It might be the holidays, but somebody lost his jingle bells.

I will not apologize for the lameness of that opening line.

Anyway, Strax got neutered last week. So far, knock on wood, he looks fantastic. The hardest part was getting him out of the vet clinic with the cone on his head – it took him 7 tries to make it out of the door successfully, while the entire waiting room laughed at his misfortune. Bless him, he really couldn’t master that thing. I ended up getting him one of those inflatable donut things instead, which has worked way better. Trazadone is a joke though, he’s been parkouring like a lunatic. Luckily his incision looks fantastic, and it was tiny, and he’s shown zero inclination to mess with it, so… fingers crossed it really did go that smoothly.

It’s also very nearly season here in Ocala, which means we’re basically in pre-season mode. The h/j pre-circuit shows have already started at WEC, and Luxe EQ is already here.

Which means I’ve been logging a few hours here and there, either doing inventory or actual retail. It’s a nice supplement to my income and between me and the two other workers we’ve made the hours quite flexible, so it’s definitely not a bad gig. I like all the pretty things and the WEC hot chocolate.

I also got a couple lessons with Presto last week, trying our best to get back into a regular swing of things. On Monday we had a jump lesson, and he was really really good. Trainer had set up a course in the arena that also has a couple bounces on the short sides that can be either ridden alone as a circle or sprinkled into the courses, which she also had set up last year. And last year, the exercises were a lot more difficult for us. This year you can see a marked difference in his rideability and his power… it felt pretty easy and I was really pleased with him. We didn’t get video though, which was a bummer.

Argo is continuing along on his schedule, still working on the basics. The progress remains incremental… a little more swing through his back, a little more steadiness in the connection, a little more desire to stretch over his topline. Just like 1% every day, but it adds up. So far he’s proving relatively simple, if a bit lazy.

On Friday Presto and I had a dressage lesson, our first in like 3 months. I do a lot of flatwork with him at home, pretty intense and demanding and structured, but lord above we did a lot of canter work in the lesson and my abs were SCREAMING.

He’s just really big and a lot of horse to ride as far as general mass goes. He’s long. He’s big. He’s thicc now too. If he was in Europe he’d probably be described as a “man’s horse”. And he has a lot of power but generally kind of wants to offer about 80%, so it’s still an effort to coax 100% out of him. You can see the change in him even from the spring/early summer as far as his balance and his ability to carry/sit but we’ve still got to work a lot on keeping him in front of the leg. He’s fun to ride though, even if I sometimes feel like I got hit by a Presto-sized bus.

On Saturday Holly came over to take Argo for a spin.

I was kind of curious to see how he’d go for someone else. He’s still not that many rides in – maybe 15? But he will be intended to be a sale horse eventually, so I think having other people get on him regularly will be a good thing for him. Plus it helps me see how he goes for other people and if I need to re-install or move any of the buttons I’m putting on him.

He was really good for Holly, but really spectacularly lazy that day. Argo is snoozy by nature, and I don’t necessarily want to take that quality away completely because I think it’s a benefit to his marketability, BUT he does still need to go forward when asked the first time. Holly doesn’t have as much leg as I do to be able to wrap ’em around, plus I think he was kinda like “I don’t know her, maybe she doesn’t know how to find the go button” and proceeded to feign a bit of ignorance. She did find the go button eventually but it took some doing. She rode him well though (especially considering she’s used to riding an actual pony!), and he was very well-behaved, so I was happy with that.

On Sunday I took Presto down to Three Lakes for their pre-season XC Open Schooling day. They host two shows every spring but I have never been there, so it was new for me. It was a little bit Stable View-esque with the wooded areas, and the rest was open and next to, as the name would imply, lakes. Presto was a little wide-eyed about the giant bodies of water at first, but was actually quite well behaved.

I think part of that was because when we got there, it was already a scene. I had come by myself, with Hillary as my ground person (bless her, she did so much walking) but there were several larger groups there with trainers. In the first 5 minutes we were there, two people fell off right by us. There were a lot of questionable things happening. Presto was like “well since the scene is already here, I guess I don’t have to be one” and proceeded to be one of the most level-headed animals on the property.

Mostly I had just wanted to get him out somewhere new, school the ditches and water, and knock more rust off. He was really exceptional, jumped all the ditches like a good boy (and even served as a lead for another horse that was having a problem), did both waters, and jumped some other stuff along the way like an angled brush and a combo of corners. It was a good day, even if driving an hour and a half each way to an XC schooling felt very far and ridiculous (yeah I know, Texas Me hates Ocala Me).

Tonight we’ve got a special equine genetics webinar for our Patreon group (members, the link to join is on your dashboard!) and then my days are mostly filled with various work projects and a couple more Presto lessons this week. This weekend we’ve got more XC schooling and then I’m gonna take him around a Training XC round at the schooling show on Sunday. Chipping away at the rust before season starts for real!