Month: April 2022

Jumper or reiner? Quinlee hasn’t decided yet.

Happy Friday!

I keep getting tagged in this meme that’s been making it’s way around social media…

Which is totally fair, because I have indeed fallen in love with a chestnut mare. I mean it’s still very early days of course, but Gemma continues to impress me. Don’t get me wrong, she is definitely a chestnut mare complete with all of her opinions and judgments, but let’s be honest Henry is also a chestnut mare on the inside so I’ve had years of experience with that by now. Gemma has yet to throw anything at me that Henry has not. Their sass levels are fairly equal.

It’s been years since I’ve had a mare (not by deliberate choice, that’s just how things worked out) and I’m reminded why I’ve always tended to gravitate toward them more than geldings. Gemma is so intelligent, and she definitely has decided that I’m her person. She likes attention and her humans, as long as you don’t do ridiculous things like try to pet her in the wrong places or come without cookies. I can identify with that.

Under saddle she just gets better and better with every ride. I’ve never had one off the track that “got” the flatwork as easily as she does. She’s pretty steady in the contact now, the leg yields are decent, the shoulder-in is coming along, and she’s offering the beginnings of a stretchy trot. We’ve been adding in more transitions too, both within the gait and between gaits. The canter transitions still aren’t great but they’re much improved for sure, and every one we do is a bit better than the last. She’s already pretty fun to flat, and the more you ask of her the better she is. She’s so clever and can figure out what you’re asking pretty quickly. Definitely different from Henry, who has never been very good at dealing with any kind of pressure on the flat and gets frustrated/worried easily. Gemma has none of that.

I’m now having a lot of regrets about not entering her in RRP, because even if she wasn’t ready for the jumping stuff I think she could have gone and done well in the dressage. One of the first orders of business when we get to Florida will be having the saddle fitter out to fit my Custom dressage saddle to her.

My jumping saddle doesn’t really fit her either (BECAUSE WHY WOULD IT) which… it doesn’t fit me anymore either, but my bank account is so not ready to talk about that. I think I’ll end up keeping that jump saddle because it fits Henry, and then get something else for Gemma and Presto. Luckily those two are pretty similarly shaped so I think I should be able to find something that I could make work for both of them. I can’t wrap my brain around that particular very expensive thing at the moment though… gimme a few weeks.

I’ve also jumped her a couple times at home now too. Yep, that makes three whole jumping sessions under her girth now… guess you could say things are getting pretty serious. Really though she also shows her cleverness in that area too. She isn’t always sure what to do with her feet or her body, but she’s always willing to try. She hasn’t even so much as blinked about anything I’ve pointed her at – flowers, the pig fillers, or even the little wannabe liverpool tarp. My poles are also only 8′ wide, which isn’t the easiest on a wiggly green horse, but she canters right on down there and she tries.

We haven’t jumped much, or done anything particularly formal, but once we get to Florida we’ll make a real plan for her and put a bit more structure in her training program. Gymnastics and cavalettis would do her a lot of good I think, so she can learn to be a little more methodical and focused with her feet.

For now though, she’s gonna get a mini-vacay. Yesterday was officially our last ride here in Texas for the horses. Today I have a lot of errands to run and work to wrap up, and then Hillary and I leave at the buttcrack of dawn tomorrow for LRK3DE. Once we get back from Kentucky we’ve got one day to pack up the rest of my stuff (which is pretty much just the horse’s stuff at this point) and then we’re loading up and heading out to Florida.

It’s been a little surreal this past week, watching everything slowly either get packed up or thrown away or sold off. We jumped the horses on Sunday, and then yesterday I sold the majority of my jumps. There are already enough jumps on the property in FL so I’m only taking the standards that are in the best condition, and all of my square poles. The rest of it wasn’t really worth taking nor do I have the space to bring them with me anyway, so I sold it all as a cheap package deal to someone who hopefully will fix them up a bit and be able to get as much use out of them as much as I did. Those jumps might not have been fancy or beautiful but they served me just fine for years. It was the end of an era loading them up in to someone else’s trailer though, and now seeing the jump field sitting empty once again.

Times they are about to be changin.

But first… KENTUCKY! I wrapped up my last bit of writing yesterday with the TB-centric piece for RRP/EN, so I think I’m done with all the actual work stuff. Mostly.

I’m beyond ready for a fun weekend in Kentucky, even if it looks like our odds of getting rained on are fairly high. If you’ll be in attendance keep your eyes peeled for people wearing the Breed.Ride.Compete. logo – come say hi if you see us!

I’m a bit late getting to the blog today – I was fast and furiously trying to get all my LRK3DE breeding data and articles updated and ready to go to print! I did put up a few stats on the Breed.Ride.Compete. facebook page along with a link to the instant download of the spreadsheet too, if anyone is interested in that.

Ok anyway, on to the subject at hand! As I mentioned yesterday, Hillary and I made a quick overnight trip up to Michelle’s original (or “west”, I suppose now) WTW location in Midland last week. And I like to call it a menagerie, because between Michelle’s animals and all of her neighbor’s animals, you’ve got a veritable petting zoo right there.

Between those guys and baby Quinlee (the filly) I got to pet ALL KINDS of fun things in a very short period of time. 10/10 would recommend.

Visiting in the peak of breeding season also means that you’re likely to find Michelle with her arm up a mare’s butt at all hours of the day or night. This trip was no exception – she was checking both Sadie and Vee every few hours to track their cycles for breeding.

She roped Hillary into giving it a go and scanning Sadie, which I of course documented via video (Patrons, it’s on your dashboard) because Hillary was making some absolutely classic faces. She ended up shoulder deep in Sadie, and found an ovary on the scan! Pretty good for a first shot I think. Of course now we may have created a monster, because Hillary wants to take breeding courses and learn how to AI mares. I’m 100% in support of this idea btw.

I was also extremely proud of how organized Michelle’s breeding area is, especially her MASSIVE white board. I’m a really big white board fan and I’m pretty sure she thought I was crazy for it in the past, but we’ve got a convert because LOOK AT THIS THING OF BEAUTY.

It was also nice to finally see Vee and Peyton in person… believe it or not I may have helped picked them out, but I had yet to see either of them in the flesh yet. Peyton is a classic TB type and gorgeous mover, and Vee might be one of the most beautiful mares I’ve ever seen, period. Like, she looked pretty in photos, but in person she’s an absolute knock out. Gorgeous mare with a great temperament, and VERY food-motivated. We already know Peyton is a great producer, but I can’t wait to see a Vee baby too. Fingers crossed!

Back to the actual point of this little adventure: Noodle pickup.

I thought he might be a moron in the trailer, considering that he’s basically been on stall rest or paddock rest for over 6 months at this point, and he’d come to consider Obi his BFF at Michelle’s (which, btw Obi, thanks for taking a chunk out of Presto’s tail despite Michelle’s best efforts to prevent it). I thought there might be fireworks when we loaded him up and drove away. He was pretty good though, and rode the whole way home with minimal complaints, even when the stupid GPS decided for some reason to route us all the way around and through the outskirts of Austin (we love sitting in lights and traffic with a horse trailer, you know) and made it take almost 8 freaking hours to get home.

We turned him out with the other 3 horses, and Henry and Quinnie immediately seemed to remember him (there were definite “oh my god, not him again” vibes from those two) but Gemma had a whole lot of opinions about him. Most of which were expressed via squealing. She’s a pretty submissive horse in general and definitely not confrontational, but Presto just would not leave her alone no matter how much she tried to distance herself. Personal space and respecting boundaries are not exactly his strong suits.

That situation was causing Henry to assert his extreme dickishness and chase Presto into corners to try to murder him, so we had to break them up. That herd dynamic just wasn’t great with the 4 of them together. We split Henry and Gemma into one pasture and Presto and Quinnie into another. Giving each 5yo an older horse (and removing Henry from Presto) seemed to do the trick and they’ve been great ever since.

Well okay, Quinnie isn’t sure why she got stuck with the annoying one, but Presto knows better than to antagonize her too much… she spent some time raising him, after all.

Presto’s feet are not in the best shape from being barefoot for so long, he’s worn them down to little sore nubbins. I’ve got him in boots until the farrier can come out, although I’m not sure if we’ll be able to get shoes on them not. He looks fine in the boots though (aside from the fact that he knows how to unvelcro and remove them) so that works for now. Grow little feeties, grow.

The most annoying thing was that the size boots he needed are of course the ONLY ONES I had packed up and sent in the t!ny h0use (I have an ungodly number of hoof boots and those were literally the only ones I packed and sent ahead), so I had to make an emergency run to Dover and buy him a new pair. Who needs $200 anyway.

The good news is that with the boots on he looks pretty darn sound, despite all the yeehawing he’s done now that he’s back to full turnout. I haven’t even bothered with getting him legged back up yet, I figured I’d wait until we’re all settled in Florida before I even begin trying to wrap my head around that. For now I’m just grooming him every day to try to get the last of the winter coat off, and I trimmed his mane, cut his bridlepath, and clipped off the goat whiskers under his jaw. He looks… slightly more presentable anyway. Aside from all the bite marks and scratches all over him (thanks Henry).

It’s a little frustrating that he couldn’t just go back to the same training program and continue what I’d already invested a lot of time and money into (they didn’t have space), but I’m working on a couple options for him in Florida that could be promising. In the meantime I’m plenty happy to have him back here with me, even if he’s single hoofedly increased the Chaos Factor of the farm by 500%. I sure did miss his big ol’ noodle noggin.

Well hello there, long time no update (for me anyway). Last week was absolutely ridiculous… that’s all there really is to say about that.

The t!ny h0use was originally supposed to get picked up last Monday, then they called me the Thursday before and asked if they could pick it up early. It wasn’t totally packed up and unhooked yet so I told them the earliest it would be ready was Saturday and they said that was fine. So I basically put everything else on hold and my dad came out to help me get it everything in bins, the fans down, appliances strapped up, furniture wrapped, etc on Friday, only for them to call afterward and be like jk we’re gonna pick it up Monday like originally planned.

Annoying, but at least everything was packed up now. Granted, it was now no longer livable. The barn owners had already graciously offered to let me take over their guest bedroom in the time between the t!ny leaving and when we actually leave with the horses, so I basically just ended up moving over there a few days early. And, bonus, their house comes with very fluffy malamutes.

Mina is a bit scared of them, which is fair considering they’re 3x her size, but luckily I thought to bring the baby gate. Mina likes to stand on the bed (the safe place, clearly) while Obi stands in the doorway and wonders why she won’t come out and play with him. It’s working out just fine though… Mina comes outside when we’re outside, and when she’s inside she just sleeps on the bed. Not much different from her normal routine really.

Anyway, last Monday a driver did indeed show up to pick up the house, but… he did not have the right hitch on his semi. Which was extremely frustrating considering that a few days before I had spent a half hour on the phone with both the broker and the dispatch, making sure they knew that it wasn’t a standard 5th wheel hitch, and sending them both a lot of photos of the hitch. I felt bad for the driver mostly… he showed up, hung around for a bit waiting for his dispatch to get back to him with instructions, and then left. He never came back, and the broker called to tell me he had another driver booked to come pick it up that evening. A few hours later that driver called and said he wouldn’t make it before dark (oversize loads can’t be on the road after dark) so he was going to come pick it up first thing the next morning instead. Which was fine, but like… I’d already spent weeks being anxious about moving this tiny house and imagining all the things that could go wrong, and here we were with some of them starting to come to fruition. I was stressing.

The next morning the new driver shows up, and once again he does not have the right hitch. It was closer to the right hitch, but still… not the right hitch. He also didn’t have a jack, flags, flashers, a light bar, or any kind of oversize load banners. I am not shitting you. He did have an escort car with him, and that lady had one extra oversize banner, but… he didn’t have what they needed to legally get it on the road. Which was VERY FRUSTRATING considering the specs of the load are included in the job. He knew all that before he came. It’s quite possible that I was on the phone yelling at two different people all before 7am. I hate yelling. Especially on the phone.

At that point though I was either going to get the damn house on the road or set on fire, one of the two, so I was like screw it Mr. Driver, while you’re fixing the hitch issue tell me where to get the oversize shit and I’ll just go buy it my fucking self. He called the closest truck stop and they had everything, so off I drove to spend $200 buying this guy’s oversize load shit that he already should have had.

The house did eventually make it out of here around noon, SIX HOURS after the driver first arrived, and I spent more of my own dollars to make it happen, but… it left. I just really needed that thing to go because it was stressing me out to the point where I couldn’t sleep and was pretty sure I was getting an ulcer.

Of course, I thought that the house leaving would be a weight off my shoulders but it really just opened a whole new set of anxiety flood gates. The night it left I for some reason panicked in the middle of the night thinking that it wouldn’t be able to fit in the gate at the Florida farm (I had already checked that, I dunno why I forgot and freaked out) and laid awake all night in a panicky sweat about it until I could get someone to confirm the gate width the next day. A couple days later the broker sent me a fairly unhinged text (like… are 25 exclamation marks and all caps necessary?) telling me that the driver was having issues with the tires and had 3 blowouts. Which… uh, yeah, not surprising. Look at that thing. And it’s being hauled 1000 miles across some particularly shitty Southern backroads because it’s too tall for any highways or main roads. Also, Mr. Broker who’s job title is literally Logistics Coordinator, is this not your job to handle? Is this not what we paid you for? Why am I getting batshit text messages about something I cannot do anything about?

Anyway. The t!ny did finally make it to Florida yesterday afternoon. At least it’s done. I do feel a bit better about everything now, with that huge worry taken care of. Partially at least, because it still has to be blocked and leveled and anchored and all that stuff. Still, moving it was nothing but a spectacular pain in the ass and 0/10 would not recommend undertaking that particular experience.

Last Wednesday Hillary and I drove up to Midland to pick up Presto and bring him back home. We had quite an adventure up at Michelle’s (even though we were only there for like 15 hours) so I’ll post more about that later this week. But indeed, the Noodle has landed and though he’s been a massive pain in the ass so far (what else is new) I do love having him back. I missed his big dumb face. I’m slightly panicked at having 3 horses to deal with on my own in Florida but… we’ll figure it out.

In between all this I’ve been busy getting all the breeding data prepped for Kentucky. A friend has an “in” with the organizers and John Kyle said he was interested in having the data, so I possibly went extra-crazy with it and triple checked everything in an attempt to make it as thorough and correct as possible. Hillary took my spreadsheets and is pulling the most important data over into easier-to-read-for-commentators PDF’s with our Breed.Ride.Compete. branding so that we can email those over. Our Patrons already have access to the documents for the 4* and the 5* posted to Patreon. I’ve also written an article for EN in collaboration with RRP, a very TB-centric LRK3DE article, that I think will be running Tuesday or Wednesday. I’ll link to it when it’s up.

I also made a couple more BRC swag items for myself to wear this week in Kentucky. Gotta represent. We’ll be there Thursday and are staying on the campground (Patrons, you’ve gotten an invite to a Happy Hour on Saturday at our camper! Check the facebook group!) and while this trip is largely for “business”, I’m really excited to get back to Kentucky. The timing of this whole thing is… uh… not the best, considering we’re literally about to move, but still. I can’t wait. And really I haven’t even had time yet to think about Kentucky because I was so busy with everything else, but now that I can finally devote some brainpower to it, I’m just ready to be there. Bring on the bluegrass.

We get back from Kentucky on the 2nd, pack everything up for the horses on the 3rd, and then officially leave for Florida on the 4th, so time is ticking. Hard to believe we’re so close now. It’s a little overwhelming because even though I’ve managed to mostly take care of things here, there’s going to be even more to do when we get there. Trying not to think about that part yet…

Tomorrow I’ll give you more updates on what the horses have been up to. I’ll do my best to draft a post for this Friday too so that we don’t miss Foal Friday. Beyond that I’m not really sure how much I’ll be blogging or when, but I’ll try my best to get some regular updates for you along the way.

Apologies for being completely MIA this week… it has been… something. This is literally the first morning that I’ve been at my computer at all. I’ll catch you up on all the happenings next week, but for now I wanted to pop in with a quick and fun video Foal Friday post.

First of all, baby Q got a name! Sadly, it’s not Quesadilla (I hope everyone knows I’m actually joking and did not want to name the baby Quesadilla) but almost as cute – Quinlee. I got to meet her this week when Hillary and I went up to pick up Presto, and I have to say I think the name fits her. She is a CUTE little thing and very people-oriented. She’s also very very very into butt scratches at the moment. I definitely enjoyed all the time I spent (which was a lot) standing out there scratching baby bums.

I hope you can live vicariously through me on this one. Happy Friday!