It’s Tuesday and we meet again. I’m in a hurry today, what a surprise, so let’s get on with the updates.

It was a fairly productive week as far as the horses went… everybody got to go on a field trip! On Tuesday I took Presto over to Sweet Dixie to gallop, thinking it would be calmer there than at some of my other options. I failed to remember that they were running their weekday jumper shows, plus lots of seasonals are there, and it was absolutely COVERED with people. But, ya know… I was already there, so may as well get on with it. The jumper warmup and jumper ring were really crowded, there were two dressage lessons happening over in the dressage courts, and a few groups were out schooling XC. It was a lot.

Presto got a little bit excited about it, but for the most part he was quite civilized. Another clue that we’re on the right track with the ulcer treatment, I think. We did our trot, then our gallop sets, and at the end I trotted him through one of the waters and decided to see how he felt about the ditches. I fully intended to just let him walk up and investigate and then pop over, but as soon as he locked on to the ditch he picked up a trot and hopped happily over it. I turned him around and pointed him at the bigger one and same thing: he took me right across. Good boy.

On Thursday we had a jump lesson, which is where he got to debut the above BootsWithTheFurrrrr.

Side note for those boots: I got them mostly because after his trailer-leaping incident at Stable View Presto now has a scar right along the edge of where open front boots sit. I didn’t really want full furrr ones, because they’re a bitch to keep clean, and I found these QHP ones that just have the furrr around the edges. I like it way better. Plus they come in lots of colors… these purple ones are a near perfect match to my purple Calverro show coat. I’m gonna order some in black to keep for schooling so the purple ones don’t get beat up. (pro tip: you can use code presto for 10% off at Royal Equine… that’s where Argo’s teal brushing boots came from too!)

Anyway, back to the lesson part. We kept it really simple this week, as in we just jumped a vertical back and forth off both leads over and over, raising it as we went. It was nice to get to focus on nitpicky perfection with the rhythm, straightness, and tuning my eye back in a bit. I swear we jumped that thing what felt like 75 times and I managed to find a good one all but twice (both times I tried too hard to micromanage and got there deep and weak). Plus like… the jump ended up not small and I took away two things: 1) height does not deter me on this horse. Nothing really looks that big. 2) he’s still not having to try that hard. Just pinging right over like whatever.

Argie boy is back to work now that he got his shoe back on too (he went full on “my footie is broken” despite having a boot on during the two days that shoe was missing, hims is not the most stoic). We’ve been working more on poles and the quality of his transitions, especially from trot to canter and canter to trot.

It’s interesting having one that raced for as long as he did… all the ones I’ve had before raced for maybe just a year or two max. Having one stay in that job until they’re almost 8, it definitely does things to their musculature that is going to take a bit more time to undo. The strongest parts of his body are his shoulders and the bottom of his neck, which are not things we really want to be using now. He’s used his body in a very different way for his entire life up to this point, and I’m asking him to do something wildly different. He always tries to do what I’m asking, but with some things I have to be happy with 20% or 50% because he’s just not physically capable yet. As long as he tries, we can work with that. It’ll come, it’s just a matter of time and diligence. He’s really been wanting to stretch a lot lately at the trot though, so I’m taking that as a good sign! He tries hard to do the “right” thing most of the time.

On Saturday I took him to Majestic to XC school for the first time… Holly rode Henry (she jumped BN and N stuff, it was adorbs) and Hillary brought Tilly, her younger OTTB. Tilly is a pretty unflappable type, and that perfect stage of 4 years old where they’re still super agreeable and malleable and think everything is fun. I kind of had a feeling that Majestic might blow Argie’s mind a little bit, just because it’s so vast and so open and so busy. To be fair to him, he handled it a lot better than I thought. He got nervous and antsy a few times (mostly when large groups of horses appeared and then disappeared) but every time I asked him to get to work, he did. Like many Thoroughbreds, the best way to deal with anxiety is to keep him occupied. We flatted a bit, went through the water (he loves water), popped up and down some little banks, and finished by cantering a log.

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In other news, we swapped turnouts around a bit, and Henry and Tilly are now pasturemates. He can be a little weird with friends (he’s one of those that either gets murdered or does murders, there’s not a lot of in between) but he seems to get along best with mares. Tilly has zero alpha bones in her body, so it’s mostly like we gave Henry his own baby. So far they’re very good and handling it well, fingers crossed that continues.

We wrapped up January with 15 rides for Argo, 11 for Henry, and 23 for Presto. Two lessons (both jumping) and no shows (except the jumper show where I realized Presto probably had ulcers and aborted the mission in the warmup). Two vet visits (one gastroscopy, one vaccinations/coggins), one visit from the dentist (for Argo) and two visits from the farrier. Thanks white board for keeping track of everything for the recap. Kind of obsessed with that thing now.