Somebody was living his best bougie lifestyle last week, bankrolled by his mother.
So basically, just a regular day in the life for Presto. Somebody really needs to tell him he’s not from a wealthy family.
Anyway, he made his first little adventure to WEC, doing a 1.15m class with Ellie. We really had no idea how he would be… he’s never been there before and it’s a lot of atmosphere. Hence the whole point of me paying a relatively absurd amount of money to just do one class – he needs to see and experience stuff like this. It’s time. It needs to happen.
His class was in Indoor 6, which luckily isn’t too far from the ship-in day parking. Basically the ship-in parking is in the very front of the parking lot, then you have to walk across the parking lot, around and past Indoor 5 and a little covered, past another parking lot, and then you get to Indoor 6. It’s not close, but in WEC terms (where, depending on where your ring is, you could be in for a 20-30 minute walk) it’s not so bad. Presto did take a little exception to the rubber mats that made up the horse path, and wasn’t a big fan of the barricades with sandbags, but he survived (against all odds, he says).
We had some time to kill (because when does jumperland ever run on time) which worked out great, honestly. He was definitely on his toes when he first went into the indoor, but he had time to sit and watch some horses go, and spend time just walking around. Which is right around the time I realized he really truly has never been in an actual INDOOR before. A couple small/bright covered rings, but a true indoor… I don’t think so. Especially not one like this. About 1/3 of the massive indoor is the warmup ring, then there’s a little alley made up of barricades in between the warmup and the show ring itself. There are bleachers on one side, lots of little exit doors on the sides and the end, plus jump crew sitting just behind the wall. Not to mention all the hoopla of the WEC decor, like the 700 trees and signs and shit that are all over the ring, and the jumbotron and the big scoreboard.
Truth be told, we really didn’t know what to expect. When he started warming up he definitely seemed a bit fresh, but Ellie quickly put him to work doing some more intricate flatwork and he settled really well. He was great for his warmup jumps, good about the traffic in warmup, and didn’t seem particularly bothered by anything. And then he went in the ring and just… marched right around. Like… we were all surprised by how good he was, actually. Ellie let him go slow and used lots of the ring so that he had time to process everything, and while he was alert, he never got worried or spooky. It was a slow but very steady and honestly quite boring (in a good way, for him) round – time faults, but no jump penalties. He really couldn’t have been any better.
So this week he’s gonna go back and do the 1.15m and the 1.20m with Ellie, and see if he can repeat his success, or if (as he does sometimes tends to do) he was on his best behavior the first time because it was new. The 1.20m should be interesting… he’s not jumped a course that big, so maybe he’ll finally look alive and have to try a little bit for once. Maybe?
He had the following day off, then a stretchy hack day followed by a flatwork day. On Sunday I took him over to Sweet Dixie bright and early for his weekly conditioning ride. It’s been mega hot and humid here, but it wasn’t too insufferable (your opinion may vary) yet at 7am, so off to the hill trots we went. I’m in the process of trialing the Horsepal heart rate monitor to review on Eventing Nation, and this was our maiden voyage. It took me about 5 minutes of stubborn “I don’t want to read the directions” fidgeting with all the various parts (it comes with lots of accoutrement) before I pulled up the “how to” video and was set up and ready to go within a few minutes. You’ll have to wait for the actual review but this one is different from the ones I’ve used in the past (Hylofit and Seaver) and the first test run was very promising.
As for the other boys, Rubes hasn’t been doing much of anything because with all this rain we’ve gotten (so much… so much rain… it is pouring again as I type this) his feet just aren’t doing great. He was looking about 80% better yesterday and got to go for a little hack, much to his delight, but they’re still just too soft and sensitive to do much.
He’s got very little wall and very little sole, and his extensive multi-step hoof care routine is probably the only thing keeping him from being entirely crippled at the moment, but it’s still not great. It’s a fun juggle between keeping him inside and dry vs him absolutely climbing the walls, going batshit crazy, and then running like a dingdong when he does go outside. If he pulls a shoe and takes even a millimeter of wall with it, he’ll for sure have to go back in glue-ons, so the balance of his lifestyle is precarious right now at best.
Henry has been pulling his weight, though. When it’s this hot I have to be really careful with him since he doesn’t sweat very well, so he really only gets ridden on the days where I can be on him by 7am. We keep it short and to the point, but (despite his resting grump face) he’s always happy to be doing something. If nothing else it’s giving me something else to ride while Presto is in more of “full training” mode.
I’m hoping to take Henry to a little schooling derby next week for shits and giggles, as long as it’s not too scorching hot. I think he’d be delighted to drag me around the BN.
breedrideevent.com 