Alright, finally a catch-up post to cover the past couple weeks! The holidays are well and truly over now, so I’m out of excuses. I’m gonna summarize the happenings as best I can, otherwise this’ll be a novel and ain’t nobody got time for that.

First and foremost, Presto and Rubes both got a nice long chiro session from my vet. This is the first time this vet (I have a couple, and both do chiro) has worked on Presto, and the difference was noticeable. He’d been feeling stuck on his right side, particularly noticeable in canter, and she found several places where he was out. When I rode him a couple days later it was like night and day… like she fixed it entirely. Rubes felt good too, but he didn’t have anything specific to address and wasn’t quite as “out” as Presto was. Still, great and productive chiro session for both, even if my wallet was weeping (what else is new).

Rubes also went on his first off-property adventure. I loaded him up with Henry and me and a friend headed over to Naked Horse. He loaded well, but definitely got worked up in the trailer despite it being less than a 15 minute ride, pawing and sweating, and he never really wound his way back down. I lunged him a little when we got there, and did ground work with him to get his focus.

Truthfully Rubes just got mega overwhelmed looking at everything in the distance (horses doing things that def weren’t his business but he thought it was) and I could never really get him to take a deep breath. He’s such an anticipatory creature, he was constantly trying to figure out what I was going to ask him to do, to the point where he really lost his ability to just “be”. As soon as he started to click his brain in, he’d explode with anxiety again. I ended up not getting on him at all, we just meandered around the field, he jumped some logs and a ditch on the line, did lots of groundwork, and eventually worked our way back up to the trailer. To his credit he loaded back up in the trailer fine (I was concerned he might not) and we all made it home in one piece.

I learned some things about him from that little adventure and will take a slightly different approach next time, but we’ve definitely got a lot of work to do with getting him comfortable off property before we can really DO anything away from home. Duly noted.

At home, though, he’s been really good. He’s figuring out the lateral movements and is getting pretty consistent in the contact. He’s even starting to think about maybe trying to stretch a little bit… hasn’t actually done it yet, but he’s considering it. If I can get some of that tension out of his back I think we’ll really be cooking. His canter and transitions are improving too, and he’s mostly mastered the concept of a half halt. Well… all of the above hinges on when he’s paying attention, of course. He does have some focus issues and thinks a lot of things are exciting even if he’s not part of it.

The horse is not short of character or quirks, I’ll give him that. Never a dull moment with Rubes. But he tries hard and I think the job itself will be easy for him. We’ve just gotta wrangle those brain hamsters.

Last week was also the first week of the winter h/j series at WEC, which means the beginning of retail season for me.

I’m trying to pick up as many hours as I can this year, to help fluff the coffers a bit since this is also generally the most expensive time of year for me. Particularly because I’ve amped up our lessons/training rides schedule. Mama gots to make the chedda to pay for that.

But we’re on our second week in our new busier program and it’s going well so far (knock on wood). We’ve logged a dressage lesson (our first in forever), a jump lesson, a dressage training ride, and today we’re gonna do a quick XC school.

It’s been so long since I’ve been in a real program like this, right now it feels like an incredible luxury. I mean… I haven’t maybe ever been in a program like this, really. Closest I came was when I was a working student literally forever ago. It just wasn’t feasible in Texas where my trainer was 2 hours away, and it was difficult to get into a regular schedule with my prior trainer. I appreciate that when I brought the idea to Ellie she immediately made the space for me and has outlined a program, followed through 100%, and been fantastic about scheduling. No chasing or reminding required. It’s basically like we’re in a full training program but I’m just trailering in for everything vs being onsite. My work schedule makes things a bit tricky but we’re figuring it out.

Presto of course has had some training rides here and there over the past few years whenever I could fit them in, but nothing super consistent since he was a 4yo in training with Megan in Texas. They’re so beneficial for him, I really wanted to make that a priority too. He’s such a fast learner, but like all horses, it’s easier for him to learn when he’s being taught as clearly and concisely as possible. A better, more experienced rider is going to be able to do that. He and Ellie get along great and he already has had a couple lightbulb moments. Watching her ride him is super educational for me, too.

At the end of the day my goal is to be a better rider and have a more well-trained, educated horse, and I’m dedicated to doing everything I can to help make that happen. We have some holes to fill in, but I think we’ve found our way to the right program, so we’ve committed 100% and we’ll see where that takes us. Here’s to hoping 2025 is the year of education and improvement.

We’ve got our first recognized event of the season this weekend, and it’s supposed to be cold and rainy. Superb. My favorite (inject heavy sarcasm). I fully expect it to be a bit wild and wooly, and Presto will probably be a hooligan, but we’ve gotta pull the bandaid off at some point and get cracking. If nothing else it’ll hopefully give us an idea of where we’re really at and what things we need to prioritize working on. Assuming I don’t freeze to death, of course.

Since I’ve managed to fit pics of 3 of the 4 horses into this post, why not make it 4 for 4 with a random pic of Fey.

She’s just hanging out waiting for breeding season to start… which is really just right around the corner. Guess I need to start getting my shit together for the 2025 Baby Bets contest.

Happy New Year, everyone!