Author: Amanda C

Bloggers, thoroughbred enthusiasts, and mare lovers – today I need your help!

As some of you may know, fellow blogger and barnmate Hillary lost her lovely TB mare Annie (Little Orphan Annex) at the end of last year. Losing a horse is never easy, and it’s especially heartbreaking to lose one so young and full of promise. Annie was an OTTB, a chestnut mare, and while she could be spicy, she was also a fantastic athlete, forgiving partner, and beloved friend.

To honor the bond that Hillary and Annie had, and to commemorate the impact that this special horse had on so many of us, Beka and I thought it would be a great idea to sponsor a special award at this year’s Retired Racehorse Project makeover show. This award would be called the Little Orphan Annex Memorial Award, and it would be a cash prize given to the highest scoring chestnut mare of the competition.

After speaking with the folks at RRP, they are totally on board with our idea and this is something that we can absolutely do! However, the minimum amount required to secure sponsorship for a special award is $1500. While that’s a bit steep for just a few of us to come up with, I know that there are a lot of Hillary, Annie, thoroughbred, and mare fans out there that might be interested in pitching in towards this award as well.

The award sponsorship INCLUDES advertising across several different platforms, including social media and print, so it would be publicized in several places between now and October. For those of you who may not be familiar with RRP, here are a few important tidbits from their website:

The Mission

RRP exists to facilitate placement of Thoroughbred ex-racehorses in second careers by increasing demand for them in equestrian sports and serving the farms, trainers, and organizations that transition them.

The Impact

Since it’s 2010 founding RRP has inspired thousands to choose an OTTB. Thanks to 135,000 Facebook fans, 94,000 website hits, constant press coverage, and sell out crowds at horse expos, the popularity and value of OTTBs are on the rise.

We felt that RRP was the perfect program to support in Annie’s memory, given her and Hillary’s background. And just like RRP aims to increase the demand for the thoroughbred as a sport horse (something they have definitely succeeded in doing!), we are hoping that this particular award will incentivize Makeover participants to seek out and buy chestnut mares. Often times they get a bad rap, and being a “chestnut mare” can carry a lot of unfair and unwarranted stigma in our industry, especially if they’re a thoroughbred.

Our RRP liason tells me that many participants DO specifically make buying decisions based on special awards, so it’s a realistic secondary perk of doing this. At the very least, we hope that this will offer a little extra thank you to a makeover trainer that decided to give another special chestnut mare a chance to prove herself, just like Annie did.

Because I knew that we would have to go “public” with this to make the minimum sponsorship dollar amount, I’ve already told Hillary of our idea. There were a lot of tears, and she was really moved by what she said was “an absolutely perfect way to honor Annie”. Hillary is aiming to attend the Makeover show this year, so we’re hoping she will be there in person to see this award given out.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT THE LITTLE ORPHAN ANNEX MEMORIAL AWARD

If you want to leave your name along with your contribution, I will make sure that it gets included in a card that we can give to Hillary when the award is officially paid for. If you’d rather donate anonymously, that’s totally fine too. Any amount that you’re able to contribute is greatly appreciated – every dollar counts. If we are lucky enough to exceed the minimum $1500 goal, all extra funds will be put toward RPP!

Thank you for being a part of what I hope is something really special!

After the ridiculously beautiful weather on Saturday, we were all pumped to continue filling the weekend with horses. We made plans for Bobby to come over to our barn on Sunday to gallop (his barn has been too wet to gallop for a while and Halo is straight up bonkers) and then go look at a potential young horse for him that afternoon. Oh, and Hillary wanted to sit on Dobby for a second time. Within a few minutes of planning, we easily and quickly filled Sunday just as thoroughly as we had filled Saturday. The weather was not as nice as the weathermen had promised – instead of 70 and sunny, it was 55 and overcast. But hey, it wasn’t raining, and it wasn’t 30 degrees. Beggars can’t be choosers at this point.

We took Halo, Henry, and Inca out into the hillier pasture, which is also the higher and dryer one. It started out well enough. We trotted a couple laps each way to warmup, then picked up the canter. The above video is our initial canter. So pleasant. And how cute is baby Inca learning how to canter in a group? And then we changed directions, crazy ass Halo TOOK OFF between Hillary and I, and Henry turned into a dolphin. Hillary had been trying to video that way when it happened, so she was busy trying to hang onto her phone, but she did capture this particular gem before everything went all Blair Witch.

He is ridiculous. One of many reasons he never made it as a racehorse, but at least I find it to be relatively hilarious. I’m pretty sure he thinks he’s actually bucking.

Much cantering and/or dolphining later, we were done with the 3 Muskaidiots, so Hillary grabbed Dobby and I grabbed Presto. Bobby hadn’t met either of them yet, so he got to join the Dobby fan club and play with Presto a bit. Hillary went out to the ring and got on Dobby, so we we all went out to spectate… he’s awfully freaking cute, and with a great brain. When she was done Presto got to make some horse friends of his own.

Halo and Dobby were much nicer to him than Henry ever is. Presto is definitely really weirdly obsessed with Dobby already, they have a similar personality and I think Presto can tell that they would be great friends. As for Halo… I think Presto just thought he smelled weird. Halo did let him nibble on him a bit and didn’t seem to mind the dumb baby horse, though. I think he’d make a pretty good uncle.

After we were done with those horses we made a quick stop for lunch and then headed out to sit on this guy.

He might be the most stout TB I have ever seen, and he’s quite tall too. Like if you told me it was an Irish Sporthorse, I would believe you. He might be a bit more of a project than Bobby is looking for though, and there are still a couple more we want to go sit on. But if you want a very large, very quiet, very reasonably priced project, let me know. The owners are friends of mine too and the horse has been well-loved.

This weekend is shaping up to be just as horsey, as is the weekend after that, AND the weekend after that. As long as the weather cooperates of course. Come on Texas, don’t ruin all my fun times (I’m looking at you, Friday. And Sunday. And next week.).

Well, apparently all I had to do to get it stop raining for a few days here in Texas was to whine about it extensively and annoyingly on the internet. Literally hours after my post last week about the mud and non-stop rain, the sun came out. It’s suspicious, and I don’t trust it, but I’ll happily take it while I can get it. Since it looked like the weather was going to hold we went ahead and firmed up a lesson schedule for the weekend, and on Thursday I decided I should probably make sure Henry and I still remembered how to jump. We literally hadn’t jumped anything since the Pine Hill show at the beginning of December. The jump field was still too wet though, so I set up what is the only jump in the arena and figured that was good enough.

We hopped over it a few times each way and no one died, so I called that a success and quit while we were ahead. On Friday the field was dry enough to trot, so we did a long trot to try to take some of the edge off the horses, and then Saturday was lesson day! We hauled down to a local farm only about an hour away where my trainer was teaching for the day. I love it when she’s there, because it cuts my typical lesson commute in half, and the arena is freaking fantastic. The footing is so nice and Henry always moves and jumps so well in there, like he’s extra springy.

Baby Inca came along too, and she wins the superstar behavior award for the day. The loudest most annoying horse on the property was definitely mine. He’s so dumb, he spent the whole trailer ride with his ears pinned flat to his head, occasionally kicking the wall and threatening to bite her (while she just ate her hay and ignored his theatrics), and as soon as they were off the trailer he was like OMG WHERE IS MY BEST FRIEND THAT I LITERALLY HATED 2 SECONDS AGO. It got even more pathetic when he spotted Halo, who he hasn’t been turned out with in 2 years and he never actually liked anyway. This is why he doesn’t have friends and gets turned out alone. He’s a total butthole to them when they’re around and a stage 5 clinger when they leave.

But as soon as we got in the ring he settled right down to business, and he felt freaking fantastic. He was moving really well, he was listening, and he was so happy to be jumping. We tend to not jump a ton of fences with him, in the interest of preservation, so after a brief warmup, everything went up to height and we just jumped a couple of courses.

I definitely felt a little rusty, like I was a smidge late with some half-halts and was a little slow to sit up and rebalance in the turns. I’ve noticed that it’s always my reaction times that suffer most when we go a while without jumping. Trainer set a one stride that was oxer to vertical, which can definitely be a bit of nemesis combination for me, but it actually rode great in both of the courses we did. Henry was pushing off the ground really evenly and using his body well in the air, he’s definitely feeling good at the moment. He tends to jump around “by braille” a lot of the time, but he was actually giving them some air for once.

I left the sound in the video so you can enjoy the “Oh Lord” from Trainer towards the end when I saw the big one to the skinny and gunned it. I am here for your entertainment, people.

Now we somehow find ourselves two weeks from the next show (damn, time flies) so hopefully we can fit in at least a mini XC school to make sure we remember how to gallop solid fences. We’ll see how much longer the weather cooperates!

Turns out that writing posts about goals or stuff I wanna do is a dangerous game to play when I have a little bit of time on my hands. On the 1st I wrote that this year I really want to make it a point to get back to Europe, to look at some stallions and some breeding stuff, and maybe even attend a big event. And then I had 2 days off work where the weather was disgusting and I had nothing better to do than fall waaaaaaay down that particular rabbit hole. Y’all, I spiraled. Hard.

It started innocently enough, I was just kind of exploring possible options. The first thing was to narrow it down to what time of year would be best. Breeding/foaling season runs through June-ish, as does the largest portion of our show season, and then fall show season picks up again by early October. That left an ideal gap between July and September.

There are plenty of awesome things going on in Europe that time of year, so it’s not like I was lacking options. But if the goal was to combine as many awesome things into one trip as possible, and get the absolute most bang for our buck, one beautiful shining possibility made it’s way to the forefront.

Burghley is in early September, in England. It has always been my favorite of the top level events to watch online, with the gorgeous Burghley House in the background, typical rolling English countryside, and so many truly iconic fences. Like Cottesmore Leap, and The Leaf Pit, and Lion Bridge, and Discovery Valley.

Not only is it a 5* (it still feels weird calling them that since they’ve been 4*’s forever, but I guess I better get used to it), but they also hold a Young Horse Championships in conjunction with Burghley. These baby horse classes are becoming a bit of a thing of mine, seeing as how we’ve already been to the US YEH championships at Fair Hill and Germany’s Bundeschampionate (their version). The difference between how they do things and the horses and seeing all the different bloodlines is kind of like a kid in a candy store type feeling for me. Honestly, I find it to be just as interesting as the 5* competition. Especially because they also have a stallion parade during the show. So I can go to one venue and get a 5* event, a young horse championships, AND a stallion show.

A couple of very interesting stallions stand in the UK that I want to go look at – Leprince des Bois (a 4* horse himself) and Royaldik (his dam is Heraldik’s full sister). And let’s not forget how easy it is to take the Chunnel train from London to Paris. And let’s also not forget all of the unfinished business I have in northern France, with all the stallions that I didn’t have time to see when we were there last time. Namely, Mighty Magic, Presto’s sire.

So it’s possible that typing up that innocent little goal here on the 1st maaaaay have led to hours of obsessive research that resulted in a rough itinerary, a booking of an apartment rental for Burghley, an intimate knowledge of the rail system and schedule, pricing for the Chunnel train, a list of “must see” stallions organized by location, and a watch on plane ticket prices. All by the the 2nd. Did I mention that there’s now a direct flight from Austin to London for pretty cheap? Yeah that’s a thing too. I can fly to London for like $100 more than I could fly to the east coast somewhere. It’s like the universe wants this to happen.

I haven’t yet tackled the France side of the itinerary, but that’s slightly less complicated and can be free-wheeled a little more. There’s plenty of time for that. The Burghley stuff was more pressing since it’s already getting difficult to find lodging nearby. Still though, I have a rough idea of what the plan might be in France.

Here’s to Burghley 2019! And baby horses. And France. And Mighty Magic…

If last year was one of the coldest Texas winters I can remember, this year is definitely turning out to be the wettest. I feel like it started raining in September and basically hasn’t stopped. The lakes are overflowing, the ground is completely saturated, and there’s so much standing water in my backyard (which is sloped downhill) that our shed is an island. The barn has not fared any better. It was already soggy to a point I’ve never seen before, and adding 3″ of rain in the past two days has not helped matters.

At this point I haven’t jumped Henry since Pine Hill, and in the past month I’ve missed or had to shorten/modify 5 conditioning rides. We’ve cancelled two jump lessons and one XC school. He was so wild for dressage the other day that I had to just abort the mission and let him gallop. I’m cold and I’m wet and I am becoming very grumpy.

It finally did stop raining for a few days there, and luckily my barn drains a lot better than most. The area of the big field at the very top of the hill usually only needs a day or two before it’s at least good enough for trot sets, and since the arena is course sand, it’s never slippery even when its under water. Still though, do you know how hard it is to try to keep a Prelim horse from being insane but also still keep his fitness while only using one very small square arena and one long narrow strip of field? He’s going stir crazy inside his own skin, and we’re both going stir crazy inside our own minds.

It briefly stopped raining on New Years, so we tacked up and took the horses out for a long marching walk. It was cold and windy, but hey, at least it wasn’t raining. I can live with the cold, hell I can even live without the sun at this point, but I just need it to stop freaking raining.

I know that most of the country is feeling my pain right now, with the east coast in particular having crazy rainfall too. It’s extra frustrating to me because this is supposed to be our best time of year for riding, when it’s actually not 110 degrees and the ground isn’t concrete. Watching each day pass, feeling like we’re losing ground, or that any progress we may have made in the fall is now completely stagnant… it’s exasperating.

My life involves a lot of mud, layers, snorting, spooking, and yelling “HEY, KNOCK IT OFF” at the moment, and very little else.

At this point I have no idea when it will stop raining, if it will ever dry up, if the weather will ever cooperate for Presto to get gelded (not doing that in this mud fest), or if we’ll be ready for the January 20th show. Or a Feb show. Or a March show. The forecast does not look particularly promising. The only saving grace is that Henry retains everything really well and doesn’t need a lot of constant drilling to stay on form. Today I think I’ll set up some more poles in the arena and at least do some “jumping” exercises. And there is one set of standards in there so I suppose I could make one jump, which is all there’s really room for in there anyway.

That is the level of desperation we’re at right now.

I went out yesterday at lunch in the middle of this last solid 36 hours of rain. The “feels like” temp was 28, and I was greeted with water like I’ve never seen out there before.

The ground is just so saturated, there’s nowhere left for it to go. Once all the standing water finally drains off I guess we’ll have mud, but we aren’t even to that point yet. This just… doesn’t happen here.

I suppose I should be thankful that this barn handles water this well at least, because most people I know have not been able to ride at all lately and their horses haven’t been able to get turned out. Our arena is tiny, but it’s always rideable. The turnouts are definitely muddy, but they’re sandy enough to be safe, at least when it’s not actively pouring. The worst part about it is the driveway, which is so trashed at this point that I’m parking at the end of the road and walking in. I can live with that though.

This type of weather makes me nervous about colic too, when it swings wildly from 30 to 70 and then back again. Especially when they aren’t able to be turned out as much because of the constant pouring rain. I keep shoving as much hay as possible in front of both horses and just hoping it lets up at some point. Neither of the boys seem to mind THAT part so much. They’re having a pretty good time at the buffet.

It looks like we might get a few days here without rain at least, so maybe things will at least have a chance to drain before we get hit again.

I hope everyone else’s winter is looking a little more productive than mine! Are we having fun yet?