Author: Amanda C

With most horses, it’s easy to look at them and be able to get a good idea of their sheer athletic potential. The ones we pick out as being talented tend to move with a certain swagger, a natural suppleness with hints of raw power. Their reflexes are fast, and the work seems to come easily to them. All of our young horse classes are centered around gauging a horse’s sheer natural physical ability, by looking for things just like that.

But what you can’t see, watching a horse in the beginning of it’s career, is the horse’s heart. A horse that wants to please. A horse that really loves and wants to do the job. It’s a quality that’s pretty important in any sport, but especially eventing. You see it all the time, horses that have all the talent in world but they just don’t have the heart.

You also see horses on the other end of the spectrum – horses that don’t have great conformation, great gaits, or a whole lot of natural ability, but they have a heart like a lion. Those horses might not look like much, and they might not be the ones that score the best, but they exceed expectations because they love what they do and they really want to do it. It’s not as easy for them, but they achieve beyond their initial potential because of qualities that we can’t see with the naked eye.

Owning Presto and Henry really highlights just how much of the latter that Henry really is. Watching Presto gallop is enough to make anyone stop and watch, with his long fluid strides that seem relatively effortless. He’s naturally uphill, and just looking at him you can tell he screams ATHLETE.

Henry, while I love him dearly, is kind of the opposite. He is a naturally thicker-bodied horse, built downhill, traveling always a bit croup high. Everyone who sees him go thinks he’s an appendix. His stride is a bit short, and he’s not naturally very fast. None of this job comes as easily to a horse like him as it would to a horse like Presto. Which is why I never really expected that he could make it past Training level.

Well – let me clarify that. I knew the horse could jump 1.10m, that wasn’t the problem. What I doubted (a lot) was his ability to get us out of bad situations at that height. If I spectacularly missed the distance at a max Prelim fence, I wasn’t convinced that he had enough athleticism to save us. What I didn’t really take into account were those internal qualities that actually matter so much… his brain and his heart.

He’s smart enough to say “No, this isn’t a good idea” if I’m that wrong and he just doesn’t think he can make it (or, uh, if he’s real tired of my shit). Self-preservation is a great quality in an amateur event horse. But he’s also got enough heart to where, if he can make it happen, he’ll dig deep down into that little QH-looking body of his and pull out just that liiiittle bit extra that no one would really expect. It’s not as easy for him to get us out of those situations as it would be for a more athletic horse, but he gets it done because he he’s dedicated to it. He really wants to find the other side of the fence. He loves his job.

I was wrong about Henry. He’s got that little extra inside of him that you can’t see with the eye, but it matters a lot. It gives him the ability to go a bit beyond where his conformation and natural ability say he should be able to go. He’s scrappy, and he’s got the “lemme at em” attitude that makes all the difference.

Owning and riding Henry has taught me a lot about not judging a book (er, horse) by it’s cover. I find myself watching a little more closely these days, looking for that horse who might not be as attention-grabbing, but quite clearly just loves the hell out of whatever it’s doing. The ones who are all-in.

It’s so hard to see those things in a young horse, or be able to pick out from a quick assessment which ones will want to go that extra mile for you and which ones won’t. We really don’t know until we ask, and I do think that part of it (not all of it, but part of it) comes from how the horse is raised and trained. It makes me look at Presto and think of all the things I need to do to try to cultivate those qualities in him. Positivity. Confidence-building. Understanding. Trust. Patience. It’s a very interesting perspective to think about, when you approach it as if you’re trying to develop a partner with a lot of heart, one that really loves the job it’s doing. I got lucky with Henry, and I find myself thinking about how to encourage those golden inner qualities in other horses. Especially if I could get those qualities into a horse that was naturally more athletic, like Presto.

In this way Henry has taught me something very valuable, and made me look at horses and training with a new set of eyes. Have you ever had a horse that proved you wrong, or had enough heart to make up for some of their natural shortcomings? What did that horse teach you?

Sorry, literature fans, this post has nothing to do with The Little Prince. Although now I want to go back and read it for like the 200th time…

The subject of the day is sheepskin. Specifically sheepskin saddle pads. Extra-specifically saddle pads with sheepskin lining underneath the top half.

Shocker: Henry is a sensitive, delicate flower. Sometimes his coat decides that something in the universe has rubbed him the wrong way, and hair will start to fall out. Usually this is around the back edge of the saddle pad, several inches below his spine, although no area is immune. It’s worse in some pads (the spur rub pad that I use when he decides that my legs – sans spurs, I might add – are rubbing him the wrong way OF COURSE seems to be the pad that his back finds particularly offensive) and better in others, but none of them seem completely exempt. I control the progression of the rubs by using an assortment of powders and lubes, but still, at any given time there’s probably a rub on that horse SOMEWHERE from SOMETHING.

I had a real problem with this at Coconino, where he had a bite mark on one side that sat right under my leg, so I had to use my spur rub pad to keep it from progressing. In turn, the spur rub pad itself rubbed a bunch of hair off of both sides of his barrel along the back edge of the pad, because Henny. And once it started, even switching to the Ogilvy pads (which are what I’ve had the most luck with for him) couldn’t stop it. I tend to play this game of musical saddle pads in the winter too, when he’s body clipped and therefore anything that touches him is a good reason for a rub. It’s why he has to wear HUG blankets. It’s a little ridiculous.

Every time the rubs occur, I feel like I have a bit of a gap in my arsenal of equipment. This was especially true at Coconino, when trying to stop one rub resulted in 3 more. At that point it became a battle to keep as much hair on him as possible, especially when I was riding him twice a day. I really found myself needing some good old fashioned sheepskin, something that I used to own but don’t anymore. It was kind of a PITA to own and maintain. Especially in Texas where it’s hot AF. But it is the best thing for the delicate flowers, and I think I’m at the point where I need something, some kind of sheepskin option to use when the random rubs try to emerge, even if I don’t use it all the time. Naturally, I started googling and quickly fell down a rabbit hole.

I like the contoured shape under my jump saddle, more like a cross country pad. The situation is a little complicated by the fact that I have two different types of saddles. I ride him more in the jump saddle (and I use that saddle for our longer conditioning rides, where he’s more likely to get rubs), but… would I need a dressage version too, to cover my bases? Anything sheepskin is expensive, naturally, although finding a dressage one isn’t as hard and they’re not as pricey.

The cheapest solution is to just get a sheepskin half pad and use it under the regular pads. I have some concerns about that setup sitting well on him, though, and ending up too bulky, or fitting well under one saddle but not the other. Both of those scenarios are a potential recipe for more rubs or maybe even backsoreness, which defeats the purpose. But maybe I’m being too paranoid and it would be fine? I guess I could just use the half pad by itself if I had to, although I don’t particularly want to.

So basically I think my options are:

1. Buy just a sheepskin-lined jump pad (there are so many options, my eyes started to cross, so I quit googling. Which are your favorite contoured ones?) and hope that’s enough to curb the issue
2. Buy a sheepskin-lined jump pad AND dressage pad, to cover all my bases (again, suggestions welcome on which ones)
3. Buy a sheepskin half pad (dressage shape, I guess?) to use underneath the pads I’ve already got, and hope that doesn’t cause additional/different issues.

And the follow-up question to any of those – do I want them to be shimmable? I currently don’t have anything shimmable, so it would be a nice option to have with Presto coming up the pipeline since my saddles are fit to Henry, not to him. I don’t know that it’s totally necessary though.

I am a little overwhelmed with possibilities. I don’t really want to spend a lot of money on this, but I will if it keeps my horse happy and covered in the appropriate amount of hair. I could also just wait and see what I find while we’re in Europe next month. I dunno.

Help, the indecision is crippling.

Remember a few months ago when I confessed that I had been nabbed by an Instagram ad? The situation has continued to worsen. Facebook must have stepped up their creeper algorithms or something, because lately they’ve been inundating me with amazing things. Or at least, that’s what my morning brain thinks.

See, I seem to be at my weakest before 8am. I’m an early riser, and I get to work before 6:30. Even on the weekends you’ll find me awake in my living room, probably on my computer, well before 6am. That, it seems, is my own personal witching hour.

As the day wears on and the more practical parts of my brain start to wake up, I can talk myself out of just about anything. But before those parts are firing on all cylinders, if you throw an ad for something AMAZING at me, the odds are much higher that I’ll buy it. Especially if there’s a sale or a coupon code involved, because apparently even my morning brain is a sucker for a deal.

I also tend to make these small purchases and promptly forget about them, which makes the mail really fun a week or so later when I’m like ooooo what is THIS fun surprise??? Highly recommend buying gifts for yourself this way.

So the weekend before last an ad for Yes Custom popped up on my feed with something like this:

The memory, it is vague. But according to my receipt the shirts were on sale for $12. Therefore I can totally understand what had happened next.

My morning brain, being a cheeky little bastard, was like “omg, we should get one of these with HENRY’S face all over it! It would be EFFING EPIC!”. So naturally, I ordered one, at 6:41am. And naturally, I completely forgot about it. Until yesterday when it showed up in the mail.

Morning brain was right – it is EFFING EPIC.

Your eyes do not deceive you. That is Henry’s patented cracked-out-dolphin cross country face, plastered on a shirt over and over and over again. Of all the Henry faces, that one is my favorite, so it makes perfect sense. Morning brain really hit this one out of the park.

This time I have absolutely no regrets about my morning brain purchase. It was worth every penny of the $12, and quite honestly it might be the best piece of clothing I own. Do I look like an absolute nutter wearing it? Oh hell yeah. Do I care? Oh hell no.

Nothing says “I am obsessed with my horse to the point of being insane” quite like this shirt. And that’s accurate, so why not fly that freak flag proudly.

I will 110% be rocking this thing on the regular. Friends, you have been warned. And yes, it’ll definitely be paired with the matching Henry socks that I already owned. It’s all about the outfit, y’all.

Last week Willow Tree Warmbloods hosted their first Oldenburg inspection! Michelle decided to present the pony foal Nunez WTW to them so that he could get his Weser-Ems (Oldenburg’s pony book) papers. He’s officially a German Riding Pony, y’all.

The inspection was on a Monday, so I couldn’t be there this time, but Michelle looks to have done a great job of managing everything on her own. Inspections can be quite the production between getting the farm ready, setting everything up, and primping all the horses. Luckily she has other friends around that are willing to lend a helping hand.

Their efforts were well rewarded when Nunez showed himself off really well and got great scores, earning himself a Premium designation! He is really beautiful and athletic with tons of presence, so I’m not surprised.

His sire Nuno is on a roll, all of his foals have been Premium this year. Sebastian, the inspector, really loved his dam Stormie as well, giving her good scores and encouraging Michelle to continue using her for pony breeding. Clearly she is a great producer! Seeing how well Nunez turned out is making everyone even more excited for Stormie’s 2020 Usandro foal.

If the pony foal isn’t enough cuteness to satisfy you, Michelle also let a friend’s daughter present her favorite mare, Hanna. Hanna is a 24 year old Selle Francais mare who started her career doing the jumpers in Belgium before being imported and turned into a junior hunter. She’s taught a lot of kids how to ride, and now – with the help of Michelle and Sebastian – she’s turned one of them into basically a pro handler. Handling and presenting horses in hand is definitely an art, and we don’t have many people in this country that are good at it. Kid is pretty good already, she seems like a natural!

Michelle presented some of the other mares as well, some for inspection and some just to get the inspector’s overall opinion on the program. He quite liked Peyton, the TB mare, commenting that she is exactly the type of thoroughbred that should be used in sporthorse breeding. It was nice to have him agree with us, since we spent forever finding juuuuuust the right TB mare to add to the program.

While I was sad I couldn’t be there this time, all in all it looks like my favorite breeder and favorite mares all had a great day. I think Nunez has been going around telling everyone on the farm that he’s officially F.A.N.C.Y. – as if his ego wasn’t big enough already.

Whoever buys this kid will definitely have one heck of a pony!

I talked a lot last week about the subject of gratitude, the power of saying thank you, and how much it really enhanced my Coconino experience. My horse, my coach, my friends, my family… I mentioned how important all of them are in this whole crazy endeavor. But there’s someone else, who, while might not directly impact the experience, is often there to document it. And we all know just how true “pics or it didn’t happen” really is.

If you’ve paid attention to any of my picture captions here or on Instagram, you’ve seen the name Dusty Brown. He’s not a horse professional or a show photographer, he’s a horse show husband to barnmate Julie and and horse show dad to barnmate Kate. He hauls the horses, fixes whatever is broken in whoever’s living quarters, and, my particular favorite: he takes pictures. And not just pictures, but like… AWESOME pictures.

Dusty is super dedicated to doing a good job. He doesn’t wander aimlessly around and stumble upon lucky shots, he’s got a list of ride times (which in our group is lengthy), a plan of action, and he’s out there way in advance plotting all of his angles and what jumps he wants to get. He even has this badass 360 camera thing that he sets up so it can get really cool video like this.

 

He’s got a great eye, and for some reason he seems to not mind sitting in the woods all day, taking pictures of rider after rider. He is a better person than I, in that regard. Dusty also has the uncanny ability to remain in the background of whatever is going on, which allows him to get fantastic candid shots. I never even see him, I’m pretty sure he’s got an invisibility cloak or something. He’s also great about capturing whatever he sees along the way that he thinks might make a cool picture. He’s pretty much always right.

And then, after he spends all that time trudging around the show, taking pictures of all of us, he edits and uploads the best ones into an album. This is no small feat considering we had 19 horses with us in our group this time and there were thousands of photos to go through. Dusty also somehow manages to always get in a completely different position or at different jumps from the show photographer, so you end up with totally different pictures. As a blogger who always needs media, it’s just as exciting to have him at a lesson or XC schooling, too. I don’t know WHY he does it, but I’m really appreciative of the fact that he does.

He even does special photo shoots for sale horses, snagging some beautiful pictures. We all know how much those matter, yet how much of a pain in the ass it can be to get them.

 

Three cheers for anyone who’s willing to stand around (or run back and forth from ring to ring) all day and take pictures or video. It’s not the most glamorous part of this whole thing, but if you ask me, it’s one of the most important. After all, once it’s all said and done, all we really have left are the memories and the media. Thanks for being there to help capture it.