Month: April 2024

Ask and ye shall receive! Although you’ll probably be disappointed, because I am certainly not anything close to a style icon. There were a few *chef’s kiss* pieces that were really pulling their weight though, and they deserve some kudos.

First Jog

I hope you guys aren’t expecting some kind of fancy fashionista type content when it comes to my jog outfits. For as much as I value and appreciate nice riding clothes, I’ve always been cheap AF when it comes to regular clothes. And while I did have to go shopping for this particular occasion (I tried real hard to come up with something I could wear out of the clothes I already have, and I was able to use a few pieces, but my closet in general is sparse), my budget was low. I was looking for a pair of pants that could do double duty for both jogs, and a couple tops. That’s it. And I had to go to the mall. THE FREAKIN MALL.

Anyway.

The first order of business was finding the pants, and the ones I went specifically in search of actually materialized directly in my line of sight the moment I stepped into Dillard’s. What are the odds? The shopping gods were really doing me a solid there. I was looking for the Spanx faux leather leggings that have been a popular jog outfit staple for lots of people over the years, and I ended up trying on the regular ones and the shinier patent ones. Mostly because the patent ones were on sale. Naturally though, I didn’t like how shiny they were, but I did like the regular ones. They were comfy, they were flattering, and they would go with a lot of different things. Sold.

Also, listen, I’m gonna need y’all to pretend you don’t see the absolute disaster situation that was happening in my bedroom when I took these pics. I was trying my outfits on literally the day before while I was packing, sending pics to my friends to ask if they were acceptable. I had no intention of these photos ever seeing a public space. Alas, here we are, so whatever you’re thinking just… shhhhhh. I know.

The sparkly silver flame sweater was an absolute banger of a find, snagged at Forever 21 off of their clearance rack for $10 (it’s a couple bucks more online, but still cheap!). No joke. I love that sweater, too. I mean, is it itchy as hell? Sure is. But I thought it really went with the whole Presto vibe. I’m sure I’ll wear it again in the winter (with a shirt under it to stop the itchies).

As for the shoes, long-time readers have actually seen them before. I mentioned them in a post in 2020 when I got them, saying “I originally wasn’t gonna post these since they’re a non-horse item, but I’m so in love with them that I’m thinking I might need to do a 3Day JUST so I can jog up in these bad boys.“.

Well what do you know, the glitter combat boots DID eventually make it to a jog, 3.5 years later. They were like $25 from Walmart and I still love them just as much as when I found them. I only wear them for special occasions, but they’re magnificent.

As for Presto, he wore his dressage bridle for the first jog, which is this (minus the bonnet):

It’s actually a complete Frankenbridle. The crown, cheeks, and throatlatch are Henry’s old Eponia dressage bridle. The noseband was custom made for me by Dark Jewel Designs, to go with the gorgeous light blue plaited browband that I got from her last year. It’s a black leather crank, no flash, with black glitter padding and gunmetal glitter piping. I love that it’s sparkly but not garish.

The bridle’s coordinating light blue browband didn’t match my jog outfit or my shad, so I borrowed a sparkly silver crystal browband from Hillary instead. My reins are the Correct Connect 1″ Sure Grip reins, which I really like for dressage. His dressage bit is a Herm Sprenger WH Ultra Sensogan Loose Ring (did I have a slight panic moment an hour before dressage and text one of the stewards to make sure it was FEI legal? Surely did.).

I would not put this level of flash on a horse’s head if they weren’t steady in the connection, but that’s one of Presto’s strengths so I figure we can show it off.

Dressage

For this phase I was outfitted largely by Luxe EQ (the mobile store I work for in the winter when it’s here at WEC). Specifically, the shad, the breeches, and the gloves are from there. First and foremost, lets talk about the real showstopper – the shad.

If you’ve never been to For Horses’ website to play around in their Custom Lab configurator, you’re missing out on a good time. Short coats, tail coats, all kinds of colors and collars and pipings and buttons… it’s fun. My coat is the Jenni, in dark deal with black collar and points and silver glitter piping at the collar, points, and around the tails. I am obsessed with her.

Big huge thank you and credit to Luxe EQ owner Megan as well as For Horses on the shad… they really did me a huge huge solid, getting it to me in just a couple weeks – A COUPLE WEEKS – from Italy. When I have more time I’ll get it tailored a little bit… I ordered a medium to account for my shoulder width and it needs to be taken in a bit at the waist and in the arms, but the fit was pretty darn good, considering it’s a stock size!

It truly is a dream coat, and I was so excited to be able to rock something like this at my first FEI. I got several compliments, and I love how the color looks on Presto. I wanted something a little bit different from the normal navy or black, since I am fortunate enough at this point to have a horse that’s pretty good on the flat. I can stand out a bit and have it be in a good way rather than a bad way. But I also didn’t want something super garish, or that leaned into the realm of tacky. Originally I was hoping to find something in a dark purple, but when I saw the little sample fabric square for the dark teal, I knew that was it. The online configurator is great, but if you ever find yourself near the Luxe EQ store, I highly recommend going in and looking at their big sample book thingy. Putting all the stuff together in person really helps you visualize all the options and how they’ll look. It was hella fun.

I opted for black collar/points with silver glitter piping specifically to go with my show helmet, a glossy black Harry’s Horse that has silver glitter up the middle. I’m obsessed with that helmet but it’s become really hard to find. I thought the coat details would look sharp with the helmet, and they did. THEY DID.

And the real icing on the cake was one I’d completely forgotten about – my Stockbubble stock tie. It wasn’t until I was putting the shad in my coat bag that I realized it, but my stock tie is a white fabric with silver glitter, and double piping in black and silver. I mean come on. The coordination factor was just *chef’s kiss*.

The breeches are what have become my favorite go-to whites: the Struck 2.0. These just fit me really well, are comfy, not see-through, and wash well, so I’ve stuck to them. Every time I venture out to try to find something cheaper I absolutely loathe them, so Struck it is. The inside of the fabric is tan so they’re so much more opaque than anything else I’ve found.

The gloves are my Cavalleria Toscana mesh grip gloves that I wear every day… they’re so lightweight and comfortable I just find myself always reaching for them. The boots are my trusty Romitelli’s with the black glitter top that I’ve had for a while now. You can’t see it in these pics but my belt was my favorite African beaded Zinj belt with blue/silver moons and stars that I always wear at shows.

As for Presto’s dressage outfit, he’s wearing my rehabbed Custom Saddlery dressage saddle (that thing has been a super purchase), an Engel sheepskin girth, a Mattes custom pad (white sheen with black piping, a row of rhinestones, and then another row of black piping, with natural sheepskin under the panels… thank goodness I got this before the Hufglocken fallout happened with Mattes), and the same bridle he jogged in. Oh, plus his sparkly mesh If the Bonnet Fits bonnet. True story, Strax got ahold of that bonnet a couple months ago and pulled a lot of the crystal edge off. Luckily Sierra was able to fix it for me and get it back in time!

Cross Country

We’ve talked about this pretty recently I feel like, and nothing is really new aside from the gloves, so I won’t spend a lot of time here. I put links to save anyone the effort of chasing me down to ask where to get something. And for the Riding Warehouse links I have a discount code there: BREVENT10, and for Royal Equine links my discount code there is presto.

Presto is wearing:

• Arion figure 8 bridle (an absolute angel gifted this to me and I love you forever for it)
• Beval bit
• Arion monoflap saddle
• Dark Jewel spiked browband (I have the gunmetal spikes)
• Free Jump irons
• Engel sheepskin girth (brown for jumping)
• Ecogold XC pad
• Premier Equine carbon tech cross country boots
• Lady Godiva ROM breastplate with a PS of Sweden running attachment
• a FLAIR strip
• rubber bell boots

I’ve got the same boots and breeches, just adding:

• a roller ball spur
• sparkly Samshield Ava shirt from several seasons ago that isn’t made anymore
• Champion Ti22 body protector
• Champion skull cap
• custom Tack Shack jockey whip (black and silver glitter with a little bit of purple and a lightning bolt on the popper)
• XC optimum time watch
• custom pinney holder from a lady that doesn’t make them anymore (sadly)
• Bender golf gloves (you have to buy left and right hand separately, but they’re BOMB) with skull and crossbones

The second jog

This outfit is really hard to see in the screenshots, so I hope you’re ready for another terrible mirror selfie that was never meant to see the light of day. Same disclaimers apply.

The top is a very shiny, super lightweight black and silver sparkle mock neck. I got it at Forever 21 for $4.80 on their mega super duper clearance red tag rack. I can’t even find it online, but it’s super lightweight and comfortable and I love it. Going forward I’ll probably use it as my hot-weather XC shirt since it’s thinner than the Samshield shirt.

The bottoms are the same faux leather leggings as the first jog outfit. The shoes are the black and white star sneakers (now that I went to get the link for y’all I see that they’ve added a lot more styles, including glitter ones. This is bad for me.) that I bought on Amazon last December to be my “casual but cute retail shoes” for working at the store during the winter season. They’ve already been worn a lot but are still in good enough shape and they’re the cutest more-casual type shoes I have.

Then I topped the whole thing off with my oversized faux leather jacket that I also already owned. Because we’re on a damn budget, people.

So technically, if we use girl math, this outfit cost me less than $5. Right? Right.

Showjumping

There’s not much unique about this phase’s attire, it’s mostly just a mishmash of dressage and XC stuff. It’s the same helmet, breeches, boots, bonnet, and gloves as dressage. Same saddle, saddle pad, breastplate, girth, whip, spurs, bridle, and bit as XC.

The only thing that ever really changes for SJ is which coat I wear. I was tempted to go with my teal Penelope one to keep the teal theme, but I just really like the juju that lives in my light blue Laguso coat and felt like I needed all the good juju I could get, so it was the winner.

I do tend to always wear the same show shirt for showjumping under my coat, the Samshield Faustina in black lurex. Sparkly black, ya know? I’m predictable.


And that’s it!

Which… is a lot. Lord. This sport is relatively absurd, isn’t it?

Finally. Blessed FINALLY we were at the final day of our FEI experience. No shade to the horse show itself, but Presto was over it and therefore I was over it and we were both ready to GTFO and go home.

The 1* jogged first on Sunday at 8am, and then our division’s showjumping started at 9:30 (I was second to jump). This might seem like ample time, but the course wasn’t set or open for walking until 8:45, and my coach had to jog her 2* horse right around that same time, so it ended up being a bit of a tight morning, time-wise.

I was up and down in the barn by 5 to give Presto his Ulcergard, and the braider (my new favorite person) showed up pretty soon after. Once he was done getting braided he got his breakfast, and then I got him out and took him for a long handwalk. He looked great though… cold tight legs, didn’t seem particularly body sore or tired or anything. Indeed, he was a bit wild. I jogged him and he looked good, so he went back in his stall for a few minutes while I went to see if the showjumping course was at least posted (it wasn’t) and then went to change into my jog outfit.

For the jog itself, he was once again in old hunter pony mode. Like seriously man. When we practice jogging him up, he comes bounding forward like the pranciest fanciest thing you’ve ever seen. The second he gets to the ACTUAL jog strip he’s like oh no I simply cannot why we do dis.

Either way, despite his terrible presentation, this time he was quickly accepted. Praise the freakin eventing gods.

He got to go back to his stall while I went and changed into my show clothes. By the time I was dressed I could see that they were done dragging the showjumping ring and the poles were all back in their cups, so Megan and I ran over there in the hopes that they would open the course a bit early for walking. As soon as we got there the course designer gave the thumbs up, so we quickly walked the course and made a plan.

Once we were done walking Megan had to jet back to jog her 2* horse, and I had to jet back to get mine tacked up. Luckily he doesn’t require an extensive warmup so the timing worked out pretty great actually, even if it was a bit tight.

One of the big things we’ve been working on is my base pace and allowing him to keep coming forward (in balance of course) to the jumps. I tend to want to over-manage the canter and sometimes take too much away in the corner, or package it up too much out of the corner. He’s a ginormous horse so it always feels faster and less balanced to me than it actually is. He’s keeping a much better shape across his topline now than he used to, he doesn’t need as much help anymore. Megan wants me to stay up off of him a bit more in the corners and just sink down softly into my tack once I see my distance. It does seem to work better for us at this stage.

We worked on “base pace” in the warmup, and all the jumps came up great. We jumped a few oxers of increasing height and width, and then ended with a tall vertical. The rider that went before me was Caroline Pamucku, so I got to halfway watch her round, which was better than getting to watch none at all. I like to see how the turns and distances are working out. Everything walked pretty standard, but ya know… sometimes it rides differently.

We went in the ring, saluted the judge, and then away we went. I very deliberately got him out in front of my leg immediately, wanting to make sure that if nothing else, I didn’t get accused of having too little pace. I’m tired of making that mistake. Fence 1 came up great, and we made the turn to fence 2. Megan tells you to look at the inside standard of the fence as you’re coming through the turn, and then shift your eye to the takeoff spot once you’ve made the turn. This works really well for me, I don’t end up drifting a smidge past my line and hanging out too long in the corner.

He jumped the absolute shit out of the oxer at 2, then down the line to a skinny vertical at 3. Then it was around the turn again to 4, with 5 strides to 5AB. I got slightly deep to 4 so had to land and step up just a teeny bit to get down to 5A correctly. He was incredibly rideable though, and kept jumping really well no matter what. He’s gotten so much stronger that he’s jumping really well from the deeper distance now because he’s actually pushing off the ground properly.

We made the left turn to 6, which was the start of our S-curve of jumps across the ring. The oxer in the middle looked ginormous and really really square.

This is also the point where I get to admit that I completely forgot that FEI showjumping is bigger than the national equivalent level. Like Modified showjumping is 1.05m, but CCI1* showjumping is 1.10m, which is Prelim height. I didn’t realize that until YESTERDAY. So ya know… um… does explain why I was like “huh, these look a little big”. Yes, you moron. The first one was M height and the rest were P. Duh.

Anyway, I saw a bit of a move up to that oxer and he just FLEW over it. Like grew wings and flew. I think my soul left my body, and I very distinctly remember thinking “glad I put a little sticky spray on my saddle this morning” during the 75 seconds we were in the air.

He jumped the next oxer much the same way.

It’s kind of insane how easy this all still is for him, he’s just starting to make some kind of effort. And the effort makes me think it’s time to start working out more if I plan on actually staying attached to this animal when he finally starts making genuine efforts.

Then it was around to the last line (cutting inside a group of standards – FEI SJ is set at 350mpm rather than 325mpm, so the time ends up tighter. No room for making big loopy turns!) which was a two stride and then 7 bending strides to a vertical. Well it could be 7 direct or 8 with more bend in the line, but that line had been there the day before and direct seemed to be working better, so we went with that.

He jumped all those super too, and with that we had ourselves a double clear round and our very first FEI completion!

I was super pleased with the round and how he jumped, it’s feeling smoother and like the balance is improving. Mostly I was also just glad I didn’t shit the bed and do something entirely stupid, like go off course or fall off. That would have been the pits. I wanted that completion plaque! And we got it!

Sadly, if not for the umbrella incident we would have finished 5th. That stings. That stings a lot. But at the end of the day it’s hard to be disappointed with the weekend, really. He was super in the dressage, we had one of our best XC rounds ever (and it felt easy), and the SJ was also one of our best rounds to date.

The part that sucked was managing him for 5 days in stabling. I thought it would be a challenge, and I was right. It’s just so not the situation for him, and clearly I haven’t figured it all out. It mostly left me feeling like I will be in absolutely no hurry to do another FEI any time soon, or travel particularly far to out of town horse shows. Luckily this is Ocala, and I don’t really have to. We’ve got plenty of stuff to do and things to work on to keep us occupied.

I have a whole lot of thoughts and feelings on the whole thing, really. More than I can ever type and a lot of conflicting emotions. Patreon members, we recorded a podcast about it (its on your dashboard) so you could get the full and unfiltered story. The short version is that while I’m glad we did the FEI – it’s a bucket list item checked off, no doubt – it wasn’t really some kind of magical or poignant experience for me. Mostly it was stressful. Really stressful. In ways I hadn’t even considered.

Luckily we’ve got other stuff on the docket now, and it’s local and much more familiar, so… sigh of relief on that front. There are still a couple more shows before Ocala kinda shuts down for summer, so we’ll see if we can continue our plans for the rest of the season (knock on wood… I feel like with horses we’re always knocking on wood…)!

I’m drafting a post about all the outfits involved in this whole adventure, since that seemed to be a popular idea. Coming soon (hopefully tomorrow?)!

Always the best part, let’s be honest.

XC day was… long. The 1* was the lowest level running that day (4*, 3*, 2* were the other divisions) so we got the crappy end of the weather stick and got to run at 3pm when it was 90 degrees. This was the first truly hot weather of the season so I was a little worried how Presto might handle galloping for 6 minutes in it.

To the event’s immense credit, they did a lot to help mitigate the heat risk. They had vet box in the covered, so the horses could get into the shade immediately after they finished, and there were troughs of water constantly refilling that you could dip your cool-down buckets into, along with lots of ice and fans and plenty of people available to help cool horses down. Short of being able to control the weather, that’s about all you can do.

I had walked the course twice the day before, once with Megan and once with Hillary. They had also run a Modified one-day the day before, and they shared a couple combos with the 1*, so I went out and watched how they were riding and which routes seemed to be working best. I went early in the order for the 1*, so I wouldn’t really have the opportunity to watch anyone go in my division.

My initial impression of the course was that I thought it was pretty friendly. I mean, it’s a solid and fair 1*, but the questions are all things we’ve seen before. Granted… we’ve been running Modified for almost a year now, so… one would freakin hope.

Presto was a scene in warmup. By this point in the week his quarter had completely run out. He’d been in a stall for 3 days, he was pretty sure his neighbor was his BFF, and he was having meltdowns every time that horse left (or didn’t actually leave but Presto just thought he left). Like earlier that morning I had to bolt across the show grounds because someone called me and told me he was alternating between double-barreling the wall and sticking his front feet over the top of the wall. He just… really really really didn’t handle the stabling aspect of this adventure, and it rapidly fell apart throughout the day on Saturday as we waited to go. We hit his limit.

And even with giving him Ulcergard every morning, I could tell in warmup that his stomach was bothering him. He is often a scene in XC warmup, but in a jovial yeehaw “let’s have fun” kind of way. This time he was a scene scene. Like rearing and spinning and screaming and he definitely considered trying to run back to the barn a couple times to be with his new BFF (who gave zero fucks about him in return). It was far beyond his normal antics, and with a different tone. I thought he might actually try some of his old napping habit (that we haven’t seen in quite a while from him) out of the start box. He had that feeling to him, if you know what I mean. I have learned now that he gets like that when he’s anxious… I think it’s a tummy thing.

As soon as we left the box I really sent him in front of my leg, trying to get him to focus on his job. I could feel him thinking about going back to warmup, but luckily the first one came up fast and we were over it before he had a chance to think too hard. We landed from that one and I opened him up to a good gallop. That usually gets him clicked in. The beginning of the course was pretty open and flowy, so it gave you a good opportunity to get going, and fence 2 was a big wide gallopy ramp, so it worked out well. He absolutely flew over that, ears perked. Now we were in business.

Fence 3 was the MIM oxer off a pretty short turn approach, but the turn works as the half halt, so you could pretty much just keep coming. He pinged over that great. As we got close to 4, the trakehner in the treeline, I could see the poor girl who had left the box ahead of me off to the side, no longer attached to her horse. I didn’t have any time to process it in the moment, but turns out the horse had fallen. Luckily Presto was too busy jumping the trakehner to give that horse much thought in the moment.

From there we went to the log wagon, which was good, and then to the first real question – a jump in the water, then a left turn to a bending line. I noticed while watching the day before that if you had a horse that tended to step into the very edge of the water, it was a perfect 3 forward strides to the rolltop. I happen to have a horse like that, so I knew once we got to the edge I could just close my leg and the 3 would come up well, and it did. The line to the next one seemed to ride best in a 6, then you could ride forward and the skinny was there in 3. Some people hung out/slowed down and did 7 and 4, but it definitely looked more awkward that way. Megan wanted me to take the bolder route, so we did. Presto was delighted, he’s a fan of taking bold and forward routes.

From there we had another decent gallop stretch to a table, which came up pretty well out of a forward stride, and then we looped back (and balanced up a whole whole lot) for the coffin. We jumped the MIM rail that Prelim usually has, bigger than any of the ones we’ve had before, and with the bigger ditch. Otherwise thought it was a pretty straightforward line… two strides to the ditch, four straight strides to the corner. It was bigger than usual but I feel like we’ve seen more technical questions at that coffin before. Presto was super through there.

Then we had the log table, which was good, to the next little house thing. Then it was 8 bending strides right to the log stack, with four bending strides left to the skinny. This question rode really well if you picked your line from the beginning and really stuck to it, but I saw it do some gnarly things to people who didn’t make a decision or tried to change their mind. Presto was really good and rideable through that question.

Then we had another gallopy table before we got to the next combo, the crater. Here, his anxiety got the best of him. As soon as I got straight to the A element he spotted the videographer sitting under a big umbrella directly in his line of sight on the other side of the crater, and he spun like an absolute top. Damn near dropped me right off the shoulder. We were still a good 6-7 strides from the jump… I don’t even think he’d seen it yet, but he was NOT having it with that big flappy umbrella.

I got him turned around, he eyeballed the shit out of the umbrella, and then we re-approached. Once he locked on to the jump he was bold as brass, remembered he had a job, and jumped through the combo like easy peasy. Unfortunately the spin happened close enough to the jump for it to count as a 20, even though it had nothing to do with the actual jump itself. Big fucking bummer. BIG FUCKING BUMMER. UGGGGGGH. This is totally the kind of shit he does when he gets anxious though (recall Stable View?), and given the day leading up to that point… I’m not shocked. I wish I’d felt it coming, but he really got me with no warning on that one.

Once that happened I took my foot off the gas a little. No point in going for time anymore, womp womp. But he hopped over the collapsible table great, and up over the mound really super.

Then we got to the second water, which I thought might have been the most interesting question on the course. You had a fairly standard brush fence into the water, and then turned right and jumped a corner. Caveat being, there was a Training jump in the way of what would be the best line to the corner. So you could either cut inside of the Training jump and come into the corner on a bit of an angle, daring yourself a little, or you could go around the Training jump and make a quick 90 degree turn to jump the corner dead-straight.

While we were walking the course Megan told me to take the inside route. When I looked at her a second too long she was like “If you’re gonna move up to Prelim, you need to take that route. Going around is a waste of time. Keep his shoulders straight and ride through the flags. Don’t be a p*ssy.” and then kept walking. Did you know this is apparently a very effective strategy of coaching me? I was like “ah well yes obviously I am not a p*ssy, so clearly I would take the inside route”. And honestly? She was right. It rode really well that way. Presto was genuine as hell, locked on to the corner right away, stayed super straight in his shoulders, and it worked out great. And since this was the water jump directly in front of our stabling, I got to see literally dozens of people jump through that question all weekend long between the various Modified divisions and the 1*. Not very many people took the inside route but it always rode better when they did. The longer route was awkward and required too much micro-managing.

After that we just had a gallop up the hill to the log oxer, then to the skinny table, both of which were great. Then we galloped between the ropes and across the road (ok that was fun) into the big grass arena for the last jump.

After we crossed the finish we pulled up to trot and trotted a circle for the vet and steward at the finish. They gave the thumbs up and off we went to vet box in the covered arena to start his cool down. We pulled his tack off on the way and I had plenty of ground people to help, so honestly I mostly just watched and chugged a bottle of water. They walked him a bit, or tried to. They put water on him, or tried to. They took his boots off and studs out, with some difficulty. I figured he would be naughty for vet box because he HATES baths and hates being wet, especially if the water is cold. I was correct, he was violently opposed to having buckets of cold water thrown on him. He scattered the bucket volunteers pretty quickly.

The good news is that he was barely winded and not that hot. He cooled down really quickly and was very obviously not tired, so we were out of vet box in less than 10 minutes. Granted, they opted not to try to take his temperature for fear of their life. Fair. That’s fair. Either way, he was very clearly not in any kind of distress health-wise. He was completely back to normal respiratory rate by the time he got back to his stall, and seemed fresh as a daisy. All good!

From there it was just normal post XC care stuff. Or normal for him anyway. Magic cushion, handwalking, etc. I tried to wrap him since he was going to be stuck in a stall, but he pulled those off in an hour. I gave up. He very clearly did not need fluids or anything like that, so… it was a pretty simple and easy post-XC.

If we could just erase the stupid umbrella spin, it would be the best XC day we’ve ever had. It was smooth and bold, the jumps came up well, and it felt honestly incredibly easy. He’s fit and even in the hot weather he handled it fantastic. That stupid 20 will bother the shit out of me until the end of my days. We’ll talk more about my thoughts on that and the how/why/what next aspect later. I did learn something about him and his show management from this, at least.

But, either way, we were through the XC and on to the next and (finally) last day – the final jog and show jumping!

I did casually drop at the end of my last post (like two weeks ago… sorry!) that we were headed to our first FEI. I didn’t talk about it much publicly because I didn’t want to jinx it, or make it into a Big Thing (it was a Big Thing, I admit), plus I legit was so busy leading up to it that I truly didn’t have as much time to devote to thinking about it as I would have preferred. I didn’t even learn my dressage test until two days before. I can’t decide if that was the better approach, because I had less time to overthink, or if I would have rather been able to focus on it a little bit more. Either way, didn’t matter, it was what it was!

I was mostly very worried to commit some kind of FEI rule-related sin and get myself eliminated or in trouble for something stupid. I know USEA/USEF rules and procedures inside and out by this point, it’s old hat, but FEI is a very different ballgame and I am brand spankin new. I hate feeling brand new. I rolled into the Florida Horse Park on Wednesday for in-barns with Presto’s passport and a thermometer, raring to go. It did help that the show vet is also my normal vet, and the organizer is a good friend, so having familiar faces around all the “official” things all weekend made me a little more comfortable.

We sailed through in-barns in just a few minutes, getting his TPR and a general once-over. Although I did have some anxiety when they took his passport and put it in a box with all the others. I dunno why it didn’t occur to me that they would take those and hold them hostage onto them for the duration of the event, but that thing was a PITA to get and letting it out of my sight was stressful. Either way, we were quickly released to head over to the designated FEI-barn and get settled in.

Arena familiarization started at 4, so Megan (with her 2* horse… having my coach stabled right there in the FEI barn next to me was nice at least!) and I swung aboard right at 4pm to head over there. Presto has been up in the dressage rings at FHP a lot by now, but they were more decorated than normal, with an extra judge’s box and bleachers, so I figured I should take the opportunity to get him in the ring and let him see things. He didn’t give a shit, I think he was confused about what the heck we were doing schooling in the dressage ring. I didn’t ride him for long, just ran through a few different sections of the test and then called it a day.

After that he got a bath and a few last minute grooming touches to prepare for the first jog on Thursday morning. I did do something I have literally never done before for this show… I hired a braider. The reasons were many: 1) it took something off my plate and gave me more time, which brought my overall stress level down 2) Presto is a turd to braid and I usually end up extremely annoyed with him by the time I’m done, so it helped my mental state 3) I saved a lot of money on my entry by winning it in an online fundraising auction, so I figured I could justify this particular luxury.

It was worth every penny, btw. Is this how the other half lives? I love having a beautifully braided horse that I didn’t have to braid.

Anyway. Thursday started early, since the 1* jogged first. Presto got his Ulcergard around 5, he got braided, I fed him, handwalked him for a while, and then groomed him again. He had a little baby heel grab on his white foot, with a teeny bruise, so that was just fucking great. We jogged him up on the asphalt road just to double-check how he looked (great), then I went and got dressed. I was near the top of the order for the jog, so once they started I didn’t have to wait very long.

And well… the ground jury had no mercy at that first jog. They sent like 8 horses to the hold, and mine was one of them. It was an absolutely heart-stopping moment. To be fair, he jogged much less enthusiastically for the actual jog than he did earlier that morning, so I don’t think his 15yo hunter pony impression helped his case. The vet in the hold thought he looked fine, but he was the teeniest little bit tender on that bruised spot when she pushed on it with her fingers. She told the ground jury what she found, we jogged again with more enthusiasm, and then were accepted.

But I’ll be honest, any excitement or wind I had in my sails before that… it was gone entirely. I hated it. Hated every second of it, suddenly felt very overwhelmed and out of place and like I didn’t belong. My brain spiraled hard and I never really came back from that, emotionally. Someone told me that with the new awareness surrounding the social license to operate stuff, FEI officials have been told to be extra stringent, which is possibly why they were sending people to the hold left and right, but I dunno. I know my horse is sound, I would withdraw him in a heartbeat if even for a moment I thought that he wasn’t fit to compete, but I was mortified to end up in the hold.

Either way, that part was done and dusted. I didn’t do dressage until that afternoon around 2pm, so I had all day to sit there and marinate in everything that had happened and beat myself up about it. That was great. I just felt absolute dread settle into my stomach and it never really left. I guess the perk of that is that there’s no room for nerves? Heh. Super.

Presto doesn’t need a long warmup for dressage (especially when it’s 90 degrees… my god Florida really turned it to BAKE) so I got on him like 20 minutes ahead of my ride time. Which was honestly still more time than I needed. For as much of a monkey as he can be about literally anything, he knows what phase is first and always marches into warmup and goes to work like a pro, wasting no energy on the boring part. We did lots of transitions, worked on keeping the left side straighter and the right side more bent, keeping more sit in his canter, and then walked for a while. When the horse before me went to the ring they allowed me into another ring, an actual dressage court, to finish my warmup. I mostly just confirmed all the sizing and location of my 15m circles in there, ran through my test again in my head, and then it was time!

Also, side note, I think I’m gonna do a separate post about all the outfits involved in this weekend, because some of these things deserve their own discussion. Stay tuned for that. For now though, let’s admire the teal For Horses shad. It is magical.

Anyway… the test went pretty well. I didn’t particularly “go for it” in any way, I mostly just tried to make it accurate and keep the rideability. Neither of my lengthenings were particularly bold (which the judges did not like lol) and overall I think I could have pumped a bit more flair and energy into him, but it was a solid and obedient test. Megan and I were thinking it’d be closer to the 30 mark, but it scored a 33. They really wanted more boldness at this level. Fair enough.

Either way, I was pleased with him, and it put us 10th after the first phase, which wasn’t bad at all considering the company.

Since dressage for the FEI divisions ran over two days, Friday was a day off for us. I spent it walking and handgrazing Presto (who was really not pleased to be stuck in a stall), walking my XC course a couple times, and we also had a very very short jump school. Like literally 5 jumps. They allowed us to book a time in one of the grass rings with a steward present so we could jump school if we wanted, and I mostly just took the opportunity to make sure I was clicked into my forward-thinking XC ride. We got that done in like 10 minutes and then went for a long hack.

That night we had the FEI rider meeting where they went over what the vet box procedures would be following XC, and we got free food and ice cream and trivia. Hillary and I and one of the TD’s were on a trivia team (the smallest team, I might add, everyone else had 4-5 people!) and ended up second. I’m still certain that Kyle Carter’s team cheated somehow. But we won a little Triple Crown goodie bag anyway, so I guess I can let it go.

And that takes us up to Saturday, cross country day! Stay tuned…

Well, whoops. I started drafting this post last week and then never had time to come back and actually finish typing it. I feel like that might just be how things go for the next month or so.

Between all the regular horse stuff, having people in town to visit, and the beginning of breeding season, I just don’t find myself with a lot of time to sit down in front of my computer. Or by the time I do, I have lots of other things I have to do before I can get to the blog. Such is life, I suppose.

Now that Michelle is back in town we’ve been keeping pretty busy with scanning mares, organizing all the breeding equipment, making sure we have everything we need, etc. A lot of the mares are in their transitional period right now, just coming into their actual breedable cycles, so we’ve been checking them often and keeping a log so that we can track where they are in their cycles. And there are a lot of mares on the docket this year to try to get bred, so it quickly becomes pretty time-consuming! But hopefully in a couple months we’ll have lots of preggos running around. Fingers crossed.

We haven’t actually scanned Fey yet, we’re taking the slow and positive route of getting her used to the stocks, the equipment, and all that stuff. Once they learn that the stocks are a good place (lots of cookies!) they’re much happier to come in and stand much better for all the scanning and stuff. The end goal is that by the time we actually scan her she’ll be happy and confident in the stocks. The less we have to sedate them, the better, obviously.

The first day we just let her look at everything, led her through the stocks a few times, and then led her through a few more times, pausing to stand for about 10 seconds before walking out. Yesterday was her second time, and she walked right in a few times and stood for a bit, then we walked in and shut the door behind her, then finally capped it off by walking in again, shutting the door, and then putting up the chest rope. I only asked her to stand like that for about a minute, she got some cookies, and then that was it. She’s been quite good about everything so far. Granted, she is REALLY food motivated, so the cookies-as-bribery thing works pretty well on her.

The next step will be actually scanning her, which we’ll sedate her for the first time. She is relatively terrible about shots, so we’ll have to work on that with cookies too.

So far we’ve only actually bred one mare – Peyton, last week. That was my first time helping with the actual breeding part, so it was kinda fun. Fingers crossed those British swimmers do their thing… we’ll find out in about a week.

It’s been kind of weird not having any foals on the farm this year, it’s the first year with no WTW foals since she started breeding. Taking a year off was the right choice so that everything could settle and reboot after the move, but I think we’re all definitely missing the babies.

Granted, we do have a couple fluff butts on the farm at the moment, in the form of baby Sandhill Cranes. Maybe instead of Foal Friday we should have Fowl Friday?

They’re really cute and fun to watch. Last year this pair only had one baby, but this year they have two! I’ve been calling them Fluff and Floof, but they’re growing so fast that I fear they won’t be very fluffy for much longer.

On the riding front, things have been chugging along pretty much like normal. Well, okay, we’re majorly in a “step it up” phase where we’re asking Presto for more. More effort, more rideability, more suppleness, more precision, etc. Which also means that I am solidly in a learning curve phase right along with him. It’s a bit awkward at times, as expected when you’re in a growth phase, but it feels good too. It feels like progress. Or ya know… it hopefully will eventually. I can already see some change in him though, and he does feel more rideable. I mean, do I always make the right choice? No. Sure don’t. But I have more choices available to me.

Last week we had a jump lesson over at Majestic, and then this past weekend we had a flat lesson. I think we’ve got more jumping lined up this week, and hopefully early next week we’ll be able to squeeze in a flat lesson with Peter Gray again if we can make our schedules work.

And then next Wednesday we’re off to our next show, which is also our first FEI. This will be a totally new experience for both of us, and I’m already super anxious about making sure I do all the FEI stuff right. At least that’s kept me from getting nervous about the competition itself, although now that I think about it I should probably learn the dressage test. Heh. Minor detail.

I hope everyone has been doing well and is settling into spring!