Ok so I missed my Monday recap post but it was for a reason you hopefully find acceptable – yesterday was sBs inspection day!

Michelle drove in on Saturday with another load of mares, and yesterday morning the Belgian judge and his entourage came over to look at the mares and babies. Since there wasn’t an inspection last year we had 10 horses to do this time between mares, yearlings, and the foal from this year. Luckily a private inspection is a fairly relaxed affair, so we were able to get through them all by lunch time.

I did opt to go ahead and present Gemma to them, because they were here so why not. I hadn’t really planned on doing a mare inspection for her yet but it was just way too easy of an opportunity. I pulled her out, hosed off her legs, pulled her bell boots, and in she went. Some of the other mares were running around in the front pasture so she stood a bit like an Arabian, and didn’t show her walk to it’s full potential, but she was still approved, and with scores of 8.5 for her trot and 9 for her canter. Not bad for a Thoroughbred with a warmblood registry! Now that’s done, so if we do decide to breed her next year (I have no idea what the plan is at this point) at least we don’t have to worry about getting her to an inspection when she’s pregnant.

Let’s see… working backwards, what else has been happening…

My weekend mornings were pretty full with Pratoni. XC day was bonkers but in a way that made for good sport (the Slide was iconic and the course was kind to the horses, so that’s a success in my book). I ended up tossing breeding info out for people most of the weekend but not writing anything else myself, although now that it’s over I need to go back through my data with the scores and see what kind of story there might be.

Admittedly my eyeballs are a bit broken from staring at spreadsheets all day every day last week, between the Pratoni data and the PFI data. Kind of a big weekend for Breed.Ride.Compete. … it was nice getting shoutouts on EN and on the PFI live stream. Now we get a bit of a break from that part of things before Maryland 5*, but we’ve got a lot of pedigree reports to complete in the meantime, so no rest for the weary around here. It’s ok, that’s the kind of busy I don’t mind.

BTW my standout “one to watch” from Pratoni was Duke of Champions, for the Italian team. My type of horse. He’s got the same sire (Duke of Hearts xx) as Cornelia Dorr’s newly minted Burghley horse, Daytona Beach 8, who is also a favorite of mine. I’ve liked DoH for years so it’s fun to see some of his offspring starting to show up at the top level.

I feel like I cursed both Team France and Vassily de Lassos by picking them publicly on the EN Staff Predictions article so I’ll just be over here keeping my bad juju to myself next time.

Noodle and I also had another jump lesson this past weekend. We’re putting together more courses, and working on his rideability and adjustability. He’s getting better and better, and he’s been jumping well too. He’s a bit cocky sometimes, but he does find this stuff to be pretty easy. I’m having to adjust my ride a lot (this is definitely not Henry and they aren’t even remotely the same ride) which is a learning curve, but I gotta hand it to the kid, he’s a total good dude about stuff like that.

He’s just so game and down for anything. And he does not give a shit about any kind of rider mistake, he can and will jump from anywhere you get him without so much as ruffling a feather. It’s still a lot of horse to try to package together, but he’s really fun. I’m glad that he keeps his Fuckery out of his work life.

I also really like how we’re focusing on these rideability and adjustability exercises now, early on, and while the jumps are still small. Taking the time to get all these basics more firmly cemented now, I feel like will pay dividends later on.

Mostly we’re still solidly in the partnership building phase… I’m learning how to trust and support him (he doesn’t really need my help the way Henry did, but he does need a lot of support) and he’s learning to be a more rideable noodle. It’s a fun time, although I do feel like my learning curve is steeper than his. He would probably agree.