I’m in a bit of a time crunch this morning but trying my best to post an update here for y’all. It’s been busy here over the past week!

Last Tuesday was the Ocala fall HT at Florida Horse Park. Yes, a recognized horse trial on a Tuesday. Very British. They only had Modified through Advanced and kept the numbers low, but it was honestly kind of a nice, relaxed day compared to the majority of their shows. Presto obviously wasn’t entered since he just did Stable View, but Hillary’s horse Lex was scheduled to make his Modified debut with Trainer in the irons. He was a super duper Honykid and finished 4th, only adding two time penalties to his dressage score! The best part was that Trainer wore Hillary’s pompom helmet cover for XC. It was hilarious and adorable.

The next day I took Presto over to The Place That Broke His Brain about the down banks into water, and lunged him off of them to try to help rebuild his confidence. He was actually super good and quickly made a game of it. I think because he lunged over a lot of XC stuff early on he 1) knows the drill 2) thinks its fun.

Strax also had his next vaccine appointment, and omg y’all I knew he was getting beefy but he weighed in at 15.2 lbs. My littlest boy is getting big. He’s really good about the vet though, even if perhaps less excited this time (he remembers the trauma of the fecal from last time I think… he was NOT a fan). He’s really settled into barn dog life seamlessly and is a super good boy to have around the farm.

Other than his remedial XC work Presto has been hacking and doing his usual flatwork routine. He finally got to get up close and personal with Hillary’s new mare Freya and decided he loves her. I’m not sure either of us are too excited about that, because to be honest they both have a similar chaotic energy. Hers is more subdued but still… I don’t think these two bad influences should be friends.

I also had a couple of interesting calls last week. On Wednesday I chatted with the folks from Etalon Equine Genetics about Fey’s Ancestry test results, and picked their brains in particular about the blood percentage test. It’s just super fascinating to me. On paper Fey is 76% blood, but by her actual genetic testing she’s 67%. Which honestly tracks, she’s not the most blood-looking phenotype and carries forward a lot of the Hano look from her dam’s side. It’s really fascinating to see some of the numbers and how they correlate. Etalon also offered to do a live Q&A session for our Patreon group so I’m in the process of getting that set up, which should be fun!

On Friday Hillary had scheduled a call with an animal communicator, and offered to let me tack Henry and Presto onto her call. I’m MEGA skeptical about this stuff and have never tried it myself largely because it would take like 5 seconds to google me/my horses and learn everything you need to know about them. But by not having my name or horse’s names in advance it felt more “blind” and gave it a chance to be more genuine in my eyes. I’m still debating how I feel about the whole thing… there were some things she said that I have yet to figure out how she could have possibly known, but other things my cynical brain can explain away. Hillary and I are going to record a podcast episode about that this week… if nothing else it was definitely interesting.

Yesterday sBs was here getting all the paperwork and registration stuff done for our 2023 babies. Next week we’ll wean the 3 younger ones, and then we’re all done with babydom for this season. We got some pics yesterday too while they were up in the front paddocks, so this Friday’s post will be our last Foal Friday of the year. They grow up so fast!