I feel like I’m emerging from the battle that is Black Friday, covered head to toe in soot and bleeding from multiple places, dragging an axe behind me. I’m never prepared for making that dang list and have a lot of mixed feelings about it. Alas, we survived another year and lived to tell the tale, and I don’t have to think about it again for like 11.5 months. Delighted.

I had to go back through my phone pictures to remember last week, it was a bit of a blur. On Monday Argo went on his first XC adventure, down to Naked Horse with Freya and Henry. The general plan was to walk him around, lunge him over some logs and ditches/bank/water, and see what his vibe was. True to Argo form, his vibe was “yes, and?”:

I mean don’t get me wrong, for him he was definitely on his toes in a new busy wide open environment, but his version of that is extremely mild. He walked and trotted over some logs, I led him up and down a bank, and popped across a small ditch. None of it was that interesting. Then I handed him over to my friend Lija, who was on Henry, so she could pony him through the water.

Admittedly I thought that the water might be the thing about XC that Argo wasn’t so sure about. He’s a clean horse, not particularly playful or overly curious, and those types sometimes just really don’t want to go in the water. So ya know… color me shocked when he eagerly took himself in. Not a single bit of encouragement required.

If anything he really seemed like he’d love to roll in it, so had to be encouraged to keep his head up and keep moving. Overall though, easy peasy, no hesitation. Good boy Argie.

After that I decided to hop on, since it had been so uneventful. We stood around and watched Henry and Lija for a bit

And went off exploring, trotting and cantering over some little logs, popping over the ditch, and trotting back and forth through the water. He was not impressed.

He was a little wiggly when it came to the stand-still-and-wait-your-turn part, but not bad. Stuff like that is to be expected. I thought that in general he handled it really well, especially because this venue is on a sorta-busy road and several times some very loud trucks rumbled by. No reaction. He cared more about what was going on in the barn behind the field and wanted to be a little nappy heading away from it, but there wasn’t much of an effort on his part.

On Tuesday we checked off another ArgoAftercare item with a visit from Auntie Jenn, the best and most favorite bodyworker. She’s married to Maya Black and they just came back into town for the season, so I had to have her out ASAP for Presto and Argo. She thought Presto felt great, strong in his muscles but not tight. Argo was obviously considerably more tight obviously, and she worked a lot on his neck, shoulders, and SI region. Argo slept through the entire thing.

I feel like every bit of work we do on him makes him look just a little bit better, so seeing the incremental improvements is nice. Confirmation that we’re headed in the right direction, at the very least.

On Thursday morning I took Presto over to Majestic to gallop, his first one since he’s been back in work. Because duh what else would you do on Thanksgiving. Mostly we just did slower gallops – slower and shorter than his normal peak fitness sets anyway – but at the end I let him sprint up the long hill. He feels great, and really propelled himself up that hill in a way I haven’t felt from him yet.

And then on Friday, Hillary and I left early early to head down to Wellington to visit some friends. You may remember that the owners of the farm where I lived in Texas moved to their Wellington property full time when I moved to Ocala, and I had yet to make it down there to visit them. What better time than a holiday weekend? The drive wasn’t too bad, about 4 hours (a lot by Florida time but a drop in the bucket for Texas time) and we rolled into town about mid morning.

I had not been to Wellington before but it was pretty much what I expected. Definitely horse world central, but a very very different feel and atmosphere to Ocala. It’s beautiful, for sure. When we got to the farm we got a tour, ate lunch while we watched Michelle Gibson school some horses, and then headed out to a couple tack shops. Because why not hit the Wellington tack shops on Black Friday?

First up was On Course Consignment, which was massive and overwhelming even without the added effect of all the people. So much stuff. So many people. I didn’t even know where to look. I tried on a shad that I loved but it was still a bit more than I wanted to pay, and a gorgeous Samshield show coat that I definitely would not let myself purchase but really wanted to. With an unlimited budget I could have done some real damage in there. Alas, we’re in frugal mode, so all I got was a pair of white Pikeurs for $20. Those were a steal.

Then we headed over to Tackeria, which is also A TON OF STUFF. I almost bought a dressage whip there but my brain prevailed and I put it back.

After that we headed back to the farm and I hopped on JB, who some of you may remember. He and Presto grew up together for a couple years in Texas and were the absolute Shenanigan Duo. JB is now huge and stunning and definitely seems to have retained some of his cheekiness. Sounds familiar.

The next day we had some breakfast, watched Michelle with another nice young horse, and then hit Tacknrider on our way out of town. They had a lot of brands in store that I’ve only seen online in Europe, so it was nice to get to see and touch things in person. Then we hopped back in the car and headed home, which took considerably longer with all the holiday traffic. Did not love.

To cap off the week, yesterday Presto and I had our first jump lesson in two months. He was very excited to be back jumping, but was overall a good boy.

Argo got a week off, with everything going on, so he’ll be back on the roster this week! And Henry of course, he’s still getting ridden too. You’ll be shocked to hear that this week is already full. At least there’s no time for boredom?

Hope everyone had a good holiday and scored some Black Friday deals!