Just in case I’ve never been clear, I hate winter. Moving to Florida has spared me from the worst of it I suppose but we’re supposed to get a very small dusting of freezing rain/potentially snow overnight and let me tell you how little I’m interested in anything frozen coming from the sky and/or any weather below 60 degrees. I’m a lizard, give me warmth and sun.

I think we’re just gonna call the first few days of this week a loss and we can resume regularly scheduled program when the weather is less hateful. Ain’t none of us down here built for this.

Luckily I still have plenty to talk about day though, because last week was busy!

Presto had two training rides last week – a flat and a jump – and I had a jump lesson on Saturday. I feel like he gets better and better every week, and with each training ride. He’s getting stronger, he’s using himself better, and he’s subsequently starting to fill in some of those areas that have been lacking. His wide-behind tendency in the canter is improving massively, which is, unsurprisingly, helpful to just about everything.

Over fences the focus has been on adjustability while staying in front of the leg. For Thursday’s training ride she was going down the lines doing different numbers of strides. He is more amenable than he once was, but still gets a little angry. At the end of the ride I was telling her how he has the loosest nosebands in the world because if he ever feels like they’re remotely too tight he has an epic tantrum, and on the way home that thought was ruminating in my head. I was like hmmm… he’s been jumping in that beval bit with the little leather curb strap for a long time now, but does he actually need the leather strap anymore? He’s a lot more trained and rideable these days.

So for my lesson on Saturday I decided to try an experiment and take the strap off. Immediately it felt better. Like I could really push him up into my hand and he’d happily stay there. So cue me feeling really stupid that it took me this long for it to dawn on me that he needed a step down in the bitting department. Ellie immediately noticed the difference too and thought it was much better, he was less fussy about the half-halts or having to whoa in the lines. Not UNfussy… I think he lives to fuss, after all, but much LESS fussy for sure.

Presto was superb for the lesson and I think it’s one of the best we’ve ever had, if not the best. The training rides and the consistency of the program are making a difference for sure. I’m starting to feel like we’re finally headed in the right direction rather than aimlessly treading water. I wish I had media from it but alas I went alone.

If he continues to be more rideable and up into my hand/in front of my leg, we might be able to bump him down to a plain loose ring to jump in at some point. I don’t think we’re totally there yet, sometimes he gets a bit full of himself and tells me my opinion sucks, but ya know… we’re working in the right direction. The beval bit has very little leverage to it anyway. We’ll see how he is at the next show without the strap. Hopefully he doesn’t go rogue on XC.

Speaking of which, we’re entered for Ocala 1 at FHP in a couple weeks. Hopefully the weather gets its shit together by then.

Other than the lessons and training rides, last week’s free time was mostly occupied by Magnawave training. It was A LOT. I dunno what I was expecting, but the Equine course alone was 36 videos and multiple tests. And some of those videos were almost an hour. The good news is, I learned a lot. Like a whole lot. It was mega-thorough. It went over all the details on how it works, the terms you need to know, basic whole horse wellness use vs targeting specific issues or ailments, a whole lot of anatomy especially what things connect or correlate to where, what attachments were best for what thing, PEMF vs other therapies, etc etc. It was super cool, tbh, even if more time consuming than I expected. I wish I could share some of the pics and videos from it but alas that’s proprietary information. I have an absurd amount of notes.

Either way, I aced the exams, so I competed my equine certification.

And I did the small animal course (I want to use the magnawave on Mina too, I think it’ll help) and for funsies continued on and did the livestock course. So now I’ve got the basic, equine, small animal, and livestock certifications. Did you know you could PEMF animals like snakes and turkeys? I’ve never thought about it I guess, but now I know how. What a time to be alive. I can’t wait for my machine to come to I can put my training to good use (to be clear, NOT on snakes or turkeys).

As for Rubes, he’s still hanging in there. I’ve ridden him some, but honestly I’m kind of waiting for the weather to improve a bit. He is really excited to be alive right now, and definitely athletic enough to yeet me at any moment, so riding him on days like this when I’m mostly alone on the farm doesn’t seem like the best way to guarantee a safe and happy 2025. Luckily it’ll be warm again next week, so giving him a few days or a week off here and there when it’s polar AF isn’t the end of the world.

Otherwise the last week was mostly filled with content creation stuff and some retail hours, and I ended up spending a lot of time at HITS. I gotta say, I think the vibes are better at HITS than WEC. I’d totally consider hopping over to HITS for some jumper classes but have very little to no interest in WEC. There’s more of an “electric” atmosphere at WEC, if you need that kind of thing for whatever reason, but HITS feels so much more chill and isn’t a concrete and asphalt conglomeration. Plus there are acai bowls. I’m sold with that fact alone.

I’m not really sure yet what all is on the docket for this week besides shots and coggins for everyone and probably lessons and/or training rides at some point. Next Monday and Tuesday we’re signed up to ride with Kai Steffen-Meier, the Belgian chef d’equipe. He’ll be at my trainer’s farm teaching so I figured that would be kind of a fun full-circle opportunity. For those who haven’t been following this blog since the dawn of time (or like 2015) it was actually a trip to Kai’s farm in Belgium that sealed the deal on my love for Mighty Magic, and hence started me down the road to breed my own.

So you could say that all of this it’s partially Kai’s fault, really.

In all seriousness, he’s had and ridden a lot of Mighty Magics, so I feel like he might have some good insight and input. Should be fun!