Man, catching up is hard to do. I gotta purge everything else that happened last week before I forget entirely.

The day before the show at Majestic, they hosted a YEH Symposium for USEA. I’ve been to several other YEH Symposiums (this was my 4th I think?) but I will always go to another one if I can. Even if the subject matter isn’t new, every single time is a learning experience. It’s an opportunity to see young horses, discuss them as a group, and every time – without fail – there is really good discussion generated, whether it’s by the attendees or the speakers. Usually both.

This symposium featured not only judges Marilyn Payne and Debbie Adams, but also a panel of speakers that included Lauren Nicholson, Liz Halliday, and Dr. Lisa Casinella. We got to see some really nice 4 and 5 year olds presented by Caroline Pamukcu, Kelly Hutchinson, Alex O’Neal, and Ariel Grald. Each horse did it’s SJ and XC round, then came over and was untacked so we could see the conformation and discuss what we liked/didn’t like about all of it. I appreciate the riders bringing their horses and being willing to subject them to group discussion like that.

My favorite (and I think the overall favorite of most) was Ariel Grald’s young mare Melypsa. She was a stunning type with a big gorgeous ground-covering gallop and seemed to have plenty of scope in the tank.

The discussion generated from this one was pretty interesting too – this is where the riders and the judges disagreed a bit. At one point it was said “the gallop doesn’t really get any better than this for a 5 year old” and a score of 9 was thrown out. The riders on the panel argued that if the gallop doesn’t get any better, why wouldn’t it be a 10? The judges said that they felt it could be even better down the road as the horse matured. So then the debate was – are they judging on a scale of the perfect 5yo or are they judging on a tip top “gold standard” mature 5 star horse scale? As you can imagine, there were feelings on both sides and no real satisfactory answer.

The other horses presented were all quite different, which was fun to compare and contrast. Alex’s was a much heavier type, Kelly’s was quite light and more green/less mature than the others. Caroline brought last year’s 4yo YEH Champion who was in a bit of a weird growthy stage, which generated nice discussion about how young horses develop, what can happen when they’re in these growth stages, and how the riders prefer to cope with that. Overall it was fun, as always. Highly recommend attending these if you ever have the opportunity… even if you don’t think you’re into YEH or young horses, it will be interesting and a learning moment.

The rest of the week was kind of a blur of working horses and working at WEC. Hillary hopped on Argo for the first time in a little while and did great with him.

I think it’s good to get as many people on him as I can… it gives me a lot of feedback on where he’s at and what I need to keep working on, plus it gives me the opportunity to really watch him go and find more things to improve. It’s all information.

On Saturday we went XC schooling, which. Well. I had a real menty b. I was displeased with how I’d ridden at the show on Wednesday, to start with, which is never really great for my psyche. And it was our first time going back to Magnolia Sands, which is where the wheels first started to fall off the bus a little bit last fall before we figured out the ulcer thing. So I was hoping for a nice quiet simple confidence building day, and it was basically the exact opposite.

The other horses that came were wired, which spun Presto up, which really just made me feel like the entire experience was giving him ulcers again, which made me feel like I didn’t want to be there at all, which made me ride not great, which just spiraled and spiraled and spiraled, as you can imagine. As he spooked and spun his way around the field I really just quit and wanted to go home. There was nothing productive about that, and it wasn’t at all the situation I had wanted to put him in that day. We ended up jumping a few tiny things that went ok, but overall it was a massive failure for the mission of the day and I was exceptionally frustrated by the whole thing.

I spent the next day doing stuff around the farm getting it tidied up and organized and ready for Michelle to get here to start preparing for breeding season. I completely wore myself out, which was maybe better for my menty b? Maybe worse? Who knows. I did make a glittery sign for the door of the lab, which yes is a little bit too big but it’s glitter, so. It’s fine.

We were supposed to have Peter Gray lessons last week but he was sick and pushed to this week. I’ll write more about that in next week’s updates, but spoiler it was great. Also spoiler I think I’m back from the menty b maybe? Knock on wood?

The other thing that happened last week was that RRP announced a new fundraising initiative for this year. Basically they’re allowing Makeover participants to get $350 of their entry fees back if they raise $1000 for RRP. Honestly, I love the idea.

Obviously I believe pretty strongly in the mission of RRP and what they’re doing, and have sponsored awards and given them donations in the past. Participating this year is obviously giving them my money too, but I’m always down for helping raise more funds if and when I can. The bonus of it also being a bit beneficial to me as an entrant is an extra perk, because lets be honest… as with anything with horses, the road to RRP is not cheap. A chance to get some money back is always helpful. Seems like a win-win. So if you’re interested or maybe you have an aunt/grandma/cousin that likes pretty ponies and would throw in $20 or whatever, feel free to share my fundraising link with them.

I’m also offering special incentives to business owners, so if you own an equine business and would like to donate, please shoot me a message and let’s talk. And if you make a donation and would like a very small token of our appreciation, email or PM your address!