As we discussed in Monday’s post, my list is being (very graciously) hosted by TurnoutHQ this year. Same format, same daily updates, same yours truly doing all the scouting, and the first edition of the list is officially LIVE!
y’all I’m tired, I’ve been at this since 4am, let me use my cliche GIFs
If you’re already a TurnoutHQ member (its free to join!) you can go straight to the list here:
Thank you all so much for supporting TurnoutHQ by joining, looking around the site, and posting in the community. We see all of you! Even if all you ever do is view the big holiday sale posts, it’s still much appreciated. It’s a new website/app and the very small (but mighty) team behind it is SO excited to see the numbers and engagement grow day by day… your participation means a lot!
Yes, have no fear, it is coming (starting Wednesday morning, to be exact… I’ll post here and let you know when it’s up, or you can follow this facebook page for updates). However, this year will look a little bit different! Y’all know I’ve been putting together this entirely insane and gargantuan list for years, and back in the days where I had a corporate job that included paid holidays, taking all that time was more doable. But these days I do not have a corporate job, and now time is money… even on holidays. After last year I was very on the fence about whether or not I would do it again, because the time it takes to do it well has become less and less justifiable for me.
BUT… in stepped TurnoutHQ. As you guys know, I’ve been doing some work for them over the past few months as their website and app have gotten off the ground, and they have graciously offered to host the list this year, as well as pay me for the time it takes to put it together. All hail TurnoutHQ, they’ve single-handedly saved the list (and my bank account, honestly).
So this year the list is officially transitioning from Breed.Ride.Event. to TurnoutHQ, enabling some serious upgrades.
To be honest, this is a boon for everyone. By hosting the list on TurnoutHQ, we now have a larger team working behind the scenes, which means a more comprehensive master list, faster updates, more eyes, and the ability to hunt down more deals as soon as they drop. You can still expect the same format you know and love:
A massive list of all kinds of Black Friday deals for horse people: clothing, tack, equipment, stable supplies, training courses, gifts – you name it, we’ll have it.
Regular updates all week and weekend long. We’ll be working morning and night to monitor all the sales and bring you updates ASAP.
Exclusive discounts and codes available only through TurnoutHQ. Yep, that’s right, we’ll have some discounts that can’t be found anywhere else.
Basically, the 2025 list will be the same as years past, just even more absurd.
Important to Note: You’ll need a free TurnoutHQ account to view the list.
To access the list this year, you’ll need to create a free TurnoutHQ account and verify your email. This isn’t a paywall, it’s security. TurnoutHQ verifies every account to keep bots, scammers, and bad actors off the site. That means the deals list and links (as well as the broader THQ community) stays safe, trustworthy, and scam-free. Signing up takes less than a minute, and once you’re in, you’re good to go.
Bonus perk: creating a free account = way more than just the sales list. We’ve also got community groups, our forum-style space in a friendly and welcoming environment. There IS an equestrian bloggers group, although right now it’s just me and Stacie. Come join! It would be nice to have a little community space that isn’t on bookface (which I hate more by the day).
TurnoutHQ also has marketplace listings for buying and selling used equipment, and thanks to the account verification you know you’re getting a scam-free experience (side-eyeing bookface marketplace aka scam central).
Basically, moving the Black Friday Sales List to TurnoutHQ means that not only will it continue, you’ll get more deals, more security, more accuracy, and a stronger community behind it. I hope you guys will show TurnoutHQ some love – as they’ve done for me – and create a free account, explore the site, comment on posts, make new ones, suggest new community groups, etc. It’s a really great team of horse people that have been super supportive of me and have an incredible vision for what the site and app will eventually be in the future.
I wonder how many blog posts I’ve started off with “what had happened was…”?
add another one to the count
Here’s the thing. I was not looking to add another horse to the mix at the moment. I was focused on finding the best next person for Rubes, then my plan was to spend a few months saving up to buy an OTTB that had already been restarted at least enough to where I could see it jump and get an idea for what it was like to ride. I swear I had good intentions.
And then I got tagged in a post about an soon to be available OTTB because he looked a whole lot like Presto.
I mean, come on
Still though, I felt like I was safe. Like… obviously YES he was cute and all that but ya know… not on the agenda.
And then the horse arrived to the reseller’s farm the next day and she posted more pics of him, as well as video.
DANGER WILL ROBINSON
It was one of the best-moving OTTB’s I’ve seen in a while. There was also more information: he was a tall, long, rangey boy with a good temperament and his name was Bingo. So let me get this straight… not only does he look like Presto in the face, have the same type and almost the same height as Presto, but he’s also got a name that means something pretty similar?
Presto: a phrase announcing the successful completion of a trick.
Bingo: used to express satisfaction or surprise at a sudden positive event or outcome.
I mean COME ON. Not subtle AT ALL, universe.
I did what any insane person would do and started asking the seller questions. All of her answers pointed to this horse being really my type. I was feeling more and more in danger by the minute. So then I was like “I know exactly how to cure this hankering” and I sent his video to my vet. Not only does she have an eagle eye for any tiny thing, she’s also an eventer married to a racehorse trainer who is heavily involved in both industries. I can count on one finger the number of OTTB’s I’ve sent her that she’s actually liked. Surely she could nip this situation in the bud for me.
My karma for saying that I don’t like the matchy matchy colored tack sets is that I apparently have a real affinity for matchy matchy horses. Whoops.
And then, wouldn’t you know it, that absolute TRAITOR said she liked him. Particularly his gaits and how balanced he looked at both the trot and canter.
Well shit.
So I was like “Aha! I know who else is hard to please! I’ll send him to Trainer, she won’t like him!”
Well folks, we have another traitor in our midst because she LOVED him. Like really loved him. Said buy that one. She liked his type, his gaits, and especially his pedigree.
there’s a lot to love about it, to be fair
Honestly this is the point at which I was like “well, none of this is even my fault anymore”.
In one last attempt to give the universe a chance to stop me from doing something stupid, I decided to schedule a PPE. Nothing extensive, mostly just a heart and lungs sound good, has four legs that are currently functioning properly, no alarming lumps or bumps, etc type of thing. The vet asked if I wanted any xrays and I said that as long as his heart, lungs, legs, jogs, etc were good, I was ok with that, but if any of those things were remotely questionable such that we felt more diagnostics were warranted, I was not interested in going further. I gave the situation clear black and white guidelines, and surrendered any hopes I had to the horse gods. If it was meant to be it would be, and if it wasn’t meant to be, it wouldn’t be. Simple as that. I was very neutral.
So naturally his PPE went great. Heart and lungs were normal both at rest and after exercise, he jogged well on hard and soft and on a circle, etc. The vet said he seemed to have a good temperament and was an agreeable, willing type, just needed some weight.
Welp. Shit.
Anyway, that’s how I found myself in possession of one (1) Bingo.
I know, he’s judging me too
The way the coordination of everything went down still has me feeling mega sus. I can’t decide if it was the universe giving me it’s blessing or if it’s trying to lull me into a false sense of security so it can screw me extra bad later. But this is how it went down:
I sent the money for Bingo at like 6am on a Friday. I then asked the seller if she had haulers she recommends, since she does a lot of resales. She sent me a list of names and numbers, noting that a guy named Dan would be the first pick and he does fairly regular trips to Ocala. It was still so early that I didn’t want to start calling any of them yet, so I did the usual song and dance of going to all the major shipper’s websites to submit for a quote, then put a post up in Haul My Horse.
Less than 5mins later I get a PM response to my Haul My Horse post. Who was it from? Dan. THE Dan that had been recommended. When was his next Ohio to Ocala route? The following Monday. How much did he quote me? $1.25 a mile, which was less than I had hoped to find. Ummm… sold, sir. Say less, king. I told him where the horse was coming from and he was like oh perfect, I’ll just reach out to her and coordinate pickup. Please, by all means, rock on with your bad self. If y’all want to do all the planning for me, I’m totally okay with that.
I texted the vet that did the PPE to give her the date and hauler name for the health cert, and within 30mins I had both the health cert and my bill for everything. Which was INSANELY cheap… like 1/3 of what any of that would have cost me here in Ocala. So before 9am I had a horse purchased, a hauler set up, and all his paperwork done. Nothing with horses is ever that easy.
Bingo got on a trailer Monday afternoon and arrived here in Ocala on Tuesday night.
hello, tall kid
Naturally he arrived on the coldest night we’ve had in forever. It was 29 degrees. Gross. He marched out of the trailer like a champ though, calm as a cucumber, and happily went into his double wide stall for the night. Not a single neigh, no concerns, just a few curious laps around his stall to check everything out before chugging a bucket of water (good boy) and then nomming down on his alfalfa. It was probably the least dramatic arrival of a horse that we’ve ever had here. I tossed a blanket on him to tuck him in for the night and then went to bed.
The plan for the next morning was to turn him out, but the frost was so heavy I decided to wait until the sun was all the way up and melted it a bit. Because of course he was going to run around (right?) and I didn’t want him to slip. A lot of the time we’ll give a slight bit of tranq to the OTTB’s for their first turnout, just to make sure they don’t do anything too silly, but I decided to get him out and graze him for a minute to see what kind of vibe I got from him.
His vibe? Chill AF. So I just… chucked him out. And ya know what he did? Absolutely nothing. He ambled around at a walk, checking out his new space, went and got some water, and then started grazing. Even when the giant sandhill cranes, which always tend to startle horses that haven’t seen them before, started bellowing and flapping around next to his turnout, he just just went “oh, cool dinosaurs” and kept snacking.
nary a trot step to be found
He might look like Presto, but their vibes couldn’t really be more opposite. Presto oozes chaos and fuckery from his every pore, and Bingo is really into naps and snacks and chillin’. So far he’s been an utter delight and hasn’t put a foot wrong.
speaking of feet, look at these honkers
He got a day in the smaller turnout up top, and since he was so quiet I moved him over to the bigger turnout on Thursday. Which is where I finally saw a glimpse of his movement with my own eyes. He trotted about half of the perimeter, cantered a few strides, bucked once, and that was it. Wow, Bingy. Calm down. He IS a very good mover though, like wowza I think this horse is gonna be a stunner once he’s filled out and getting some sporthorse muscling.
The past week has been all about getting to know Bingo. He keeps his personality pretty under wraps and seems a little dull at first, but some of his playfulness and silliness is starting to come to the surface with encouragement. He even had fun playing with Presto’s ball.
dis is for Bingy now
I def think his tummy is bothering him, so ulcer treatment is underway, and he’s clicky-clacking like a mofo so I’m waiting to see when my farrier can fit him into his schedule.
In the meantime, I hopped on him for a quick assessment on Saturday, just to kinda get an idea of what hes like and what he knows. He basically feels like a much less supple version of Presto at the moment, but def has more forward to him under saddle than he does on the ground (a good thing for me, I don’t like kicking). That ride gave me a good idea of where to start with the groundwork, so we’ll be focusing on some of those things for a little while as we get his tummy feeling better and his shoes sorted.
Good boy
Overall though, Bingo has been a real delight so far. I quite like him, and I think he’s got a lot of quality. Hopefully he thinks being an event horse is more interesting than racing!
Henny and Presto have both been rocking and rolling as we’ve had some really deliciously lovely Florida fall weather. Lows in the 50’s and 60’s, highs around 80… it’s why we love Florida so much from October through April. Granted, that gross cold front that’s been sweeping down from Canada is also tiptoeing it’s way into these parts, so it’s supposed to be around freezing temps the next couple of nights. Ew. Y’all keep your winter shit out of my yard.
Should be especially great tomorrow morning for my 8:30am dressage lesson, where it’s supposed to be 35 degrees. It was my only option, clearly, otherwise I wouldn’t have picked it. We’ve gotten back into the swing of lessons after my trainer was gone for a few weeks and Presto had his little break to reset.
yaaaaaay jompies lessons!
Granted, she’s going to be gone for most of the stretch between the holidays, so I’ve been trying to capitalize on her presence as much as I can at the moment as we start building up momentum heading into season. Mostly I wanted to get back into the swing of things with Presto, since I really didn’t jump him much for basically the whole summer while he was getting so many training rides.
I took him to the POP Open Schooling XC day (solo, Trainer was still gone), and he was well-behaved but still spooky and looky. He got better as we went around and as we started jumping bigger and more complicated jumps. He never tried to be nappy nor were there any meltdowns, and he jumped everything I put in front of him, he just didn’t start out feeling like his usual confident self and always seemed to have one eye looking for the boogeyman. We spooked at so many rocks, guys.
Like this one
Since then we’ve had a few jump lessons, where he’s felt more and more like his usual self as we’ve gone along, and at the end of one of them we went out to Trainer’s XC field and popped over just a few things. On Saturday we had one of our best jump lessons in a long time. He was very confident, he was rideable, everything felt easy and fun for him, and he felt very relaxed in his brain and his body from start to finish. Then yesterday we had our first official (supervised) XC school and it was honestly one of the best I’ve ever had on him.
He never put a foot wrong the entire time, he was super relaxed, he was having fun, he was brave… back to normal Presto and then some. I wish I had video, because we tackled a few more technical things, like a corner to a double upbank (it took me 3 tries to get my ride right, but he was very patient about it and jumped through it without complaint even when I made mistakes), down the hill to a skinny. A coffin with 4 elements, the last of which was a skinny shoulder brush. A rolltop down into the water (he’s generally always lookier at things on the edge of the water but he was spot on fantastic to that). It wasn’t just how he was at the questions either, it was the fact that he stood on a loose rein while my Trainer’s horse went, never was anxious about her leaving him or nappy when we left her, didn’t pay any mind to the other horses that were schooling, etc etc. He was taking me to the jumps but still super rideable. I couldn’t have been more pleased with him in every regard.
We did tweak his bit/bridle setup again after Ellie rode him for a while in one of her bridles and liked him in it. I tried it and agreed, so I bought him a similar bridle and the same bit. Amazing that despite the fact that I own 17bajillion bridles, I did not own one like this.
Sup?
The one she has is an older model something – we couldn’t figure it out nor could I find one exactly the same. She sent me this LeMieux bridle that looked similar, and since Riding Warehouse had it, I just bought that one. So far I’ve been really pleased with the quality. It needs to break in more so it lays flatter, but it’s a nice bridle for the price. The bit, naturally, was not cheap, and that seemed like the more critical part of the equation so I didn’t even bother trying to find something similar for cheaper. I’m not out here trying to waste money on trial and error when I can just buy the one I know he likes.
Trainer felt like (and I agreed) the full cheek helped keep him ever so slightly straighter. Sometimes when he’s wanting to be a little argumentative he tries to push out slightly through his left shoulder and the left rein. Usually that’s his go-to for giving himself more space in a line if he’d rather not listen to you and shorten his stride. Having the full cheek seems to give just that teeny bit of extra “nah, dude, stay straight” that we needed. I got him the one she was using, the Trust french link full cheek. I don’t love not having keepers on it, but he prefers how it sits in his mouth without them, so I just have to be careful and attentive when he’s wearing it. I do quite like jumping him in this bit and bridle combo.
As for Henny, he’s been busy too.
Trail pro
He got to go on a long trail ride with Hillary/Tully and Kathleen/Butterball, where we all had great fun cantering around the wilds of Florida like a bunch of lunatics. It made me remember how much Henny loved fox hunting, and I really would like to get him out a time or two this season if we can find a buddy that also wants to join. Knock on wood, but he’s looking and feeling as good as ever as we get closer to his 19th (omg) birthday.
still the king
I’ve been jumping him some at home, and my friend Sarah has ridden him a couple times. We’re entertaining the idea of entering him in a little hunter derby at HITS in December. I think it would be adorable.
Otherwise it’s been the usual stuff happening around here, lots of working and horses and working and horses and rinse, wash, repeat. I have no complaints. We’ve also entered tack sale season, and I’ve gotten some good scores, like a couple free tubes of SynChill, some free black show spray, a pair of Equilibrium boots for $1, a bit for $3, a Mattes girth, and some REALLY cool old stallion books from Germany. Such a random but awesome find for a breeding nerd like me.
we love stuff
I also picked up a pair of Romitelli Boots and a pair of La Mundial boots for $10 each. Neither of them fit me, but they do fit people in the Patreon group, so those spectacular finds are getting passed along to them. I still wear the heck out of my LM boots that I got from that tack sale last year!
I do have one other exciting thing happening, but… y’all are gonna have to wait to get the details on that. We like to leave it on a cliffhanger.
breedrideevent.com 