Author: Amanda C

This past Saturday was the SO’s birthday. It was also the really cool charity eventing derby that was highlighted, capitalized, and underlined on my calendar. Plus Badminton and the KY Derby. Like, really, not a good time for a birthday, man. But I had been working on this really exceptional plan for over a month now, one that would allow me to go to the eventing derby and still not look like the world’s worst girlfriend. I admit, I generally AM pretty much the world’s worst girlfriend, but I always try to do well on birthdays to help make up for the other 364 days when I suck.

My plan was great. It was plotted pretty much down the half hour, and would work out perfectly to where I could go to the eventing derby and still not lose any face. The SO’s friends were going to take him to this punk festival thing during the day on Saturday, I was going to do the derby, and then we were going to meet up for dinner and drinks afterwards. Sunday and Monday I had planned a whole mini-vacation for us together. It was gonna work out totally fine.

And then the punk festival got cancelled.

And then on Friday morning one of the guys that works with me said “Don’t forget I’m out on Monday”. My head whipped around and I said “No you’re not, I’m out on Monday.”. There are only 3 of us in our department, it’s a big problem for more than one of us to be out at a time. Like… to be avoided except in cases of extreme emergency.

Turns out that he submitted his PTO request online, but never wrote it on our big “department” calendar that we all use to see everyone else’s days off. So when I went to check the calendar before I submitted my online request, it showed no one else being off. Our boss didn’t catch that we’d both submitted PTO for that day. Well SHIT. I am technically the lead, so… I let the other guy have Monday.

That meant that I had to scratch the derby and rearrange all of our Sunday/Monday plans over to Saturday/Sunday. I was not a happy person. I was also a very stressed-out person, especially when I couldn’t move my camping reservation at the state park because there were no available spots for Saturday. After a lot of frantic googling I was able to book us a spot elsewhere, and got everything else moved too. I was really really sad sending that email about having to scratch the derby though.

Saturday we loaded up and headed out toward Glen Rose, about 2 1/2 hours north of us. We stopped along the way in a small town for breakfast, where I tried to really discreetly watch the Badminton XC feed on my phone (because see above about bad girlfriend).

I didn’t feel that bad, he spent the whole time replying to facebook “happy birthday” messages on his phone. Then we finished our drive up to Glen Rose and hit Dinosaur Valley State Park, did some hiking, and looked at the dinosaur tracks in the river bed.

After that it was over to a brewery. I hate beer and hate breweries even more, but the SO is a mega beer nerd, so I just sat there and people-watched (OKAY FINE I WATCHED BADMINTON REPLAYS) while he drank beer.

Then we went to dinner (where I might have also watched the live stream of the KY Derby in a slightly too-loud way. Look, this is the best I can do. This tiger can’t change her stripes.), followed by a trip to the local soda fountain for a malt.

That night we camped in a little RV park I found online. The SO is the one who bought the trunk tent for me in the first place, yet he had never stayed in it. He said he liked it, but I’m 99.9% sure he’s totally lying and would prefer to never stay in it again. He didn’t listen to me about which clothes to bring and ended up freezing his butt off overnight. He’s definitely more of the AirBnB type than the truck tent type. You know what I mean.

Sunday morning after breakfast we went to Dinosaur World, a little park nearby that has bigass dinosaur statues, fossils, and a little museum. Apparently people don’t come there much without kids, because the ticket guy was pretty sure that we were in the wrong place. Can’t a gal just like dinosaurs?

After that we headed home, with a quick stop at a Tractor Supply along the way to get treats for Henry and alfalfa pellets for Presto. We were home early enough that I had time to go fit in another ponying session with the boys while it was still daylight. And there were enough puddles leftover from Friday’s rain to where we were able to drag Presto through some of them. Sorry not sorry, baby event horse.

Today the boys get pedicures (because yeah sure, why not go ahead and write the farrier a fat check just days after writing my first double board check – who needs money?) so we’ll find out how Presto is for the farrier. He’s had trims before, with mixed success, but I’ve been working with him a lot since he got here, so I’m hoping he’s polite. Or at least not a total hellion.

Still really really sad to have missed the show this past weekend, especially because it feels like I haven’t seen anyone in forever, but there are a few more things on the docket in the next month before everything comes to a grinding halt for the summer. Hopefully none of those plans get hijacked too.

I had a much longer, semi-intelligent post drafted for today but I’m too tired for that level of editing, proofreading, and discussion right now. Can’t. Instead you get all the ramblings of the stuff that’s going through my head at the moment. Yeah, it’s okay if you run away now.

First of all, I feel like I should address something.

It’s okay to disagree with me. You don’t have to post comments under fake names or try to hide your IP address (WordPress is better at tracking that than you think, anyway 😉 ) or whatever else. If I couldn’t handle criticism, scrutiny, and dissent, I wouldn’t be a blogger and put my life on blast. I’m always open to rational, polite discussion, either here or privately. My contact page is always open, so to speak. Granted, if you come at me with a lot of caps and a boatload of exclamation marks, I’ll probably ignore you. Otherwise though, I love having a good conversation from someone who sees things differently than I do. Just want to make sure I’m clear on that. And, for the record – no, I don’t support a total zero tolerance blood rule, but I do think something needs to be done. IMO a yellow card system is better and more appropriate.

Heavy stuff out of the way, if you guys aren’t watching the Badminton live stream you’re really missing out. They’ve always got THE BEST commentary, it’s worth watching just for that alone. The Brits, they are cheeky as hell and brutally honest, but still somehow manage to not come off as catty or rude. You have to love it. My favorite comments from yesterday were “The horse stood on his hind legs, waving his front legs in the air very elegantly…” and “really lovely piaffe”.

The XC course this year looks pretty smart, I’m interested to see how everything plays out. I’ll be rooting for MJ & Sam, the two by Ramiro B (Cooley SRS and Cooley Earl), and Lauren Kieffer of course. Watching her performance on Vermiculus last weekend was inspiring (clearly they have a great partnership, I love it) and she deserves a little bit of vindication with Veronica.

It also just occurred to me that the Kentucky Derby is tomorrow. I watched a few of the prep races, mostly by accident, but otherwise have not kept up with racing at all this season. On a very selfish, superficial level, I’ll be rooting for Audible. I admit it, I want the free American Pharoah audiobook.

I’ve been going a little nuts on Audible lately. I drive a lot, so it works. I’m almost done with James Comey’s book (whether you like him or not, it has been really illuminating, I have to say) and have Joe Biden’s, Trevor Noah’s, and one of Buck Brannaman’s up in the queue. That’s something like 24 hours worth of audiobooks, which sadly won’t really take me that long to get through. Sometimes I feel like I live in my truck. There is a busy weekend ahead, with least 12 hours total on the road. Any other must-download books that I should check out? For audiobooks I really prefer either true crime or autobiography/memoir types. I read fiction on my kindle. Can’t freakin stand how most of them are narrated.

Have a good weekend everyone! Who are you rooting for in the Derby and at Badders?

Seriously, though… NUTS.

Yesterday was Presto’s gelding appointment. I’m sure he wouldn’t be happy with me sharing this all over the internet, but his testicles are TINY. Like maybe slightly bigger than jordan almond size. I could clearly feel/see one of them, and I was fairly certain that I was feeling the other one too, although it wasn’t clearly visible.

The vet arrived, felt him up (there is no dignity in what happened, why lie?) and declared that yes indeed both of them had dropped enough to where he could remove them. Great, let’s do this!

So we started with sedating Presto a bit so that the vet could start washing him up and get a plan of attack. Since they’re so teeny and not super dropped, they could be a little tricky. Once we got him sedated (and then twitched, because let me tell you who is NOT OKAY with the big creepy vet feeling up on his nuts) he started prepping. One part of that prep was making sure that it felt like the inguinal ring on either side was closed up enough to where the risk of hernia was not high.

And, well, that’s as far as we got. The left side, the one with the testicle that is the most dropped, felt good. But the right side, the one with the testicle that’s still a bit higher up, felt a little bit too open still, in the vet’s opinion. He said he was 80% sure that we could go ahead and do it, put some sutures in there on that side, and it would be fine. But he thought the risk for hernia was higher, and that gave him pause.

He gave me 3 options:

1 – go ahead and do it, put the sutures in, and hope that between the sutures and the subsequent swelling, it would be enough to prevent the intestines from popping down through the ring.

2 – take him to a vet hospital, have them lay him out on the table, and do a more intensive surgery to make sure the inguinal ring got closed up securely.

3 – Wait a few months, check it again, and see if the inguinal ring has closed up enough on it’s own to pose less of a risk for hernia.

That choice was pretty clear. Presto doesn’t act studdish, doesn’t seem to realize yet that he’s a colt, and he’s nowhere near any mares. We have the ability to keep him segregated without much trouble, at least for the shorter term. So we aborted our mission and the vet will check him again in July when he’s back for Henry’s mid-year vaccinations. Hopefully by then the ring has closed up a bit more and the risk is much lower. Given his history, neither the vet nor myself was very excited at the idea of embarking on a potentially risky venture.

So for now, he gets to keep his nuts. Their days are numbered, though.

I feel like a lot of you have probably been waiting for me to post about the latest bloody mouth controversy, this time at LRK3DE. I’m not going to. I’ve said everything I have to say about that situation, over and over and over again, ad nauseam, since 2015. I’m tired of saying it. I have nothing new to add on my feelings about any of that. I feel a little lost for words, and really cynical, and yeah a bit dispirited too. It’s the same old song and dance, playing on repeat.

It does seem like the horse world in general has grown as weary of it as I am, though, because wowzers… the internet the past few days has been on fire. Whether its a blaze of glory or a dumpster fire probably depends on where you stand and what you’re reading. Sometimes maybe it’s a little of both. Either way, it’s burning.

One company did withdraw sponsorship though, and I toddled right over to their website to make a purchase. I will support any company with enough integrity and strength of character to stand firm on their morals in a situation like this. That’s not always an easy thing to do when you could quite easily just “go dark”, slip into the background, and wait for the worst of it to pass. Many other companies have done that, but EnviroEquine didn’t.

I also sent my freshly updated formal letter (which, it’s sad I even have something like this saved, much less that it was drafted 2 years and 3 incidences ago) to the good folks at USEF – integrity@usef.org – and ECIU – report@equestrianintegrity.com. The ECIU is an Independent Body with its chairperson reporting directly to the FEI President or his or her designee(s). Just… adding my voice to the choir, I suppose.

My excitement for Badminton has flagged a bit, but I’m still interested to see how it plays out. I’m really torn about whether to root for Michael Jung and Sam, or a Ramiro B offspring. Kinda partial to both… I’ve been a huge Ramiro B fan since the Ballynoe Castle days. The LK3DE winner, Cooley Master Class, is also a Ramiro B offspring, and Ollie Townend will be aboard yet another another one this weekend in Cooley SRS. How cool would it be for Ollie to win the Grand Slam with 3 different horses, 2 of which are by the same sire? There’s even one more Ramiro B offspring in the Badminton field – Badminton first timer Cooley Earl.

Okay, maybe I’m the only breeding nerd that thinks that way, but how could you not love Ramiro B? He’s legendary, and if I had the right mare for him I’d breed to him in a heartbeat.

And, side note, Riding Warehouse has 20% off their Charles Owen helmets and vests right now for their BETA week promotion. Maybe you can buy a fancy new helmet to protect your noggin while you beat your head against a wall about the bloody mouth thing. Safety first.

 

I have to admit, one of the cons (in my mind) of bringing Presto home is that I wasn’t sure I’d have much time to do anything with him. Sometimes doing stuff with babies on the ground can turn into a big time and attention suck, and I was worried it might take some of my focus off of Henry.

Turns out though that I have a greater capacity for focus than I thought, because now I’m just super obsessed with both of them. I absolutely love working with Presto every day, even if it’s something as simple as a quick grooming session. I think part of it is that every day I can see how much more educated he’s getting, how much more he’s bonding with me, and how much more self-confidence he’s gaining. At this age, and with these types of tasks, it’s a pretty slow but steady increase. That’s always fun. He also seems to really thrive off of having something to do, and having expectations to meet.

I don’t find his baby moments to be frustrating or annoying, I see them as teaching opportunities. If we can iron that stuff out now, all the better. And every time he has a baby moment, and I correct him and show him what I want, he grows a little bit more mentally. He clearly sees me as his leader now, and he seems pretty content in my company. Also adorable that he keeps coming up to me when I go to get him every day. Not gonna lie, it’s cute. Especially because I know that at some point the Arrogant Phase will come upon us and he will start testing his boundaries more. For now though, this stage where the growth is evident day after day, is really rewarding.

Really, the ultimate goal is to build the horse that I want for myself for the future. A confident one with a good work ethic that’s happy in his work and trusts me. Every single thing we do is laying the ground work for that, brick by brick.

Being able to pony him off of Henry (and use Henry as a “demo horse” to introduce things that Presto has been a bit unsure about, like fly spray and baths) has been really awesome. Yesterday we did our 3rd ponying session, our second one outside of the ring. This time we covered pretty much the entire property – both of the big hay fields, the corn field, and walked around the front of the barns up by the owner’s house. We walked through brush, up and down hills, through some deep sand, in between rows of tall corn stalks, over a natural ditch, near the road, and even paused to walk over a piece of a plywood a few times.

Aside from the fact that I love being able to expose him to this stuff at an early age, I feel like the physical conditioning is important too. His pasture is not super big, it’s pretty much totally flat, and he is not very active on his own. Event horses don’t get to spend their lives on perfectly groomed footing (especially not one of mine) so I want to make sure that his bones and tendons get a little bit of easy conditioning while he’s still growing. It’ll make him a stronger horse later on. We did do a couple one minute spurts of trotting yesterday too, including one go up the big hill and through some tall grass. We won’t do this more than once or twice a week, but I really love that we have the opportunity. I didn’t have the right situation to be able to do any of this when Sadie was this age.

The ponying has also seemed to make his tying skills pretty darn solid. He learned on day 1 that resistance was futile, and he was going to end up following the pressure whether he wanted to or not. He doesn’t even question it now. Glad we learned that lesson while he’s still small.

The ponying is also getting him used to having me above him, directing him, patting him, and giving verbal cues. We’ve mastered the cluck, and are about 60% there on the “whoa”. Sometimes he’s not as keen on that part. Yesterday he also got a lesson in learning to move away from leg pressure when he tried to lay his body a little too much into Henry’s sides. I reached out with my leg and moved his body back over into his own space.

Henry continues to reprimand him with pinned ears or a snaking head when appropriate, but he’s remained super rock solid in his ability to put up with nonsense, and he seems to understand that this is a baby. I got really lucky on that one.

On the other days when we’re not ponying, we work on crosstie manners, grooming, farrier-related stuff, bathing, loading, tying, or in-hand work. The sessions stay short, and we alternate what we work on. Turns out there’s plenty to do with a yearling.

The most fun part, though, is how much I’m starting to understand his personality, and how much he’s starting to come out of his shell. He was so reserved and guarded at first, but now I’m starting to get some interaction and see what he’s really like. We’re starting to understand each other and speak the same language. No matter how many horses I’ve had or how many times I’ve done this, building the relationship with the horse is always the most fun part for me.

Tomorrow is Presto’s big ChopChop appointment – he’s getting gelded – so cross all your crossables and offer a few firstborn children to the Horse Gods that everything goes okay. I’m extremely nervous, because I’m just nervous about anything even remotely medical with this horse. Surgery… EEK. Hopefully it’ll all be fine.