I truly thought I posted something last week but turns out that was false. To be fair, I have no idea what day it is, basically ever. So let’s get you all caught up on what’s been going on since my last post, eh?

First and foremost, Rubes’ was officially inducted into the Parx Racing hall of fame! He’s got a fancy plaque and everything, so if you ever find yourself at Parx, head to ye olde Hall of Fame and take a gander at his official spot.

His previous owner/breeder went for the induction ceremony and texted me very excited to saw me on all the screens. Took me a minute to realize what the heck he was talking about, I had totally forgotten about the Zoom interview that I did with the announcer at Parx not long after I got Rubes. If you want to watch it, check it out here. Enjoy watching me fidget mercilessly with discomfort.

In other good news, look who’s back in action!

It took about a week after his glue-on shoe was… uh… glued on… before Presto really started to look normal again. Once he was walking 100% I got on him and started hacking him, because he was literally climbing the walls of his stall and tiny turnout pen. I suppose I should be glad he lasted as long as he did, but once he decided he was done resting he was REALLY done. Every day that I’ve ridden him he’s felt better and better. The first day I’d say he was like 85% at the trot, then 90%, then 95%, and he’s been feeling totally normal and back in flatwork since the end of last week.

Caveat being that he pulled his other front shoe yesterday and took a giant chunk of wall with it (did he have to do that? No he didn’t, the farrier was already coming today for a re-set anyway) so it’s currently wrapped within an inch of it’s life and secured snugly in a boot. I will be surprised if there’s enough wall left on the medial side to nail back into with any level of security, so he might soon find himself in two glue-ons. Superb. Love that. Let’s just hope he’s still sound, because none of us can cope if he isn’t.

Last week I also had a content creation shoot for Riding Warehouse x LeMieux, for one of their fall collection colors. We got “glacier” which is a soft, light blue, and I was a bit skeptical about how it would look on my dark boys. Gotta be honest though, Rubes in particular really pulled it off and we got some great shots, coming soon to RW pages.

I do think it looked a lot better on Rubes than it did on Presto. He kinda just ended up looking like a grumpy Easter bunny. Guess he needs to chat with Rubes about modeling tips.

The big, and not at all relevant to the subject matter, takeaway from this shoot was that uh… my dressage saddle does not fit Presto anymore. I’ve been trying for over a year now to get a Custom rep out here to have it fitted/reflocked and have had zero luck getting anyone to reply to me or follow through. I always use a sheepskin lined pad on him, which makes it hard to see exactly how it’s sitting, and to be honest, I really dropped the ball on actually checking the fit regularly. He has lodged no objections, so I guess I just didn’t think to do it. When I set my saddle on him on top of just the LM pad by itself, I immediately went “oh…. that actually looks really bad”. Entirely my fault, I should have actually set it on his back without a pad at some point in the past year. Moron.

It was clear that it was rocking, and sitting a bit too close to his withers. I buckled down on trying to contact reps and fitters, and tried Custom directly. No luck. On Friday morning I threw a Hail Mary and reached out to my Arion rep, Kristen, to see if she knew anyone, since she does seem to know lots of people in that world. She said she didn’t but would be happy to come over and look at my saddle. To be honest, the only reason I had wanted a Custom rep to come out was in case I ended up having to look at new or new-to-me saddle options instead of just a fitting. I liked my Custom quite a bit, other than the complete lack of available customer service, so it seemed like a good starting point if I did need to look for another saddle. But ya know… if I can’t get anyone from Custom to come out then that won’t really work, will it? And to be fair, I ride in an Arion jump saddle and love it but have been decidedly anti-French when it comes to dressage saddles because I’ve just never had one in the past that I felt was right.

Kristen showed up within an hour, looked at it, and grimaced. I get it because I too was grimacing. We both agreed that the panel and the tree just weren’t right for his more mature shape. Crap. She also had some Arion dressage demos with her, and despite having ridden in an Arion jump saddle for 2+ years, I’ve actually never sat in their dressage model. I wasn’t optimistic because ya know, as mentioned above, my experiences with French dressage saddles have been underwhelming to say the least. So it was perhaps with a bit too much hubris that I swung aboard and settled my ass into that sweet sweet buffalo, expecting to hate it. Spoiler alert: I did not hate it. I loved it.

Part of it I think was the fact that it fit Presto really well (he’s a fairly standard panel in Arion, praise be) and hence it wasn’t rocking or bouncing. Amazing how that helps. Something about how/where the block hit my leg was magical, too. I also tried a second one with a slightly different block (it was thinner at the top), which was nice, but definitely not as magical as the first one. I was shooketh, questioning all the opinions I thought I had.

So anyway that’s how I was just going about my business on a regular Friday morning and then two hours later found myself ordering a new dressage saddle. That taccident really escalated quickly. So quickly that I literally took no photos of the entire process or the saddles I tried or anything, so… I guess we’ll all get to see it in about 4 weeks when it gets here. Surprise.

Alas, there’s really no way in good conscience I could have put the Custom back on Presto again, knowing what I know now, so I kinda felt like my options were:

1) go through the incredibly painful and frustrating process of trying a million random used saddles and hoping something fit that I liked. The mere thought of this option makes me want to off myself entirely.

2) Get the saddle I know the horse and I both like, from a rep and brand that has been really really exceptional to me and fantastic to work with in every way since the very beginning.

Well ok I suppose I could have done a third option and waited, hoping for a used one to pop up with the specs I need, but used Arions aren’t very common and it probably wouldn’t have been much different in price, plus could potentially have taken many months. I don’t really want to be without a dressage saddle for a long period of time, especially with the FL winter show season just around the corner. So… eff it. I will certainly never be the richest bitch in the graveyard.

It was a strange derailing of the intentions I had for my Friday though, I can tell you that much.

In other news, I also voted last week.

It was my first time ever voting by mail, which I quite liked. Didn’t have to go anywhere or stand in line or deal with people, and I felt free to take my time filling out my ballot. Will definitely be doing that again for future elections. Although I do think the Marion County stickers are lame. There should be a horse on them, obviously.

Speaking of horses and Marion County… yesterday myself, Hillary, and our friend Emily recorded a “Everything you need to know if you want to winter in Ocala” type of podcast episode. We cover everything from the different venues, shows, footing, restaurants, things to do, grocery stores, where to get hay, tack shops, vets, etc etc. Basically every question I’ve ever been asked or seen anyone ask when they’re getting ready to come down here whether it’s for the whole season or just a couple weeks. We’re gonna make this episode publicly available, probably on Apple podcasts. I’ll let you know when it’s up!