Happy Halloween! It’s my favorite holiday of the year, even though I won’t really be celebrating it today, we’ve got too much other stuff going on. We did get to celebrate it a bit last weekend though, at least Henry did.

Our local schooling horse trials at Florida Horse Park offer regular full HT divisions, CT’s, or a la carte – dressage, sj rounds, or XC rounds. Yep, you heard that right – you can enter for just a XC round. It’s not judged or anything, it’s basically just a more formalized schooling. Leave the start box and jump what you want, you just have to give them a general idea of what your plan is so that the chase cart can follow you around to make sure you’re safe. We don’t have individual fence judges at these, instead to decrease the need for volunteers they have a Gator with a volunteer that follows a safe distance behind you as you go around… it’s brilliant actually.

Anyway, I was feeling kind of stressy depressy early last week about Presto’s nasty hoof bruise and subsequent womp-womp to the rest of our season, and was like ya know what I need to do something fun. And what could be more fun than entering Henry for a BN cross country round and getting a costume? (well ok there’s one thing more exciting than that, which I did also do last week LOL OOPS but we’ll talk about that later)

He’s not been in a ton of work lately, mostly he’s just been coming back the last few weeks, so I figured BN was the best choice. That’s easy for him, and only like 3-4 minutes.

I was looking for decidedly HENRY themed costume ideas, and at first was looking at being a dolphin, but that costume seemed like it might be hard to ride in. Then I saw it.. Cookie Monster. Yes. Immediately yes. Done. I found a mega-cheap Cookie Monster onesie, grabbed a variety pack of cookie stickers from Amazon for $5, was gifted an old fanny pack from a friend, and bought packets of Chips Ahoy at the grocery store. Minimal investment, but the joy was great.

My trainer has been doing these Halloween shows for years so she’s well stocked with a variety of glittery hoof polishes and colored hair sprays, and she happened to have some that matched our Cookie Monster blue perfectly. I also had an old bonnet with the same color trim. It was fate really.

The absolute best thing about doing just an XC round is that they just give you a window of time in which you can show up in warmup, and the starter works you in as they can. These shows always just have you go from SJ to XC, so it’s a relaxed “whenever you show up” type situation for XC warmup. As a result, once I was ready and got on, there was literally only one other person in warmup. We trotted a little, cantered a little, chucked some Chips Ahoy at some volunteers, cantered a few jumps, and then went over to the start box.

Henry was so pleased. Like… so pleased. It’s been quite a while since we’ve left a start box for real, but he knew exactly what he was there for.

I had put him in just his side pull, which… a glorified halter is probably a bold choice for an ex-Prelim horse running a BN XC round, but nah, he was good. Of course he was, he’s Henny. I let him out a little bit in the back during one of the longer stretches and he opened up into a great gallop… ok def not BN speed but it was a schooling round and not timed. He came right back when I asked him to and was polite about the jumps, but he really did enjoy getting to gallop on a bit.

Before the water I circled around the photographer and tossed her a packet of cookies, which made her laugh. Spreading joy via cookies, true Cookie Monster energy.

Henry popped over everything with so much joy, it was really cute. Also, really damn fun. Just… really damn fun to be back on this boy doing what he loves most.

I love Presto with every fiber of my being and he’s worth all of his shenanigans, but it was also really nice to just have a day where there was no drama and no stress and no screaming or trying to climb on the trailer or putting a foot in the hay net or or or or whatever busy thing it is he’s doing that day. Henry is easy and an old pro about everything, and that makes it quite enjoyable. Having Presto makes me appreciate Henry’s good qualities more, just like having Henry also makes me appreciate Presto’s sheer athleticism and talent and ability more. There is no compare/contrast, they’re just different, and both fantastic horses in their own way.

It was great to spend a day out with my original BFF though, just having a great time together. He enjoyed it so much, too. I think maybe this is his calling – doing XC rounds at the schooling shows. His favorite phase without any of the other bullshit. It’s just sheer fun for the sake of fun, and isn’t that what this is all supposed to be about anyway? Sometimes it’s nice to step back from the workworkwork aspect of the sport and just have a 100% goofy fun time with your BFF. Thanks Henny. (and yes, of course he got a lot of horse cookies)

PS. Patreon people, you have the full XC video on your dashboard.