally caught up with us and the skies opened up. Great timing for the riders since everyone got finished just in time. Naturally though the water we’d been parked at was at the very far end of the course from the entrance/parking, so we got to enjoy a nice long (LONG) hike through the woods in the pouring rain. Every square inch of me was soaked to the bone – shoes, hair, backpack, you name it.
the beginning of our long journey
By the time we got back to the car the rain had pretty much tapered off (OF COURSE) but by then we were all a sad bunch of drowned rats. We got back to the airbnb, changed out of all our wet clothes, and ordered delivery for dinner. I deserved every bite of that cheesesteak after all the walking and then the total submersion.
The next day it was COLD. Like ok probably not that cold to locals, considering how many people I saw walking around in shorts (SAVAGES) but it was in the 50’s and I was a popsicle. I’m a Texan, I spend 8 months of the year acclimated to 90 degrees or higher. I also really didn’t have enough clothes for that weather, because part of my plan had been to buy a hoodie or a vest, thus I didn’t pack any, thus when I didn’t actually find and buy either of those things I was a little SOL. I put on my thickest sunshirt (lols, Texans are stupid) and my only jacket which was pretty lightweight. We went out to breakfast, sat outside because it’s what was available, and I proceeded to freeze my ass off. Michelle was also cold so she went a couple doors down to the Hallmark store and came back with some beanies, one of which I promptly stole and pulled over my entire head and face.
dramatic much
My nose was cold, okay? But then the nice lady brought me my hot chocolate, so I had to emerge slightly to drink it.
Dusty thought he was funny, sneaking these pics… (which he titled: Cold Blogger in the Wild on his Instagram)
I was a little warmer after the beanie, hot chocolate, and some pancakes, but I still made it the first priority as soon as we got to the show to find a sweatshirt or something. I remembered seeing the cowl neck Noble Outfitters sweatshirts at one of the vendors so we headed straight there and found one blessed non-hideously colored one left in my size. I guess I wasn’t the only cold person because when I paid the lady at the register asked if I wanted her to cut the tags off so I could wear it out. Indeed yes, yes I did. With another layer added I was much happier, so we proceeded to the stands to find our seats just as the showjumping was about to start.
Masooooooon (is the whole post just a testament to how much I stalk Mason? Maybe.)
We didn’t get the cheapest seats but we didn’t get particularly expensive ones either, and I have to say they were pretty good. Definitely close to the action and with a really good view. Comparable to the view you get at Burghley, closer up than Kentucky. I know Michelle and Dusty and Julie got some good pics with their real cameras. My ass was starting to get a little cold on the bleachers by the very end but otherwise no complaints. The crowd went absolutely WILD for Boyd, and it was kind of fun to be there when an American(ish) finally won a 5* after a 13 year drought. I was mostly impressed by the representation of the American Thoroughbred – there were some REALLY good ones… I can’t wait to see how PD’s Sea of Clouds (Malibu Moon x Jolie’s Halo x Alydar) develops as he gets more experience, that is one seriously nice horse. For a 10yo OTTB at his first 5 star I thought he put in a fantastic performance. He had a nice TB in the 5yo’s too, by Union Rags out of a Meadowlake x Herculean mare. Lots of really nice sporty TB’s to see throughout the entire weekend.
That’s a wrap on our latest adventure! Between Ocala and Maryland I feel like we crammed a lot into one week, although I was definitely tired by the time we got home. We walked about 30 miles, and that last 6am flight home was a killer. I think we got a lot accomplished though, and definitely had a good time catching up with friends. More fun things are in the works!
Originally I was gonna stuff all of the Maryland trip into one post but that got ridiculously long and full of pictures so… it’s a two-parter.
We flew from Orlando to Philly on Wednesday night, then took an Uber from Philly to our airbnb in Elkton. My friends Julie and Dusty had the inside info on a great little house only a few miles from the show, so when they offered to share I was all over that like white on rice. It was at a gorgeous little farm and so close to the show, it worked out supremely well for us. We got to bed pretty late on Wednesday night, but were at the showgrounds bright and early on Thursday to watch the YEH dressage.
bright and early was more like foggy and early but boy it was pretty
First of all, the new stuff they’ve built there at Fair Hill is jaw-dropping. The main arena, the track, all the cross country, the extra arenas… like, world class. Gorgeous footing, immaculate turf… it’s really stunning to walk into. Definitely smaller and more condensed than the other 5*’s I’ve been to, but really top tier in quality. They funnel you through the main vendor area on your way in, which was smart, a lot of things caught my eye on that first pass, but we didn’t have time to stop and look at all the pretty things yet because we had horses to see! I’d gone through the order of go the night before and made a list of all the horses we considered “must see” on Thursday and Friday so we could figure out where we needed to be and when.
my list may or may not make sense to anyone else,… most are by sire
We spent most of the morning up watching the young horse dressage, which was located right up close to the main arena/warmup, with a quick hop over to the 3* warmup to see a couple others that were on my list. We wandered briefly through the vendors, grabbed some lunch, and then hiked the LONG AS HELL ASS WALK over to Sawmill to watch the 4 year olds jump. Like for real, it was so far to get over to the jumping area. They had some shuttles running if you were lucky enough to find one, but we were not. I like the Sawmill field location and all, given the space and the little bit of terrain, but being so far from the main showgrounds is really… not ideal. It was hard to find even if you were seeking it out, on top of being super far away, plus there was zero seating down there at all. A set of bleachers would have gone a long way. Due to all of the above, it was pathetically devoid of spectators. Like we were often the only ones. We spent the afternoon standing in the blazing sun watching the babies jump, and it was pretty unpleasant. I couldn’t help but compare it to the young horse championships at Burghley, which are located near the edge of all the vendors, very close up to the main arenas and easy to find/get to. They have full stands and spectators stacked 10 deep all around the perimeter of the arena. If we want anyone to care about YEH, we have to make it easier and a lot more in-your-face to at least SEE it. Most people had no idea it was even happening, and that’s a bummer because there were a lot of really nice young horses, many of which were US-bred. Missed opportunity, IMO.
We brought WTW swag to give away each day and indeed we handed out pretty much all of it. It was nice to meet you all! BTW massive shout out to Holly (and her Cricut) and Hillary (and her embroidery machine) for making the swag possible at the last minute, they busted their butts to make it happen.
That soapbox aside, the course was really lovely and very appropriate IMO. I’d even say it bordered on soft, or at least softer than I’ve seen in the past. I didn’t get a pic of the first XC jump, but it was a small/basic table. The only semi-looky thing was the trakehner, which had a pretty legit ditch under it and caused some of the greener horses to either politely decline or clear it by a mile. All of it was about N height though, with maybe one or two bigger. Other than the trakehner there were very few problems, aside from one or two horses that hadn’t really been prepared for something of this level and were just very bug-eyed in general. When I was looking up the breeding of all the horses I also took a quick look at their show records, and it was interesting to see the wide range of prep that these horses had had… everything ranging from one or two YEH classes and nothing else to horses that already had a Training under their belts. Most fell somewhere in between, but it did seem (in general) like the ones who had at least run a Novice or two were better prepared and more confident.
The 4yo’s and the Futurity wrapped up on Thursday, but all the 5yo’s jumped on Friday, so we were back out to the showgrounds nice and early, and Holly met up to watch the 5yo’s with us. This time we got dropped off at Sawmill (thanks Dusty) so it cut down on some of the walking at least, but if you actually wanted to go back and forth between the YEH stuff and the main show, hahahaha good luck to you friend. Luckily we had met blogger Sarah the day before, who was volunteering at the YEH in-gate and told us we were more than welcome to sit in the volunteer tent when they weren’t occupying it. Just having somewhere to actually sit down in between horses was lifesaving at that point.
We stayed out there watching the 5yo’s for a good chunk of the day. There were A LOT of really nice horses. Like… several that I would have taken home. For the most part the scoring seemed pretty right-on with my thoughts, aside from one particular major head-scratcher (I’m not sure how a horse can jump with it’s knees pointed straight to the ground every single time – and yes I have photos to back that up – and still get 4’s and 5’s out of 5 for it’s jump scores, but I digress) and a few minor head scratchers (I don’t think one who clears the tops of the flags at every single fence while spooking off the ground looks much like a 10 out of 10 type of event horse to me either but at least it was safe). I did find it kind of funny that the 4yo’s Presto showed with at Chatt all scored like 10 points better across the board than they did at that qualifier.
Gina, the winner, by the stallion Gentleman who won Bundeschampionate in Germany the year we went. I loved her, she was so athletic and reminded me a lot of her sire.
After we’d had enough of the young horses (aka were hot/sunburned/hungry/bored) we headed back to the main showgrounds. This time we were lucky enough to snag a ride from Amanda of Boy o Boy Bridleworks – she came over to say hi and it was great to finally meet her after all these years – so she saved us from the long walk. Which is good, because then we hit the vendors, since we had a little bit of time before Mason’s 5* dressage.
I may or may not have bought a black Espoir coat with black glitter accents to match the new boots I ordered. I will neither confirm nor deny this but I will say that it’s really pretty and fits like a glove and I have no regrets but also please god no one leave Michelle and I alone in any of the vendor tents again. To be fair I actually DID try to find the two things I actually intended to buy while I was gone, a vest and some breeches, but didn’t find any that knocked my socks off. The jacket (which I may or may not have bought) was a consolation prize at that point. Not my fault.
got to grab Presto’s Futurity award while I was there, too! It’s a nice Quillin halter, so thanks for all the votes. When he inevitably breaks it I’m gonna strangle him with it.
After we meandered around the vendors for a while we headed over to 5* dressage warmup so I could properly stalk Mason (Mama’s Magic Way aka Presto’s brother from another mother). I’ve said forever that he reminds me so much of Presto, but y’all… in person, OMG. They are SO incredibly similar. Seeing him warming up was eerie AF too, because they start out the same (tight back, not stepping up with the inside hind) and Will even warmed him up pretty much the exact same way Megan warms up Presto (sloooow tempo, lots of change of bend and transitions but keeping it calm and quiet and toned down). I had to send some video to Hillary since she’s seen Presto warm up so much and she thought it was super freaky how similar they were, too. Mason is like… a fancier version, but I’m pretty certain they’re the same horse. I mean, they’re bred really similarly so it shouldn’t be a shock, but still. Crazy similar.
We were able to get up into the owner’s seating to watch his test (Holly had a groom’s pass since she was there helping a friend, it came in very handy several times over the weekend) and then exit right by the ring when he was coming out. Up close and personal with my favorite 5* horse for the first of many times! He even gave me a very hefty skeptical side-eye as he passed, just like someone else we all know.
Presto-Mason. Preson. Masto.
After dressage wrapped up for the day we headed out to the Jimmy Wofford course walk so we could get a feel for the XC course and decide what we wanted to prioritize for spectating the next day. We stuck with the group for the first several fences but then it started taking a really long time and we were running out of daylight, so we ended up branching off on our own and walking a little bit further out. We’d been able to scope out a good bit of the back half of the course on our walks to/from Sawmill for the YEH stuff, so we mostly just took a big loop of the first and last third to see the rest of it.
Jimmy explaining 4A
Really there were interesting jumps scattered all around the course, so ultimately we decided we’d just start at the beginning around jump 4 and travel along the whole course watching a handful of horses at each of the more interesting fences. The course was really lovely – not as big and gnarly looking as Burghley but boy the terrain. I know anyone who has followed Maryland at all has heard “but the terrain” a thousand times, but y’all… the terrain. There were some serious hills, and basically the entire last third of the course was a climb. It was one thing to see it in pictures/video and an entirely different thing to actually walk it. I was really excited to see how the course would play out… the unknown factor of being the very first Maryland 5* added some extra intrigue for sure.
the owl keyhole corners looked like they wanted to eat your soul, btw
We walked A LOT that day, so we all figured we’d more than earned ourself some ice cream from Nottingham Creamery. I mean, ok, we had dinner too, but… the ice cream. I got Cookie Monster and I’m pretty sure it contained an entire package of oreos and a whole roll of cookie dough. It was good, but also I don’t think I’m going to want any cookie dough again any time soon. The local eats were top-notch this trip, though. Dusty has spent a lot of time up here and knew all the best places. 10/10 recommend eating ice cream until you want to barf after a long day at a horse show.
this is a SMALL
We went to bed pretty early that night since we were all whooped, and then we were back up and at it again the next day for some cross country! To be continued…
I feel like our horse trips are always “whirlwinds” in a sense, because if there’s one thing we’re really good at, it’s packing a whole lot of stuff into a fairly short timeframe. This trip was no exception. We started out last Monday, hopping on a plane from Austin to Orlando. We rented a car (which was drama, but we ended up with an upgrade to a Subaru SUV, which you can make a whole lot of jokes and rhymes using “Subawuuuuu” so it was fun to drive at least) and made the trek up to Ocala, getting into town just after lunch time.
This place, I swear it’s heaven on earth
I still can’t reveal exactly what’s happening or the full reason we were there (I don’t want to jinx anything until it’s all done and dusted) but we spent our first afternoon doing stuff related to that. I swear you’ll get the full details sooner or later but for now just trust me it’s exciting and will be worth the wait.
we had some assistance
On Tuesday morning we hit up a couple of our favorite local tack shops and poked around for a while. I really wanted to pick up a new winter vest and maybe some breeches on this trip, but I struck out on both counts. Michelle found some halters though (if you ever need to know what to get her, the answer is always halters – foal or yearling size especially) and I found the D&S Pasta socks that I’ve been looking for, plus stumbled across some fun things in their whip section. I stood there debating between the green and navy dinosaur whip and the navy and silver glitter whip for probably what was an embarrassingly long time, but in the end I went with the glitter one because the dino one was just a bit too long for my preference. It was pretty great though.
That kind of turned out to be a fortuitous decision though because even the shorter whip didn’t fit in my bags so I ended up toting it through all the airports with the top of it sticking out of my backpack. I’m not sure what the dino would would have looked like, sticking up a freakin foot out of the top. I did get some real funny looks as it was.
Anyway, after some tack shop time we spent a while driving around the area getting a feel for where everything is located and how far things are. Spoiler alert: nothing is far. A 10 minute drive in basically any direction will take you somewhere amazing. After that we stopped at a friend of Michelle’s farm to see what all is currently being built out there. Super cute place, and she had a lot of insight on the area and some things that could be useful to know later on. After that we popped over to WEC for lunch and to see what shops were open.
still feels like Horse Disneyland no matter how many times I see it
Not many were open on a Tuesday but Romitelli Boots was, and I couldn’t resist a quick pop in there to show Michelle what they had. When I was there with Bobby in April he basically had to pry me out of there with a crowbar… I love boots and that store is just chock full of gorgeous things. I was tempted to try some on since I actually DO need new boots now, but I didn’t have any breeches or socks with me and we were kind of crunched for time, so I was like “well if we have any time tomorrow and end up back here, I’ll see that as a sign from the gods to try some on and just see“. Ya know, leaving it up to fate and all that.
After a quick lunch we headed over to the OBS yearling sale. We had some friends who were there looking, and some other friends who were there selling, and they both said we should come check it out, so how could we resist? We did see some really nice horses. We wandered around through the barns looking at the ones that were brought out, then stood out in the back by the holding ring, then inside behind the sale ring, and then went and sat inside the sale room itself. Definitely got the full OBS experience. It was fun to see so many young thoroughbreds in one place, and true to form the ones I picked out as my favorites in person were also ones I liked a lot on paper. Some sold for lots of money, some didn’t, but it was definitely my idea of a good time.
I may or may not have ended up stalking the dam of one of them and found out that the owner is selling all his stock so like now do I want a rando broodmare that I’ve never actually seen? Perhaps. Her yearling in the sale was by Empire Maker and I would definitely have put it in my pocket and taken it home if not for the tiny detail of the price being like 40x what I could afford. No horses were purchased by us that day though so whether or not you consider that a success or a failure depends on your point of view I suppose.
On Wednesday we went out to a another friend’s place to check out her stallion and foals. Well, I’ve seen him before but Michelle hadn’t, so I figured we may as well go by while we were out there. After that we ran one more errand and then found ourselves with a little time to kill before meeting another friend for lunch, so we headed back to WEC, I put on some breeches, and tried on some boots. What can I say, the gods have spoken.
I got a little overstimulated in there so I forgot to take good pictures, but Michelle snapped a few when I wasn’t paying attention. Basically my approach was that I’d try some on and see what I thought… if I liked them I’d ask what pricing was for all the options I wanted… if the price was under $X then I would order them.
And well. The stars aligned. I fit well into one of their standard sizes so I didn’t have to go full custom, which kept the cost down. The modifications I wanted didn’t add much to the base price of the boot, which was pretty well under the dollar amount I had in my head. They’re nice boots, were comfortable, and honestly felt pretty similar to my Tucci’s. When I’d researched the brand beforehand it was hard to find many people that had something negative to say (which… is rare for a boot brand…). So, ya know, whooopsyyyyy I ordered me some semi-custom boots. I opted for a black dress boot with brogue foot and a a black glitter top – just the top 1-2″ inches.
the brogue foot details
They’ll be a little bit fun but not so wild that they aren’t appropriate for whatever show I’m doing. That’s the idea anyway. They said it’s taking about 5-6 weeks to get them from Italy right now and then another week or so to get them to me once they hit Ocala, so I’m just planning on about 8 weeks and we’ll see what happens. I’m excited to have some pretty new boots that actually fit. And I’m really really really glad that I was able to go get fitted and order them in person at the Romitelli store because looking at the size chart I never would have picked the size I ended up in. I thought I was a 39 regular tall, but actually the 38 slim tall fit best when we played with some insoles. Never would have figured that, but there ya go – good reason to get fitted in person by a pro!
We capped off our Ocala experience with lunch at the Yellow Pony inside the hotel at WEC (the hotel wasn’t open last time I was here – omg y’all it is BOUJEE to the extreme) which had amazing food, then we had to head to the airport to catch our flight to Philly.
the stained glass is gorgeous
It was a quick 2 days in Ocala but we got to do and see a lot, and as usual I really enjoyed my time there. There’s something just a little magical about Ocala that really calls to me as a horse person. It’s a little slice of equine paradise, and more than that there’s something about it that feels like home. Which is NOT a feeling I have about Florida in general whatsoever, but Ocala really is a different world.
To be continued tomorrow with the start of our Northern adventures!
I had every intention of doing my full write-up of the YEH championships divisions for you guys but the past week has just been absolutely insane and now I’m in Ocala with another jam-packed day ahead, so it’s obvious at this point that a lengthy post isn’t going to happen.
I do have the spreadsheets though, so I put the file into Dropbox and made it public. Feel free to poke through it and form your own conclusions or do your own further digging. There’s a tab for the YEH4 and a tab for the YEH5, all the 4yo Futurity horses are noted, and whichever ones that I could confirm for sure were bred in the US are also marked as such. If you’ll be there and want a paper copy I’ll have some extras with me, just find the two ladies in the Willow Tree Warmbloods apparel!
breedrideevent.com 