Month: January 2024

It’s possible that last week I overcommitted to the point of driving myself right off the edge of sanity. I’ve had a couple blog posts half-drafted for ages with the full intention of running them as a “second” one during the week rather than just the once a week updates I seem to be managing as of late, but I haven’t had time to sit down and finish them. All that to say here I am, once again, offering you a weekly update.

Last week was mostly filled with copywriting, pedigree reports, consults, content creation, social media stuff, and a few days of working retail. I’ve been trying my best to keep my schedule mostly clear on Tuesdays (aside from riding) since that seems to be working out as the best option for a day off. And it just so happened that last Tuesday was the winter mixed sale at OBS. What better way to enjoy an afternoon than by looking at ponies you cannot afford?

The fun thing about the Mixed Sale is that – as the name implies – it has literally everything. Preggo mares, yearlings, two year olds, horses of racing age (HRA), and sometimes even stallions. These sales are a little more fun to me than the yearling ones, particularly because I like the seeing the ones that are 3 and 4.

Oh, also the other fun thing about any OBS sale is that there are always these ladies set up in a little nook near the cafeteria selling baked goods. Don’t sleep on the brownies, they’re fire. Bring cash.

Anyway, we did a little browsing at the walking ring while we paged through the catalog to look for anything that looked interesting on paper. There were a couple cute 2yos that came through, and a couple really nice pregnant mares. I thought our friend Sarah might lose the plot entirely and bid on one of the pregnant mares if her price stayed low (you never know with these sales, sometimes they go for a pittance, sometimes they go for way over what you’d think) but luckily the bidding went fast and she ended up expensive.

One of our vets was there too (she also has some racehorses) and when were oohing and aahing over the pedigrees of a couple in the HRA she was like “do you want to go look at them?”. No of course not. But also yes absolutely, lets go. So we trekked across to the other side of the barns to look at two in particular – a turf-bred colt and an Astern filly. The turf colt was not particularly attractive and had some physical issues. The Astern filly – true to every Astern I have yet seen with my own eyes – was gorgeous.

I thought Hillary might be in real trouble if that one went for cheap. She seemed to have a good temperament… the vet felt a couple potential issues upon a quick exam, then went to the repository to review her films on file. There were a few little things that might be iffy but also might not be. We went inside to the auction floor when it was her turn… ya know… just to see how much she went for. If she’d stayed under 3k someone in our group would have gotten her for sure. Luckily the bidding surpassed that and she ended up going for $5500. Still cheap, but not would-be-a-crime-not-to-buy level of cheap.

We stayed in there for a bit watching more horses come through, and towards the end this super leggy, awkward looking 3yo colt came in. His face looked so much like Presto, and I swear to you he looked me dead in the eye. I was like OH I LIKE THIS ONE. On paper I never would have picked him (and to be fair the growth stage he’s in at the moment is not cute) but they showed video of him galloping and OOOOOOOOO yes, that is my type. The gallop combined with his face had me on the edge of my seat.

And lord, I swear, I have never been so close to putting my hand up in the air at a Thoroughbred sale in my entire life. For a long agonizingly uncomfortable few seconds, he had no bids at the opening price of $1,000. My fingers were twitching. Finally someone stuck their hand up, and it went up to $1500 and then stalled again. My whole arm started twitching.

Thank GOD it picked up a little bit after that, and as soon as it passed 2k I was safely out of the danger zone. I mean… I could not have afforded him at any price (aside from the fact that you know what I DO NOT NEED? A THREE YEAR OLD COLT!) but can you imagine if no one had bid. Isn’t there an obligation at that point? Isn’t that how sales work? (I can feel all of you going no Amanda no it fucking isn’t – I don’t need your negativity, ok?)

Anyway. He went for $3500, which was still absurdly cheap, but past the limit of my own personal absurdity.

Despite our best efforts, our whole group did manage to escape the sale entirely unscathed. That was a close one. I did find the woman who bought Rebel and tell her to please contact me when he’s ready to retire (hopefully in like a year or two? RRP ’25 or ’26?) and she was super nice and sent me more pics of him and said she’d keep me updated on him. I love finding the good racetrack people.

The other fun noteworthy thing I did last week was that I finally had another jump lesson on Presto – his first one since we started ulcer treatment. I mostly wanted to get a gauge of where he’s at and how he’s feeling. And well… he feels fantastic. We kept everything small and simple for him, under 1m, but he really felt like my GoodGood horse again. I hadn’t even really realized how incrementally he’d gotten a bit behind my leg or a bit less enthusiastic over the past couple months, but last week he was locking onto everything and taking me to it like the Presto we all know and love. No bullshit, just doing his job that he loves. It felt like he’s back, which was fantastic.

I didn’t get any video or pictures, but hopefully this week we can go back again and then start looking at XC schooling. Hopefully we’re back on track now!

I truly intended to make another post last week but lol that didn’t happen. Anyway, we’re now 12 days into Presto’s ulcer treatment.

I decided I’m going to make something fun out of the empty tubes since the amount of money they represent is relatively painful and absurd. Stay tuned.

Presto has been surprisingly cooperative about his meds though. I thought he might be kind of a turd (I have no idea what could have led me to assume such a thing aside from almost 7 years of behavior) but I go out every morning at 5:30 to give it to him so it has an hour to percolate before breakfast, and he’s been quite good about it.

Well, ok. He did figure out how to open the door to the stall that adjoins his pasture.

I discovered this one morning when I went out to feed and he was no longer present in his assigned location. He had settled himself in on the other side of the farm with the mares, who welcomed him adoringly. Honestly, kudos to his quick work, because to find this level of chaos in the hour between his meds and his breakfast is admirable really.

Anyway, he earned himself a clip on the bottom of his stall door so he can’t open it anymore, but that doesn’t stop him from trying. And he’s checking it very regularly, because a couple days ago after I fed dinner I guess I forgot to re-clip it, because about 45 mins later I heard a commotion outside and Presto was in my backyard like “oh hey… whats up…”.

He completed his 10 days of hacking/taking it easy, so we’ll start flatting again this week and maybe he can get back to the jompies by next week. I do think he’s feeling better, so now we just have to keep him on that track.

Argie boy had a bit of a quiet week last week, with new shoes on Thursday and then a dental exam/teeth float on Friday. He’s got a little bit of an overbite and a slant, and he had some definite sharp points and hooks in there… he was starting to get a little rub from one of them on this right cheek. I’m glad we got that all done and squared away even if my wallet is like “bro wtf”.

I gave him a couple days off after that, but yesterday it was back to business as usual.

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We’re slowly but surely making progress. I appreciate that I can not ride him for a few days and get on without any drama and pick up where we left off, that’s one of my favorite handy qualities in a horse and a necessary one for an amateur mount IMO.

I also got all of our RRP stuff submitted last week, so fingers crossed. The site was making me a bit nervous there at the end, it didn’t want to attach my vet reference letter. We’ll find out in a few weeks if I got accepted!

Let’s see, what else has been going on around here…

Last Sunday we had a couple different content creation things happening at the farm. The folks from Noelle Floyd came out to film some video of the herd horses interacting for some future Tik content, and then a couple brands came out in the afternoon to get some Presto footage/record a testimonial from me about a product. I mostly just tried not to sound like an absolute dumbass but we’ll see if I accomplished it or not. They also got some footage of Strax and some of the babies to use for other stuff, so all these WTW animals are about to be Insta famous. It was fun though, I always like making connections with people that I’ve only really seen or known through social media.

This past Sunday I made my vet tech debut… my vet texted and asked if I would have any interest in helping with a PPE on a 4yo Thoroughbred (I’ve told her before that I’m always down for more side hustles for extra cash if she needs assistance). The day was mostly open and I’m deeply interested in vet-related things, so naturally I was in. Her comment was “when they told me it was a 4yo thoroughbred you were the first person that sprang to mind because I knew naughty behavior wouldn’t bother you.”. Thanks Presto for that reputation. Joke’s on all of us, the baby TB was a perfect angel and aside from all the running I had to do, I thought it was fun. We only had to reshoot two of the dozens of films, so I’ll take that as a success for my first time.

Yesterday was a fun mail day – Presto’s 2023 year end ribbons came! I wasn’t even aware that there were Area leaderboards and thus Area ribbons, so that was a fun surprise. In Area 3 we were 2nd for Training (he hasn’t done a Training since April, so way to hang on to that leaderboard kiddo) and 4th for Modified (he only did 4 Modifieds) and then for the National leaderboard we were 6th in the Training Master. He was also 8th nationally for Modified but I guess they only do ribbons to 6th.

I need to find something to do with his ribbons that isn’t just piling them up in the guest room. It feels disrespectful to the amount of time and energy and effort that went into obtaining them, particularly with this horse.

In other Fun Mail Day news, LOOK AT THIS SWEATSHIRT THAT SWEET STITCH EMBROIDERY MADE FOR ME.

It’s perfection. She can do any color sweatshirt and any embroidery/font/colors you want. It’s one of those things that would be a great gift or also just a fun splurge item for yourself. I had one made for Hillary that says Thoroughbreds at the collar and has her two mares’ names on the sleeve. There’s really no limit to what you could do with it… farm name, show name, breed… you name it. The owner, Betsy, is super creative too if you need ideas. Here’s a link to the listing. 10/10 recommend!

Oh yeah, in other news I have a new Riding Warehouse code as well – BRE10. Feel free to use it if you’re shopping with them.

I think that’s it for this particular news dump? I’ll leave you to process.

The astute observers among you may have noticed that my name was not in fact among any of the event results from this weekend. That’s because things changed drastically last week after my last post.

When I last left off, I was getting ready to take Presto to jumper rounds on Wednesday afternoon.

I did take him to jumper rounds. We did not actually jump anything.

Let me back up a bit and give some context to this story, because in actually I think it truly began months ago.

If you remember, around the time of the September Stable View, Presto started being inconsistently and randomly hesitant to jump down off of banks and across open ditches. We had that 20 at Stable View at the down bank, and I came home and had my vet out for a general exam and to check for any lameness. You may also recall that we found jack shit, and in fact he was quite incredibly sound (verified by her app which said his gait symmetry was perfect).

And then like two days later was when he did the foot bruise debacle that put him on stall/tiny pen rest for a few weeks. I brought him back and he’s felt quite amazing since then actually, as far as how he’s moving and jumping. He’s got more power and balance than he ever has.

But still, something has been just a little bit not quite right sometimes. The ditch/bank issue remained, he was still being randomly weird about them on occasion… maybe like 5% of the time. Honestly I thought I’d done something wrong and he’d stopped trusting me about it, and we just had to rebuild the confidence and expectation.

The Sunday before last we had a jump lesson, and it was really out of character. He jumped, but he was being pretty unrideable and rank about having to whoa in the lines. We ended up just doing a gymnastic, and though he finally settled, he ended the lesson with more of a concerned look on his face. Usually he finishes lessons with a “yeah I know, I am the most amazing horse that has ever existed” look on his face. We all noticed his mood and thought it was odd. But… horses aren’t machines and can have off days.

On the following Tuesday night I tuned into Ride iQ’s weekly Ask an Expert, because their guest was my vet, doing a talk on Equine Ulcers. She’s the one who’s done all Presto’s work, she did Argo’s scope when he first got here, she also does our chiro, etc etc. Anyway… there was a point where she was talking about unusual ulcer symptoms that she’s noticed in event horses in particular, she mentioned two things that snagged my attention.

1) they can sometimes be reluctant to jump down banks/across ditches (because of the motion causing the acid to splash the top of the stomach, she theorizes). She mentioned this as being a symptom in horses that have ulcers at the top of their stomach, which is uncommon.

and

2) be forward and yet also kind of perpetually behind the leg. This is Presto to a T, I dunno how many times in the past 6 months that I’ve described him as “the most forward and yet simultaneously most behind the leg horse I’ve ever ridden”. I just assumed it’s because I suck as a rider.

Those things were very much sitting in my mind the next day as we headed to the jumper show. We got there and Presto was clearly very unsettled from the moment he stepped off the trailer. Staring off into the distance with his heart pounding, being reactive, explosive, and just dramatically not himself. Even after 45 minutes of walking and trotting around the warmup, it did not improve. The horse can be a little ridiculous and silly sometimes, but not like that. He’s usually got 5 minutes of Fuckery in him and then he’s ready to carry on. My gut said something just wasn’t right, and I had a hunch that it was his stomach. I ended up not even leaving the warmup. I scratched, loaded up, and came home.

I called my vet on the way home and talked it through with her, and she agreed that we should scope him for ulcers. I scratched the show for the weekend and made a vet appointment instead. 

She came on Friday morning and god, y’all… his stomach is a mess. He has grade 2.5-3 ulcers on the top of his stomach (the notes on her report say “Areas of eroded squamous mucosa in the fundus, which is an unusual presentation.”. Honestly, does this horse ever do anything that isn’t unusual.

What’s interesting is that my vet said this is the fourth mid-upper level event horse she’d seen this in recently. She doesn’t yet have a theory as to why.

We talked over treatment options and she gave me a “budget” one and an “all out” one. There is no question, we are doing the all out. I’ll figure out how to pay for it, I’m not taking shortcuts with anything with this horse and his health. I also asked her what the heck else I can do to prevent this from happening again.

Mind you, I feed our horses in ways specifically meant to be stomach friendly. They live outside, get lots of forage, eat forage-first feeds, get alfalfa 30mins before their grain meals, get ulcergard during long travel, has a very regular schedule, a calm environment, etc. The horse looks fantastic, has a super shiny coat, is moving better than he ever has, and is super outgoing and enthusiastic. It’s not one you’d look at and be worried about, or think was high risk. He IS a competition horse though (and, ya know, a HORSE in general) and eventing is a stressful job for any horse I think. Even doing everything “right” in his life to try to prevent this, his stomach is still a mess.

She agreed that everything I’m already doing is what she would recommend. The only additional thing she said is to add Ulcergard before any XC school, in the chance that the acid splash from jumping down and across is contributing. His scope also did reveal that he seems to produce a bit more acid than usual, so she thought it might be worth looking at a daily preventative (she’s not typically a supplement enthusiast, but she suggested a few that have actual research behind them) to try to help give his stomach a bit more of a natural barrier of protection.

I haven’t really stopped beating myself up for missing this and probably never will. In retrospect I feel like this probably started with the June Stable View trailer incident, and really kicked off once his workload started to increase again. To be fair,  he displayed absolutely none of the real “traditional” ulcer symptoms. And he’s naturally kind of a spooky dingaling, so behavior-wise it’s hard to tell with him sometimes. That doesn’t stop me from feeling like a whole idiot. I know this horse so well, I feel like I should have cottoned on sooner than I did.

I’m very very glad we found this before we started our competition season but I still feel really guilty that he’s been doing his job with his stomach looking like this. This hasn’t happened overnight. It makes me think that adding an annual gastroscopy might be worthwhile to consider.

A few people have asked me why I opted to scope and not just treat. There are a few reasons. 1) there’s no point throwing money at a problem that may not exist. 2) If you don’t really know for sure what issue you have, you have no idea how to modify that horse’s lifestyle to make the changes required to try to avoid having the situation arise again in the future. Like… how the hell would I have known the ulcers were at the top of the stomach, or that he produces excess acid? 3) This is the most important one: Different types of ulcers require different medications/types of treatment. If he’d had ulcers in a different location, he would be on a different medication than he is now. If his ulcers had been better or worse, it may have affected what I do with him under saddle while he heals, how long I treat, and at what dosage. In the grand scheme of the cost of these medications and the well-being of the horse, paying for the scope is the cheap part.

So, if there are any takeaways from all this, I would leave you with these:

1) Listen to your gut. If you think something is wrong, you’re probably right.

2) Watch or listen to (if you have the Ride iQ app it’ll be up in Podcasts soon) that AAE episode. It’s incredibly valuable.

3) Do the scope. Just spend the money and do the scope. If there’s even a question… scope.

We are officially off and running for season, whether we like it or not.

I had to chuckle last week when I drove into WEC on Wednesday morning for my work shift. Week 1 Day 1 of circuit, it was cold, and the lines at all the lunging rings were long. Grooms were getting yeeted from one end to the other. Sometimes I forget how different the h/j world is from the eventing world and then I drive into WEC and I’m like ah yes right.

This morning we got our ride times for the HT at Majestic this weekend, so… that’s happening. It’s supposed to storm Friday, which is when I have dressage and SJ, so it’s not really helping me conjure the enthusiasm to do all the pre-show necessities like wash my whites and find my braiding kit and look at my dressage test. Those seem like Thursday activities. Let’s hope we don’t end up trapped in the trailer during a lightning storm on Friday, that would not please me very much. I need to give myself a little pep talk so I can find the enthusiasm I had when I sent in my entry.

Last Friday I did hop over and school a couple things before they closed the course – mainly ditches, banks, water. That seemed fair to do since he hasn’t shown in a few months…I am expecting that he may be a bit spooky and wild about the entire affair, especially since there are a lot more horses during season. Presto was good for schooling though (he is not lacking enthusiasm), as he usually is at Majestic. It seems to be the place he’s most comfortable, which is why I picked this show in the first place. Granted, their dressage rings are also grass (and not particularly level) so dressage in the rain might be interesting. Bringing the bigger studs for sure.

We did have another jump lesson this past weekend and it was not great. He was in major ego mode, which he does sometimes. He starts to think he’s right about everything and then gets angry at my input. We ended up abandoning course work and putting him back and forth through more of a gymnastic exercise until he decided that he could in fact be open to feedback. Not really the last lesson you want before a show but… he’s done this before. Many times in fact, the last jump lesson before a show is kind of ass. It’s not my favorite. I think today I’m gonna take him over for a jumper round at one of the local show series just so we can actually jump a course.

In other news, for the first time in my entire life I delegated the job of clipping my horse. This past weekend I had some big deadlines on writing projects and it was one of those things where either I’d have time to ride or I’d have time to clip, but not both (I am a slow clipper, guys). Someone posted on one of the Ocala groups saying she had some spots that day that she’d do for a discount and I was like ya know what, I can’t beat that. She came out and clipped him while I wrapped up an article and sent it to my editor, and it worked out perfectly. She did a great job too. I was a little nervous about that, because I am an OCD control freak about clipping, but he’s looking sharp.

It did, admittedly, feel VERY luxurious to not be covered in hair and dirt and wake up the next morning without my back feeling broken. Like… it was a real “is this how the other half live?” moment. I would still prefer to clip my own horses because of who I am as a person but what a little treat that was in the moment.

This weekend we’ve got the horse show and then a couple different people are coming out to film some content, and hopefully sometime next week the Custom rep will be out to do our regular fit check for Presto’s dressage saddle. Here we go!

I say this every July 4th and New Years, but I really hate the BoomBoom holidays. Fireworks should be illegal and I will die on that hill. Hate hate double hate loathe entirely. But we made it through yet another BoomBoom holiday relatively unscathed (did my walls vibrate until 4am from the LOUD AF music coming from two farms over that was accentuated with regular BOOMS that sounded like bombs? yes they did.) so I guess we’ll call that a win I guess.

I spent Saturday at WEC helping get the Luxe EQ trailer and cabin (yes we’ve got TWO things this year – a bigger mobile trailer plus a double size cabin that’s full of just Cavalleria Toscana) ready before the circuit starts this week. I dunno that I’m mentally ready for the next three months at WEC but I’m only working a few half days a week so it shouldn’t be too bad. The worst part for me is all the people and how annoying it is to try to park. This year we’re back behind the barns over on the road with all the saddle vendors though, rather than being stuck in the vendor village of cabins. I think it’ll be a lot better over there. Plus it’s right next to the hamburger place, Ralph’s, which is great because the only nearby food for the vendor village was the patisserie… there’s a limit to how many croissants one can consume for lunch.

On Sunday Presto and I headed over to Majestic Oaks for some jumper rounds. I was using this as kind of a litmus test to see how I felt about entering the January USEA show. Truth is, Presto really needs to get back to his job. I can get stuck in Training mode sometimes but he’s happier and better when he’s going and doing on a regular basis. I kind of completely lost track of how close we were to horse shows though and didn’t even go look at the omnibus until after closing date for Majestic. So I figured I’d go do a couple jumper rounds and see how I felt about it, and if all seemed good then I’d enter and pay the late fee. I loathe paying late fees, I get real mad at myself when I have to do that because of my own lack of planning.

But we loaded up on Sunday with the plan of doing a 3’3″ class and a 3’5″ class. They did time slots per height, so 3’3″ was supposed to go at noon and then 3’5″ at 12:30. I got there at 11:30 and they had just finished 2’3″, so uh… it was running a wee bit behind. I was floored at how many people were there, the entire giant parking field was looking almost as full as an event during season. Did not expect that for the end of December. I hope this is not a foreboding of what is to come.

They did their best to move people through the heights but there were just so many rounds in the under 3′ heights. I ended up not getting on til like 2:30. Luckily once we hit 3’3″ the place emptied out pretty quickly, so I was able to squeeze in for both of my rounds without too much more hurry-up-and-wait.

In warmup I just legit could not see a distance. And I don’t mean couldn’t find one, I mean legit just didn’t see shit. I’m not used to that. I might not always be able to make it happen to get to a good one, but I can almost always SEE where I am, at least 5 or 6 strides out. I kept coming out of the corner and just not seeing jack shit. It wasn’t pleasing me the most. Presto didn’t care, bless him, but I was annoyed.

As soon as we got in the ring it came back, thank goodness. I’m very glad I waited it out and stayed for my rounds because they were much-needed but also confidence-building. Not having gone out in public and jumped courses since the end of September, my brain is still clicking itself back into the groove. I didn’t put quite enough bend in the bending lines for the first course, and Presto was a wee bit excited to be there (see below Freak Flag exhibition)

but he was really good. Once they raised the jumps we went back in for the 3’5″ and smoothed it out a bit. Still wasn’t perfect, but I rode it better, and Presto felt really good. He loves his job, I don’t doubt that for one second. It’s also fun to feel how delightedly unimpressed he is at the height… it gives me confidence because I’m not as worried about making a mistake. If and when I do, he is truly non-plussed. Underneath all of his drama and fuckery he really is a kind and genuine dude.

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Also peep his lil lead change – we’ve been working on those! Left to right is pretty much 100%, right to left is harder and usually late behind, but it’s progress. I swear it’s harder for these big long horses.

So now we’re entered for the Majestic USEA in a week and a half… we’re def not at peak form but it’ll be a good opportunity to start to get back in the swing of things.

Mostly I can’t believe it’s 2024 already. Seems absurd, does it not?

My fancy new white board tells us that in the last 3.5 weeks of December (how long I’ve had it) I had two dressage lessons on Presto and two jump lessons, he went XC schooling 3 times., did one XC run at the POP show and then the Majestic jumper show. Argo had 12 rides (well one of those was groundwork, so 11 rides) and Henry had 7. I did quickly notice that in my effort to spread the horses around more, I wasn’t taking any days off of riding for myself, so we’ve rectified that. Rest days are important, my back and my knees are old. One rest day a week for me is the goal. Ideally I’d like to get 5 rides a week on Presto, 4 on Argo, and 3 on Henry, but we’ll see how well my schedule will allow for that over the next few months. I’m still figuring out how to juggle everything effectively, but the white board is helping a lot. I ordered some magnetic labels for her today so that I can more easily put shows and stuff on there. Look at me, being so organized(ish).