Month: April 2023

The mares and foals got to move out into a new bigger pasture this week, switching places with the 3 mares that are still due to foal (all within the next couple weeks!). They all found that very exciting, for a variety of reasons. The mares basically put their noses down to the grass and have barely looked up since… the grass in that pasture is really nice and plentiful compared to the smaller paddocks they had been in.

The fillies, Rue and Rihanna, born a month apart, are in two very different and distinct growth phases at the moment. Rue is still in the “WOW I HAVE FOUR LEGS AND I CAN ZOOM SO FAST, WATCH ME FLY” phase.

Rihanna, bless her… she’s in a bit of a fatass couch potato phase. She thinks the world is delicious and she wants to taste all of it.

Rue, in all of her bubbly happy sweetness, tries her best to get Rihanna to run around with her. Every once in a while it works. Usually it doesn’t. Most of the time Rue just ends up running circles around Ri. Literally.

Round and round and round Rue goes. Bless her. It’s not for lack of trying. It’s just that Ri’s favorite hobbies these days tend to be such titillating things as:

and

Rue won’t give up though, she cheerfully keeps up her attempts to play with her (only, at the moment) friend.

But ya know… every once in a while, it works. At least for a minute or two.

I would say Happy Monday but I have been informed that it’s actually Tuesday. Whoops. Anyway, lets catch you up on the goings-on up in these parts.

On Saturday we had our first jump lesson in a couple weeks… our schedule had been interrupted the week before by TerraNova, so we missed our usual weekly lesson/jump school that week. It was also the first lesson back since I said something about how I need to jump a little bigger again before we start looking at a move-up, because we’ve kinda just been cruising through season keeping the fences lower. And, well, be careful what you ask for.

Trainer was like lol hold my beer (coffee?) and cranked a couple of those bitches right on up. Don’t ask me how big, I dunno. Big? Then she has the audacity to be like “now the Modified definitely won’t look big.”. She’s probably not wrong.

Jokes aside, Presto was really good and every once in a while it seems to benefit him to jack the jumps up a little bit. He’s a blasé, lazy, minimalistic sort of dude so if you don’t challenge him once in a while he really doesn’t ever try that hard. He whacked the oxer once and then was no-touchie after that, and jumped around the whole course with much more focus.

The next day I planned to just give him a nice loose stretchy ride and all was going quite well until I decided to canter a couple poles. Well ok, the first pole went totally fine. Loped around to jump it again, the distance was spot on, and WHAM – Presto fell down. Like pretty hard. He floundered for a few strides trying to catch himself, scraping his head along the ground so hard that his browband will never be the same again, then hit the deck on his left side and skidded a ways.

My lower leg was pinned under him during the skid, but the only thing that really took any damage was my ankle. It’s got a minor sprain. The scary part was that he didn’t get up right away, he just laid there sternal, groaning, then took a couple bites of grass before he finally got up. I was convinced he’d broken all 4 legs. I had to stand there for a few seconds for the initial wave of pain to subside to make sure my leg was okay. Poor Hillary saw the whole thing and I think she’s scarred for life… her face was something else. Presto seemed ok though so I got back on and trotted him a bit to see how he felt, and he was miraculously fine.

Luckily my ankle really does seem minor. I’ve been icing and wrapping it and I can walk fine. I rode yesterday and that was ok too. I’ll keep icing and wrapping it for a bit.

Presto still seems fine, I buted him and have put the BEMER on him a couple times, and this morning his bodyworker came and worked on him for a while. Other than some tightness in his neck and left gaskin she said he felt great. Yesterday when I rode him he was trotting around like a wild arabian with his tail in the air, so yeah… I’d say he feels fine. That was a scary one kiddo, please keep all 4 feet underneath you. Figures that he can jump like 4′ on Saturday with no problem and then eat shit entirely over a canter pole on Sunday. Horses, man.

In better news, a couple days ago I texted the vet that did the majority of Presto’s care while he was in the clinic as a newborn. I haven’t reached out to her in a couple years, so I sent her some recent pics of him and let her know how he was doing, and thanked her again (there aren’t enough thanks in the world for this woman). Her response was really cute.

She’s the best. ❤

In also more fun news my custom whip that I ordered a couple weeks ago is finished, and it’s awesome.

@breed.ride.event

The most satisfying 🖤✨⚡️💜 #equestrian #eventer #horsegirl #equestrianlife #eventing #ocala

♬ HER – Laura Wizman

Rue is, without a doubt, one of the sweetest fillies I think we’ve ever had. She absolutely loves people, wants to live in your pocket, and she’s very sweet and kind. She’s also real stinkin cute.

But if you ask Rue, there’s one feature she’s got that is fascinating above all others.

Yep, you guessed it, it’s her tongue.

She is convinced this is the coolest appendage a horse has ever owned, and she loves to put it on display as much as possible.

It’s real Henny vibes, honestly. She walks around with it hanging out one side or the other, sometimes flopping, sometimes dragging it along things. Especially people. You haven’t lived until Rue has dragged her blep up your leg.

Horses are weird in the most adorable ways. What makes some of them so fascinated with their tongues?

I feel like social media is very quick to point out when companies or brands do something bad/wrong. Which is totally fair… I appreciate knowing things like that so I can take it into consideration when buying something. There have definitely been several times that I’ve used my own social media and blog to vent and warn people about situations that I was frustrated with or times that I had a dissatisfactory experience.

I also make an effort to commend these companies when they do something great, or go above and beyond. So today I’ve got two goods and one bad to share… settle in for story time, my friends.

It just occurred to me that I also talked about Romitelli the other day, letting me switch out the custom boots I ordered for something else because I didn’t like how they came out. They get some bonus points for that also.

On that note, let’s start with good ones.

I think at this point a lot of saddle brands – particularly French ones – have a bad reputation, the CWD/Devoucoux conglomerate of brands in particular. So many of them are known to have horrific customer service, or – best case scenario – your experience depends entirely on your rep and how honest/willing they are to stand by their product. Unfortunately a lot of those brands also seem to run through reps like Kleenex, so… that part becomes a bit sketchy. The internet is full of horror story after horror story of saddles that don’t fit and the brand refuses to make it right, or just completely ghosts people, or what they got isn’t what they ordered, etc etc.

I had never ordered a new saddle before so that was something that really freaked me out last year when I was thinking about buying something. Its a lot of money to fork over to someone you don’t really trust. Which probably makes my decision to go with Arion even more head-scratching, being that they’re a newer brand, but 1) I knew the FL rep via a friend, outside of his involvement with the company, 2) I dunno y’all, I just had a good juju feeling, ya know?

And I will say with confidence that they will stand behind their products 100%. Let me tell you what had happened.

Everything went pretty smoothly when I ordered. Rep came out, I tried saddles, horse got fitted, I ordered, saddle came like 4-5 weeks later (which is insanely fast for a custom saddle, most companies were telling me 12-16 weeks). They did forget to do the blue piping that I’d ordered around the cantle, but they offered to either take it back and put the piping on, or I could have some accessories for free. I chose the accessories because honestly I didn’t love their blue that much anyway, it was a little bright, and I was by that point already questioning my commitment to the blue. Worked out fine. I love my saddle.

Fast forward a bit and the bottom of one flap was starting to wear weird. I sent a pic of it to my rep, who responded immediately and said “it shouldn’t look like that, let me talk to the owner of the company.”. Half an hour later I have a text back that says it looked like a defect, they basically went too deep with the stitching so it caused a weak spot there in the leather, and they would make a new saddle for me for free.

They did want to check the fit again on my horse though before they re-made it, since it’s been almost 10 months and Presto is a young horse, which could mean he had changed since the first fitting. I appreciated that, and their desire to make sure it was right. In the meantime there was a different rep, Kristin, that was specific to the Ocala for the winter season (my original rep was based in Wellington), and when I saw her set up at one of the shows we got to chatting and I mentioned the whole situation to her. When I saw Kristin again last weekend at TerraNova she was like “Did you get your new saddle ordered?” and I was like “You know what, no I haven’t done that yet.” and she immediately offered to put me on her schedule for this week. Even though she wasn’t the rep I originally went through, and none of this is her issue to solve. She knew it would be faster and easier for me since she was already here in town, so she offered that to me completely of her own free will, which I appreciate a lot. She didn’t know me from Adam, there was no reason for her to offer me that.

Kristin came out on Tuesday and immediately thought that we should change the panel configuration a bit. Presto is definitely wider than he was last June, and she thought he needed a bit more room in the tree. She had me ride in one of her demos that had a slightly different spec with the panel, simulating the fit she wanted, and I could definitely tell a difference at the canter, so I think she’s spot on with that. When I mentioned that I wished they had glitter piping (their sample photos only have a few basic colors) Kristin was like “Oh we can order that if you want it!”. Um, yas please. Give meh the glitterrrrr.

So now I have a whole brand new saddle coming, with an updated fit to the panel, and black glitter piping – even thought its been almost a year since I ordered the first one. It should be here in about a month, so stay tuned for the conclusion of this story, but I have to say that I’m extremely pleased with Arion’s customer service and their willingness to stand behind their product and make sure that’s it’s 100% right. A lot of other companies would not have gone to anywhere near this length, that’s for certain. They have been so incredibly pleasant to deal with, and their company seems to have a heavy emphasis on customer service. It actually feels like you’re working with the whole company instead of just the rep. It’s refreshing.

Good story number 2 is (thankfully) much shorter. This one goes to Design by Dalia Lehmann, a Polish company.

A few weeks ago I lost my whip, so I had to go into Tack Shack to order a new one. I love my black and silver glitter theme, but it does make for a mega-boring whip that isn’t very distinct, so after much deliberation (like SO MUCH… color is hard for me) I opted to add a little purple to it. I got black with a purple stripe, a silver glitter stripe, purple stitching on the popper, and silver lightning bolts on the popper. It’s not bright but it’s still fun, and purple was my mom’s favorite color so it’s a bit of an homage to her.

I ordered the whip and, because of who I am as a person, I was like “you know what I need – A SHOW COAT TO MATCH IT”. Specifically this one, which has had a grip on me for several years.

I’m pretty sure I’ve posted it here before. I dunno why I love it so much but I just do. The super dark purple, the black crystals… it’s just chef’s kiss. Did I need it, no. Did I want it, yes. Y’all know how this goes.

So I left it in the hands of fate and decided that if I could find a good enough coupon code, that would be a sign from the gods to buy it. I looked around for a while and discovered that I’d actually missed a coupon code by just two days. Dangit. No coat for me then I guess. I commented on the post something like “Darn, saw this a couple days too late!”, not thinking much of it, and within 5 minutes they had PM’d me a coupon code to use.

Look y’all, who am I to spit in the eye of the gods. Clearly it was their will.

But really though, I appreciate that the company did that for me because they certainly didn’t have to. They could have just as easily ignored me or vaguely hinted at a future sale, or some such thing that most places probably would have done. This is the story of how I became the owner of a coat I know my mom would have totally loved.

Now we’ve saved the worst for last. Or mostly just… the confusing one? The annoying one? I dunno, I’m puzzled by it.

Back during the Christmas/New Year’s time frame Empire Research, a supplement company, was doing several days of giveaways. Most of the days were to win a certain supplement, and then the grand prize last day was the entire product line. They have a salt and an oil and some cookies that I was interested in, so I entered and won. They tagged me in the post, sent me a PM asking me for my address, and I shared the post to my stories as a thank you.

Nothing ever showed up. I have messaged them several different times for an update. The first time they told me they had already sent it and it should have been delivered, and they said they’d look into it. I never heard back. A couple weeks later I messaged them again, no response. A couple weeks later I tried again, still no response. They’ve read all my messages. I’ve given up.

Did they “wrong” me? No. But it does leave kind of an icky taste to do a big giveaway thing, clearly pick the entrant with the most followers as your winner, get your shout out from me, and then ghost me entirely. Like… why? They’ve continued to be active on social media, their website is up and running, so there’s no particular reason that I can find. I’m also not hard to please, if you just respond to my messages and tell me what’s up, I’ll happily wait a really long time. I am the queen of taking forever to do shit because I am a busy human being, so I completely understand that part. But… the reading my messages and choosing not to respond at all part. That part I don’t love. At least respond and tell me something. Now the whole thing just seems sketch.

I have to assume I probably dodged a bullet there with that one?

Have you had any good or bad experiences lately?

Whew it has been a bit of a week. Florida has been treating us to a bit of a summer preview with temps around 90 every day, and I’m going to assume from the fact that I feel like a walking piece of beef jerky that I have not done a very good job of hydrating.

BUT, last week Niamh of Hoof Woof Images was in town! So many visitors lately. She met the herd, petted some babies, and was kind enough to snap some quick pics of Presto. I have no idea how Niamh gets such stunning pictures, but it’s gotta be either magic or witchcraft. Maybe both.

Highly recommend contacting Niamh if you’re looking to book a photog for nice photos. She was also quick, which is a good thing because Presto was seeing actual demons at the end of the barn aisle.

On Thursday Hillary and I left for TerraNova. I was reporting on the 4* for Eventing Nation, and Hillary got to come in an official capacity as well, to help with interviews and social media. On our way out of town we stopped at WEC because our new Romitelli boots had finally arrived.

To be honest I ordered mine under extreme duress (it was a really really bad day) and they didn’t turn out how I had pictured. Originally I wanted them to coordinate with my light blue coat, so I’d ordered black boots with like a pebbly gunmetal top part and light blue stripe. In actual application I didn’t like the top bit I’d picked (too shiny) and the blue was very different from the sample color, so instead of being like the sky blue of my coat it was like a bright, almost bordering on turquoise color. I just didn’t like how it turned out and they def wouldn’t coordinate with my coat. Womp womp.

Luckily Romitelli is very accommodating and helped me look through all the boots in my size that were in the store, the latest shipment, and the storage trailer to see if there was something I liked better. I saw many things, y’all. Many interesting and bright things. But I did really like these dark gray boots with metallic silver accents.

They don’t really go with the light blue coat but they would def go with my black and silver glitter theme, or just look good with all the black I tend to wear at home. So they let me trade mine out for those. Crisis averted. We’ll see how they look with the XC outfit maybe?

After that we were officially en route to TerraNova. It’s only 2.5 hours away but my Ocala-privilege ass has gotten very used to everything being under an hour drive and honestly I have no idea how I used to spend so much time in the car when I lived in Texas. It’s maddening.

But we made it around lunch time, set up our stuff in the media area, and immediately headed out to walk the 4* course, get photos and video, and decide on our plan of attack for XC day.

We only got lost once (totally blaming Will Coleman for that, he saw us walking the wrong way and chose to let nature take it’s course… which I probably would have done as well) but it still took us a couple hours to get everything we needed and for me to wrap my head around all of it well enough to write up the course preview. We headed back to the media area very hot, moist, and dehydrated. Spoiler alert: the entire event would see us in much the same shape.

Anyway, I won’t bore you with the details of what all we did, because the short version is: watch the 4*, write about it, stalk riders for interviews, spend 900 hours trying to pick the right song for a reel, double and triple check info on FEI, shoot video, record literally everything, sweat, eat our weight in italian ice, go to press conferences, and get sunburned no matter how many reapplications of sunscreen occurred.

If you want to see the coverage we did, the course walk is here, recap 1 is here, recap two is here, and Instagram reel 1 (aka an ode to Chin Tonic) is here and reel 2 is here.

On Saturday we apparently forgot all the mistakes we made during the course walk on Thursday and headed out on course to photo/video/watch/walk 4 hours of XC without any liquid sustenance whatsoever. Hillary posted videos on Insta stories like a machine, I took notes, and mostly we just felt like death the whole time as we made our way around the course and tried desperately to find any bit of shade (were we at one point crouching on the ground behind a Novice rolltop? maybe…). Event reporting, is is glamorous.

I didn’t even ride but I still felt like I got run over by a Mack truck pretty much all day yesterday. Today is marginally better.

There’s no rest for the weary though because this week is looking pretty full as well. Better to be too busy than not busy enough! Hope everyone else had a good weekend too.