Month: July 2023

This week the younger three kiddos got to move out to the big field with Rihanna and Rue! Very exciting occasion. And I mean really really exciting. Stampede-worthy, you could say.

Our method was to move each mare and foal pair into a stall on the big field side of the barn, and then open the stall doors into the field so that we were kind of ripping off the bandaid all at once rather than separating and upsetting them over and over. As soon as we opened their doors, they were off.

It was pretty funny to see their approach to their new freedom. Andy and Vee immediately took off for the farthest reaches of the field but then split in opposite directions, both galloping big laps. Chanel and Rhett did some very reluctant hand galloping (anything more seems uncivilized, she says) but mostly preferred to trot around like little Valegros. Peyton, who is normally the herd nanny and the strictest mother, forgot herself there for a minute and absolutely TOOK OFF around the perimeter of the field.

Poor Lucy, who is used to always being the center of her mother’s world, was trying her absolute best to keep up. I can say with confidence that Lucy has never run so fast in her entire life. She screamed the entire time, thinking she was being abandoned, but Peyton did finally slow down and let her catch back up.

Vee did a pretty good job of trying to get Goldie/Rihanna and Blue/Rue involved in her shenanigans but their efforts were half-hearted. Well… Goldie trotted half a lap and then flat out resisted completely. Rue wanted in, but Blue wasn’t really having it, and Rihanna decided she was done after the first lap.

Andy and Vee went around for quite a while, both just happy to stretch their legs and go for a run. After a few minutes the others mostly just tried to stay out of their way.

It didn’t take long though for everyone to settle in. There was no real drama between the mares, probably because they all lived together before they foaled.

They’ve slipped right back into their previous hierarchy and habits. Vee is the boss, Peyton and Chanel pair off a safe distance away from Vee, and Goldie and Blue pair off far away from Vee.

The foals haven’t interacted enough for me to figure out yet who’s gonna be top dog, but Andy is definitely at the bottom of the totem pole. Maybe because his dam is so alpha, he’s always learned to just submit. I get a feeling that Lucy or Rue might end up on top.

Aside from the first bit of shenanigans, I don’t think any of them have hardly lifted their heads from the grass yet. The smaller turnout they were in before had grass, but not as lush and beautiful as this bigger field, so they’ve all been really enjoying stuffing their faces, babies included. It’ll be fun to see how their dynamics play out over the next week or so!

Oh, and this new field is directly across the driveway from Presto, who is absolutely DELIGHTED by his new neighbors.

Happy Friday!

We’re pretty much back to full swing around here after Presto’s summer break! Over the past two weeks we’ve worked our way back up to mostly “normal” rides (have been keeping them a bit longer on the hacking and shorter on the working, since it’s been hot) and I think Presto is delighted to be back in his program. He requires ATTENTION and was real salty when he didn’t get it.

We haven’t been able to make it for a lesson yet, which I’m really itching for at this point because I had some things on my list that I really wanted to chip away at over our summer off season. Mainly getting him quicker off the aids and improving my leg position in the dressage saddle. I’ve been working on both at home, but ya know… a keen eye would help a lot. Maybe this week? We’ll see.

We’ve continued doing lots and lots of poles, too, particularly raised poles at the walk. Presto is not the best at poles (they require focus for longer than 2 seconds but are also boring – the ultimate Presto conundrum) but he’s gotten a lot better and I’m seeing and feeling a difference in his hind end strength. That’s a naturally weak area for him so I think going forward we’ll continue to incorporate lots and lots of raised walk and trot poles into most of our rides.

Last week Holly was in town, and we jetted over to Majestic one morning for a nice long hack. Presto was dying for a change of scenery I think, and was very happy to go exploring. Holly rode Henry, who is such a dolphin right now that he even managed to dolphin his way up a tiny upbank at a walk. Never change, Henny.

This week I think will finally be the week that all the babies go out together in the same pasture. Everyone is big enough and well-socialized enough in herd dynamics now. That should be entertaining at least, and I’m sure the “littler” kiddos will be happy to find themselves in a much larger pasture.

The only other interesting thing that’s happened is that last Friday one of my crowns (the tooth kind) fell out. Just… fell right out while I was chewing a sandwich. Granted, that thing is like 18-19 years old so I guess it had quite a good run. I haven’t established a dentist here in FL yet though so it was great times trying to get an appointment booked that wasn’t like weeks or months from now. I got something for tomorrow, thank goodness, but we gotta go through all that new patient shit before we get to the crown. Hi hello yes I have an exposed root canal nubbin of a molar just CHILLIN IN THE NUDE in the back of my mouth, if we could fix that asap it’d be really cool. Chewing sucks. The most annoying part though is that is so freaking expensive to fix tooth stuff and it’s not even a fun thing. Being an adult is dumb.

I’ve been on a real hot streak for corny Foal Friday titles, and while most of you are probably groaning at the cringe, I’m not upset about it. If you can endure my lame titles and make it to the foal pictures, at least it’s worthwhile?

This week I figured I’d do an update on Rue, since I haven’t taken pics of her in a while! She’s now 4 months old, and BFF’s with her pasturemate Rihanna. Rue is also absolutely stunning.

I don’t mean pretty. I don’t mean cute. I mean STTUNNNNIIINNNNG. She’s beautiful.

And, as you can see, she’s very very gray already. She’s finished her first foal shed and is just kind of a slightly rosey grey now. My guess is she’ll be pretty white by the time she’s 2! She’s already much grayer than Percy, her 2yo full brother.

As far as her temperament and personality go, she’s got that careful vigilance that so many of our jumper bred foals tend to exhibit. She’s smart and pretty brave, but she’s also alert and careful… qualities that make a good showjumper!

She’s sensitive, but not overly so, and she’s a big fan of having her face rubbed!

And if you’re wondering whether or not it’s even possible for her to take an awkward picture, have no fear… even the beauty queens aren’t perfectly poised all the time.

Happy Friday!

I might have done a thing (I wonder how many of my blog posts have started out with that exact phrase…).

At some point last week I was looking at Presto’s forelock and lamenting about the fact that the ends are so bleached and faded. He’s got a lot of bangs, always has, and they’re always orange at the tips. And then I just suddenly had the most overwhelming urge to dye them.

Now, I know what you’re thinking… “Who in their right mind would do such a thing?”. We all know I’m not in my right mind and never have been, so that’s a silly question. I dunno man, what can I say, sometimes the intrusive thoughts win. So I pinged the group chat with my trainer and a couple friends and asked what color Presto’s bangs should be.

Bless em, they’re used to me just saying and doing the most random shit, it didn’t even faze them. I have a whole rainbow of semi-permanent fashion dyes because I do weird colors in my own hair, and I happen to use a line that is vegan, non-toxic, super gentle, safe for dogs, etc. So I was like screw it, I’ll just throw some of my own dye in there. Trainer voted for pink but given how orange our starting point was, I didn’t think it would look very good. Blue fades to green and I really didn’t want him stuck with a green fade, so blue was out. Of my favorites that really only left me with purple… plus it fades to a warmer pinker tone, which is more tolerable than green or orange.

So ya know… I grabbed a latex glove, got my bottle of hair dye, and off we went on an adventure.

The good thing about semi-permanent dye is that since it’s the consistency of conditioner, it’s easy to glob it in, make sure all the hairs are saturated, and you don’t have to worry about mixing up bottles or liquid dripping or anything like that. I literally just squirted some into my hand, ran it through his forelock, then rolled up the forelock, pulled the glove off my hand and flipped it around the hair, and then looped a hair tie around it. It needs to process for at least 45mins and heat helps, so I just rode him with the glove wrapped around his little top knot. Very stylish. Tres chic. Lord only knows what the neighbors think of me by now.

It ended up staying in for about an hour and a half by the time I groomed and tacked up and rode, and it worked great. As soon as I pulled it down I just started cackling endlessly because I mean come on. It’s impossible to not be amused by Presto with a purple forelock. By the time I rinsed the dye out and towel-dried his forelock a bit, I was pretty certain this was one of the better ideas I’ve ever had.

It coordinates well with his punk rock vibe, honestly. You gotta admit he pulls it off.

The semi-perm dyes fade pretty fast, especially with sweat or lots of washing, so once I decide we’re done with it, no big deal, we can fade it out. Granted, he could technically keep it for however long I want, because he always shows in a bonnet (at least for dressage) anyway.

So far the only “public” person to see it was the Arion rep, when she came to check his saddle fit. She looked at him and went “did you dye his forelock purple?”. Me: “yes, indeed, I did do that.”. Her, chuckling: “That’s rad.”.

I find it endlessly entertaining and very fitting. Purple forelock is Presto’s summer vibe for sure. He may have started a TikTok trend… a couple other people have already done their horse’s forelocks too. If this is my legacy, I’m totally here for it.

We are now 3 1/2 weeks post Presto-Trying-To-Jump-Out-Of-A-Parked-Trailer-At-Stable-View, so I figured I’d show you what his lacerations are looking like and how they’re healing. They aren’t bad wound pics by any means, but if you’re squeamish then maybe skip this one.

Some pre-context… The pics labeled week 1 were a week after the original incident. He popped the stitches out of both wounds within the first few days, so we were essentially starting from worse than scratch at that point.

First up, the knee, which was the more minor of the two:

From the week 1 photo to the week 2 photo he wore the Regenaflex-M patches under a wrap. I wish you could tell in the first photo just how deep that chunk of tissue was… had to be a good third of an inch. The hope was that we could get the flap to re-adhere itself, and it did. By the time the Regenaflex-M patch came off, the flap was back down and the tissue had all filled in all the way up to the surface.

And here’s the wound on the inside of his cannon, which was the nastier one:

I was very displeased when he managed to rip those stitches out (even through a wrap… it was impressive). I thought that one would be a real bitch to heal. In the week 2 pic when I took the Regenaflex off, I was shocked to see how much tissue had filled in, but as expected with a wound like that where there had been a big gap between the edges of the skin, you can see that it was really granular.

The day the patches came off was conveniently the day the vet was here to re-start Presto’s flu series for his FEI passport, so she looked at the wounds and recommended a “next step” plan. She was very pleased with how much they’d healed in a short period of time, and said that now we needed to 1) stop the granulation, 2) keep the flies off of them lest they become summer sores. So from the week 2 photo to the week 3 photo we did a few days of a mixed ointment (hydrocortisone and triple antibiotic, which is what she recommends as a basic/simple proud flesh ointment – the steroid will tell the tissue “ok you’ve done enough now” and stop the granulation) and then my trainer said she had some really excellent proud flesh ointment from Rood and Riddle (which was easier than me mixing ointments) so we switched to that. As you can see, it has indeed been excellent. The combination of the Regenaflex patches to fill in the tissue, and then the ointment to help complete the healing… it’s gone really well (knock on wood). It’s way further along at this point than I was expecting.

And here we are now, yesterday, which is 3 1/2 weeks. Day by day there’s noticeable improvement.

We did have to ditch the wraps around the 2 1/2 week mark because the skin on the back of his tendon was getting really irritated underneath (it’s been very warm and humid so I’m not surprised). The challenge was that I still need to keep them covered enough to keep the flies off to prevent summer sores, so I had to get creative. After some experimentation with 9000 different adhesive tapes (swear to god I spent like $70 on TAPES and none of them survived the combination of Presto and Florida) he’s now wearing a fly boot that is gorilla-taped on. He’s only managed to remove the tape once, and I think he’s largely given up now, so we’ll call it a success. Every day I put the ointment on, put the boot on, dump a bunch of medicated baby powder in there, and then tape it up. The knee gets ointment and silver spray, since it’s pretty much healed up aside from hair regrowth.

He looks utterly ridiculous sporting one fly boot everywhere we go (I keep it on when I’m riding to help protect that wound, since it’s on the inside of the leg… it’s still not quite flush enough to put a regular boot on) but I’m ok with that.

Fingers crossed it continues to heal well!

And yes, in that photo he’s got his forelock rolled up in a glove. Why, you may ask? I’ll show you tomorrow…