Month: June 2024

Guys… breeding season is officially OVER… we bred our last mare for the season on Friday! We still have a few more pregnancy checks to do (we scan them at 14-15 days post breeding) and heartbeat checks to confirm (30 days post breeding) but whether they’re pregnant or not, there won’t be any more attempts this year. Whoever isn’t pregnant will just get started earlier in the season next year. It’s been fun, it’s been real, it’s been a lot of middle of the night wake-up calls or medication alarms, but we are finished. Granted, next year will be even more hectic with considerably more sleep lost because we’ll actually have foals coming, plus we’ll be breeding. I’m not ready to think about that yet, it’s been a long past few months.

I was also planning on going over to the OBS sale last Friday to peek at the 3yo’s at the end of the sale. They tend to be the ones that have made a few starts and aren’t very fast, so sometimes there are nice horses for cheap. This year the ones I liked most were definitely not cheap, and one of the fillies I liked (who was a terrible racehorse but had a really good, commercial pedigree for breeding) went for a relatively obscene sum. At least I uh… know how to pick ’em? I was tired so I ended up not actually going to the sale, I just watched the live steam. Not as good as getting to see horses in person, but maybe next sale I’ll actually make it out.

Otherwise I’ve mostly been busy with work and my own horses. The ankle is improving, I’m back to pretty much normal flatwork now, and have cantered some poles in my jump saddle. I haven’t tried to actually jump anything yet, but I’m gonna take Presto out to gallop this weekend and see how that goes. If it can survive a gallop, it’s probably ready to start jumping.

Taking the extra time hasn’t been too bad, considering it’s taken me a while to get Presto back to feeling like how he did before the break. He was really convinced that he could be heavier on his forehand again, and not as sharp off my aids. It’s taken a couple weeks and a lot of effort (on my part anyway) for him to remember he’s actually fairly trained. Granted, I’ve been doing like 20 minute rides with a hack on each end in an effort to not irritate my ankle, so that’s probably part of why it’s been a slow return to normal Presto too.

In the meantime I’ve been making myself super useful by teaching him the ever-practical skill of fist-bumping. I dunno why it took me so long to decide to teach this horse some tricks, he’s such an ideal candidate for it. It started earlier this year with “smile” and then “kiss”, and now the cue of “bro” for a fist bump. He’s so freakin smart, he picks up and retains this stuff in like a single session. Of course he’s also hugely food motivated and tricks are a mega-easy way to get treats, so it’s really his ideal line of work, I think. Truly missed his calling as a circus horse.

And then there’s Lottie, Presto’s little introverted polar opposite. She’s been doing a lot of hanging out in the riding field, and I’ve led her over some cavaletti to see what she thinks (not much) and she even walked over a log a few times of her own accord. She’s smart too, but so sharp and quick and sensitive in ways that Presto surely is not, so I almost have to be two different people between them. Every day she’s a little happier and more settled though, so I’m pleased with that.

Last week there was an evening where I was standing there scratching her withers and her pasture mate tried to come up and butt in. Lottie is VERY submissive, a bottom of the pack type, so I was shocked when she not only stood her ground, but angled herself between me and the other horse. I felt super chosen, whether that was her intention or not. 😂

Oh, AND, in non-horsey things (which are admittedly rare here) I finally made it back out to Universal to the Wizarding World again! The first time I went was 2 years ago with my bf, who is not a Harry Potter fan, and this time I went with Hillary and our friend Emily… all 3 of us are mega HP fans. That was definitely more fun. Also last time the only thing I really really wanted was a Snape wand and they were sold out park-wide. This time they had them, so I finally got one.

I sucked at trying to do the spells around the park, but I did have quite the power trip walking through crowds and casting a nice Bombarda or Incendio at people who were in the way, in true Slytherin style.

I let Emily talk me into going on one of the rides and that was a mistake. I get motion sick incredibly easy, and if I’d thought about it in advance I would have brought something with me to help with that, but I didn’t. So I got on Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, which is in the castle, because that one supposedly isn’t as bad, and lord. By the end I was just sitting there trying not to puke. Didn’t puke, but was nauseous for a while.

But we got our butter beer, and our wands, I had some fish and chips and some Fortescue’s ice cream, and picked up a couple little things of Slytherin merch. I’ve decided I want to go back when it’s cold so I can get some robes and march around with them fluttering dramatically behind me ala Snape. Add it to the bucket list for next time. Either way, it was a nice little refresh to have a whole 9 hours away the farm and spend a day doing something entirely not horse-related.

Contrary to the title, I really don’t have a whole lot to report here. It’s summer, it’s hot, I’m still recovering, and nothing all that newsworthy is going on. We’re officially in the quiet season of the year here in Florida, and I’m not mad about it. Does make for a bit of a boring blog though, doesn’t it?

The good news is that the ankle is slowly but surely improving. I’m pretty much back to doing all my normal activities, just maybe not quite at max capacity yet. The bone seems pretty good, but the soft tissue that I banged up in the process is still a bit stiff and angry (there’s still a little swelling and bruising), so I don’t quite have all my mobility back in that foot yet when it’s in the stirrup. I have to put the stirrup a little “home” in order to post comfortably, and my leg doesn’t hang quite right. Still though, a couple weeks ago I couldn’t put it in a stirrup at all, so progress is happening. Much much slower than I would prefer, but it’s happening nonetheless. I can post the trot and I feel like I’m close to be able to stay in a half seat for more than a few strides at a time. Glorious.

In the meantime, Presto has gone back to the school of remembering that he’s trained. He definitely got a bit lazy and complacent during his impromptu vacation and is relatively certain that I should definitely carry his head around everywhere. I maintain that his head is attached to his body and therefore by default is actually his responsibility to carry. He is shooketh by this revelation. As if we’ve never had this conversation at all before in the past 2 years.

In Lottie news, she’s continuing to just come in for groomies and to explore the farm in hand. I’ve expanded our bubble in that I’m taking her further out – to the riding field, down to the pond, etc. And I’ve started asking her for really basic in-hand stuff, like stopping when I stop, moving her body out of my space, etc. Not as far as what I’d call groundwork yet, but starting to head that direction a bit more. It’s all very casual at the moment, with no timeline.

She got her feet done for the second time here this week, which means she’s been here for 5 weeks now. There wasn’t a lot of hoof growth in that time but we were able to open up the front shoes a teeny bit, so I’ll take that. And she’s managed to not destroy her bare hind feet. Small wins. I have her first little vlog posted on Patreon for those that want to see what she’s up to (spoiler alert: boring stuff).

The most interesting news with her lately is that I got her Etalon genetic test results back!

Short version: she was born bay and only has one gray gene. Both of her parents were gray so I was really curious as to whether or not she was homozygous.

She’s homozygous agouti, which means she could never produce a black foal, and she does have a chestnut gene too. She had a few interesting things on the health variants (the full report and what it all means is on Patreon too) but nothing too bad… she’s not a carrier for any muscle or neurological disorders that I’m most concerned about. It was helpful to know that she’s got two markers as a carrier for ERUS – Equine Recurrent Uveitis Symptom Severity. It doesn’t mean that she has or will ever get uveitis, but it means that if for whatever reason she were to ever develop uveitis she’s 12x more likely to have more severe symptoms compared to a horse without no ERUS variants. Good to know, she’ll keep wearing her fly mask and we’ll make sure to check her eyes annually!

Her temperament type is Curious & Vigilant, which is what I had guessed. At first I thought she was more vigilant, but honestly I think it’s because she’s never really been encouraged to be curious. The more I let her explore things, the more her curious side is starting to come out. And she does like attention, which is more typical of the curious ones. So that does seem bang-on that she’s a mixture of the two!

In Henry news: he got his front shoes pulled this week. He had to wear 4 shoes in Texas because it was so hard and rocky, but he’s gone almost 2 years here in just front shoes. His hind feet have done really well on the Florida sandy soil, so I finally decided to just bite the bullet and pull the fronts too. He doesn’t work that much, and we’re about to get into the wetter season with softer ground, so it seemed like a good time. Something about it feels a little bit like an end of an era though… he was barefoot when I got him out of a pasture all those years ago, and now he’s barefoot again. Full circle.

Long time no post. At least for me anyway.

I really had nothing to say last week unless someone wanted to hear me continuing to complain about the ankle. Even I was tired of hearing myself complain about that. Plus with what happened the weekend before last with Georgie Campbell I thought that anything I had to say just rang a little bit hollow in general. So I just… refrained. Reflected. Took some time to STFU.

The good news is, I’m now back on two legs, which of course means that I’m back on four legs too. Which means I have a few things to talk about at least.

The bad news is that, as with most injuries, its not as simple as just getting back on and picking back up where you were. The first couple rides I really couldn’t put my foot in the stirrup, then I could put my foot in but I couldn’t post or anything that put actual weight on it. Now we’ve made it to the point where I can post some, but not for more than like 5-10 minutes before it starts to get mad. And I have to be really careful when I get off to make sure I don’t slam down on my right foot. Which is… easier said than done when you ride a 17.1+ hand chaos factory.

But I’m absolutely DELIGHTED to feel like I’m actually doing something again. Presto is out of shape and back to being a bit dull to the aids (we had really JUST gotten him feeling sharper and more responsive when I got hurt) so these first couple weeks of riding it kind of works out to go back to the basics and reinforce some of that. At this point we have aaaaaaalll frickin summer anyway, with the next show not being til the end of August. Nothing better to do at this point than take our time and bring us both back in a way that is helpful and methodical. I also reached out to someone new about lessons, but haven’t actually set anything up yet because… well… I feel like I need to be a couple weeks further along in my healing than I currently am. We can talk about it soon hopefully.

In other, equally exciting news, being able to walk again means that I can FINALLY start working on stuff with Lottie! And by working on stuff I really just mean spending time handgrazing her, working on manners, learning to relax when she leaves her friends, standing in the crossties for grooming, etc. That’s as far as we’ve gotten, and I’m pretty delighted to have literally ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD to get her going. I still haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to give her a long break and aim for RRP 2025 or not, I figured we’ll just go week by week and see how things look.

The first order of business is getting her body “right” after so much time on the track. She’s sore and tight and her SI is definitely gonna need some attention, and her feet are teeny tiny little pancake disasters. So I’m more than happy to just take the time and get all that stuff headed down the right path, and not have to feel like we’re on any kind of timeline.

We’ve already started on her feet of course, and she’s had some chiropractic. I’ve been using a massage and stretching e-book (that I’ll review for you guys soon, because it’s super cool!) to try to help improve her tightness on a day to day basis, and it seems to be helping. Next steps will be teeth and stomach. The feet, like the body, are just gonna take time. Lottie is really sensitive, although not particularly explosive, but spending the time with her on the ground is teaching me a lot about her brain.

Mostly she just kind of seems like she’s learned to internalize a lot of things, and she hasn’t seemed to see humans as being a particularly safe space. We’re working on that, and she’s seeming to trust me a little bit more every day. She’s quite polite, and wants to be a good girl, but we’re just going to have to re-wire her brain a little bit to make her feel a little bit safer so she can let her guard down a bit.

The gray is starting to grow on me a little bit too. It’s not my color of choice, but one perk is that they don’t turn yellow in the Florida sun. I pulled some hair to sent to Etalon to do genetic testing on her, mostly to see if she’s homozygous gray, since she has two gray parents. I’m also curious to see what her temperament variant comes back as… she might be my first horse that I would call Vigilant, but I’m not sure how much of that is her learned self-preservation tactics versus her true nature. She does seem to have some Curious in her too, but I’m not sure yet exactly what my guess is.

She HAS figured cookies out though, finally. It took her a few weeks, but she’s convinced now. German Horse Muffins, Nickermakers, and soft peppermints have all gotten the seal of approval. She still takes the daintiest little bites though.

Breeding season is also slowly but surely coming to a close. We’ve got one more to breed for sure, and then a few more pregnancy checks. Hopefully they’re pregnant so we don’t have to breed them again. No offense but I’m a little bit tired of staring at mare hooha’s at all hours of the day and night.