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…

It’s been a bit warm and swampy here in Florida the past couple weeks, and we started feeling sorry for the younger kiddos who’s foal coats hadn’t shed out all the way yet. They were getting quite sweaty, and between that and the baking sun they were just lookin… a little bit mangey. So Andy and Lucy got haircuts!

They’re not the most beautiful body clips in the world – they’re more for function than for looks. Mostly we just wanted to get all the half-shed long wiry baby hair off their bodies so they weren’t such sweat machines. Their legs and faces are already shedding out pretty heavily so we didn’t bother with those, or their sensitive baby bellies. They were both very well behaved and cooperative for their first experience with clippers.

Andy was a little sus about the clippers at first but with some appropriately timed belly scritchies he was easily convinced to cooperate.

Lucy stood like a little statue (well… a really judgmental statue, she’s always got this look on her face like she thinks you’re an idiot) the entire time, and even thought the clippers felt good on her neck and chest.

It’s definitely helping already, they don’t seem quite as miserable or sweaty in the heat of the day.

Andy seemed quite pleased about his new ‘do.

Lucy was… Lucy. She lives in her world with her mother where they are always the two most superior beings on the planet, and that’s the end of that.

She is just the most bizarre color right now though. She’s chestnut, brown, gray, pink, white, peach, and tan. All mixed together. Or in splotches. It’s not the most flattering way a foal has ever shed out and changed colors, but don’t tell her I said that.

As for Andy, have no fear – we definitely did not touch his fabulous lion tuft ear hairs. They remain pristine.

Happy Friday!

Last week was Presto’s last week of vacay (thank god)… it was also very hot, so at least the timing for his break worked out. I rode Henry some, when I could get on him early enough, because much past 9am was getting a bit too toasty for him.

I’m not sure he took a single normal step of canter any of those rides… Henry dolphined me from one side of the farm to the other with exceptional glee. Bless him. I’m glad he’s still so sassy.

Tuesday was farrier day, and all 3 children were well behaved and their feet look good.

You may remember that we pulled Henry’s hind shoes last cycle, and I was a little worried about his feet crumbling to bits. They did in Texas, but it’s so hard to keep any working horse barefoot there with how hard and rocky the ground is all the time. The parts around his old nail holes did chip up a little bit over the 5 weeks, but no real damage, and they had grown out quite a lot, so this trim the old nail holes are all gone. He’s got a couple of quite lovely-looking barefoot hind feet! He hasn’t seemed tender on them at all either… it’s so sandy and grassy here, much easier to cope without shoes. It was a pretty easy transition.

Fey’s feet also are finally looking markedly better. When she came she had a lot of flaring and cracking in all 4 feet, with some of the quarter cracks sneaking awfully close to the coronary band. We’re, what… 4 or 5 trims in now and all the flares and cracks are totally gone aside from the one biggest one on a hind foot. That one is much improved, it’s only about 1/4 of the way up the foot now. Slowly but surely making improvement! Her feet are actually quite nice, now that the trim is balanced they’re wearing pretty well in between trims. She was also the best behaved she’s been for the farrier so far, she only yanked her foot away twice and had one mini-tantrum. We’ve been working on that. She’s got opinions (shocking, I know).

On Thursday the vet came to do Presto’s first vaccine in his re-started flu series (ugh) for his FEI passport. The timing worked out great because that was the day I was also set to take off the wrap over the leg wounds that had had the Regenaflex-M patches on them. She looked at everything, pulled the last couple stitches out of the bigger wound, and said she thought they looked pretty good. His knee def looks great. The other one is trying to make a lot of granular tissue, so she gave me instructions for what to do with that one and said to keep it covered and protected to make sure it doesn’t turn into summer sores. Granted his skin was also getting irritated from being bandaged for so long, so now we’re dealing with that too. It’s been a fun game to try to figure out how to keep it covered in a way that stays, as dry as possible, and also let air flow to that leg. He’s also THE WORST patient for shit like this because he won’t leave anything on his legs alone. Our current iteration features a fly boot that is gorilla taped on. It’s made it 12 hours, that’s a record so far.

On Saturday I swung a leg over Presto again for his first ride back, and… yeehaw, y’all. He is feeling himself. Psychedelically. There was snorting. There was spinning. There was prancing. There was some wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tubeman.

Wouldn’t really expect much else would we?

This week we’re hacking and walking poles and stretching his body out, stuff like that, just making sure he’s feeling good and slowly easing him back into work. Hopefully I don’t get murdered… it’s 50/50 every day. It’s been very rainy the past few days, which has kept the temps down (yay) but has meant that they’ve been stuck inside more (boo). It really helps add to the general rodeo vibes.

I won’t apologize for the title. I just won’t. It was begging to happen.

I’m a few days late for actual Independence Day, but it still counts, right? Foals in outfits is always a hit. We had to wait for Foal Friday for the reveal but it was totally worth it.

This year Rhett was our enthusiastic volunteer to dress up for some July 4th themed photos. Well, it was more of an offer to put everything in his mouth and attempt to destroy it, but close enough. He was hired.

While he was not the most cooperative foal we’ve ever had (I think that honor goes to Ollie), he didn’t mind wearing the majority of the stuff. For the most part.

He thought the tutu was a little sketchy (as did Chanel)…

but his favorite thing was the little red, white, and blue braided headband. He didn’t want to give that back.

Once he decided he wasn’t being murdered with taffeta he got pretty into it, wanting to check out everything (aka put everything in his mouth).

Once he decided his beloved braids were secure, he took them for a test drive. Outfit on point. Murica.

Happy Friday!

We are now officially 10 days into Presto’s summer vacation and yeehaw, things are starting to get… fun?

He’s getting wilder by the day, and bringing him up to the barn yesterday for a hose and a fly spray was an actual snortfest. He’s seeing sounds and hearing colors.

The original plan was two weeks completely off and then two weeks of hacking… assuming his wounds from the trailer incident are healed up enough to start hacking this weekend, we’ll stick with that plan. Naturally he popped the stitches out of both of them early last week so that’s just superb. Luckily I was able to get a Regenaflex-M patch from Hilltop Bio, so I put that on there last Thursday. Ideally they want it to stay on for 5-7 days… today would be day 5. At this point Presto has like an entire roll of Elastikon layered on his legs, getting it off is gonna be a real bitch, but I have be determined to keep it on there.

I haven’t used the Regenaflex patches before, but I’ve heard good things about them. My vet thought it was probably overkill considering the wounds aren’t that severe, but ya know… I like overkill sometimes, it makes me feel better about things. The Regenaflex-M patch is made from amniotic tissue, and it’s supposed to help it heal faster and reduce scar tissue and inflammation. It’s a very thin piece of sorta tissue-papery membrane that goes directly on the wound. It can even be stitched in, but in this case I just top dressed with it and then wrapped over top. We’ll see what the wounds look like when the wraps come off.

Presto also got a chiropractic visit, because I was certain he probably had to be all sorts of jacked up from getting high-centered on a chest bar and then falling sideways off the ramp of a trailer. But aside from some soreness around the middle of his back, she said he felt quite good actually.

I took a week off from riding too, because I figured it might be good to just have a bit of a break myself. I had lots of work to catch up on anyway, so having a little more time back wasn’t a bad thing. Since then I’ve been putting in some rides on Henry, mostly just playing around, letting him dolphin to his hearts content and hacking all over the farm.

It’s been quite hot here (not Texas hot, but very hot for us – low to mid 90’s) so I don’t want to do too much with Henry since he doesn’t sweat that great, but I think he’s enjoying getting more attention again.

Mostly things have just been chill around here. Feed horses, clean stalls, medicate horses, try to keep everyone cool and happy… that sort of stuff.

The only other fun thing that happened was that Presto’s FEI paperwork came back.

This is not the final complete version… we actually have to restart his influenza series because I don’t have suitable records to meet the FEI’s very particular criteria for that particular vaccine. Even though he just got that booster in March, I don’t have enough of a documented history to suit their requirements (like… I’d have to track all the way back to his original foal series). Anyway, luckily our chiro vet is also an FEI vet/steward so she knows all the ins and outs of this FEI crap. She looked over everything while she was here and we set up appointments to get his flu vax done (AGAIN) in a way that will satisfy the FEI’s timeline requirements. Once those are done, about a month from now, I can send everything back in to USEF for it’s final approval. What a fun process. Why did I want to do an FEI again?

Hope you guys are staying cool out there!