Author: Amanda C

24 hours. That’s all the time Presto got to settle in before his first big boy day of what I will call “Charm School”. It could also be called “Real Life” or “Fun’s Over, Kid” or “Boot Camp” or “Your Mom is a Real Drag”. So ya know, Charm School just sounds better.

As soon as I got to the barn I went out to his pasture to check on him, with a few alfalfa pellets in hand. I don’t want him to think that he’s in for torture (his words, not mine) every time he sees me coming, so I intend to make a point to walk out there sometimes and just love on him or give him a little something tasty. He doesn’t run from people, or avoid being caught, but he’s definitely wary of what fresh hell you intend to unleash on him. Can’t say that I blame him for the wariness, considering all the poking and prodding and medications he’s gotten in his one year on earth.

So I walked up, gave him a couple alfalfa pellets, rubbed his face, and then left his pasture. He followed me for a few steps before he resumed grazing next to his bestest BFF Quarter Horse across the fence (he’s still not that interested in his donkeys).

After I rode Henry, Presto was still in his stall finishing his dinner hay, so I pulled him out and led him into the barn for grooming. He wasn’t totally keen on my idea, and neighed a couple times, but he came willingly enough. I curried him and brushed him and picked out all 4 feet with very little protest. The barn worker was turning the horses out, so every time he led one out of it’s stall Presto got a little concerned about where that one was going and would dance for a few steps or neigh/poop. But overall the grooming part was pretty civil, so I grabbed a dressage whip and headed out to the arena for a few minutes of in-hand work.

We walked, trotted, practiced standing up correctly for in-hand classes, and backing. He’s actually quite obedient for the in-hand work (we worked on it a few times before his inspection), although very very ADD. He gave me as little of his attention as possible, and was much more interested in all the horses that were coming and going to and from the barn. He did everything I asked though, so we can work on the Eyes and Ears On Me part.

Then I started introducing the most very basic idea of lunging – just basically sending him around me in a small circle on the lead rope and working on cluck = forward, whoa = slow down. The left he understood almost immediately. The right he was a little less cooperative about, but after a few corrections he gave me several proper circles. The good thing is that he’s quite civil about not pushing into my space, and takes the corrections well. He’s smart. Maybe a little too smart, just like his mother. It could be a challenge to keep his brain engaged for good instead of evil.

We ended by walking over some poles in hand, which he plodded right over no problem. We were out there for a total of 11 minutes… that’s how fast he got all of those concepts. Then I took him back to the crosstie area to give him his soaked alfalfa pellets + oil. I’m trying to get more condition on him, he’s so growthy and scrawny looking right now. Plus I want him to associate that area with good things, and look forward to coming inside for his lessons. While he ate I draped the lead rope across him, around his legs, picked up his feet again, and tossed a saddle pad all over him. He kind of just gives me the same “You are LITERALLY the most annoying person in the entire world but FINE” look that Henry gives me all the time. He did think I was trying to murder him when I got to the fly spray part though.

I went home and ordered him an arab size rope halter, hoping the nose is a little smaller, because that current one (which is supposed to be horse size but looks like it would fit an elephant) is just ridiculous. I got hunter green on a whim. I dunno, I think he might be a navy and green kind of guy. We’ll see, I guess. His summer coat is just barely starting to poke through, a nice super dark chocolate brown, but he still looks really mousey from being clipped.

We’ll keep doing these short little lessons and then hopefully maybe next week I can start trying to pony him a little!

I didn’t want to outright say it yesterday because I figured I’d be jinxing it, but I picked up Presto and brought him home! Michelle had brought him to Boerne (outside of San Antonio) for me on Sunday night, which is only a couple hours away, and he stayed at a friend’s farm overnight. I brought my trailer with me to work on Monday morning, worked a half day, and left around 10:30 to go get him.

I was nervous. Really nervous. Mostly because my trailer is VERY DIFFERENT from anything he’s ridden in before. He’s always been able to haul loose in an open area, essentially like a box stall or stock trailer type situation, with a step up. Mine is a straight load with a ramp, and he’s small enough to where I knew I had to tie him so that he didn’t try to turn around. And we didn’t really have the luxury of time to let him learn to chill out about any of that… he just had to get in and go. I had allotted an hour in our timeline for loading, and guessed that at least one of us might end up mangled in the process.

You could have knocked me over with a friggin feather when he walked right up the ramp and into my trailer with literally zero hesitation. I was absolutely shocked. Maybe it was just the fact that it was a totally new situation and it didn’t occur to him to say no, but whatever, I am not looking that particular gift horse in the mouth. The ramp went up, I tied him to the center post, and then jumped in the truck to GO before he realized what was happening and freaked out.

The great thing about my little ghetto trailer is that the front windows allow me to see exactly what the horses are doing at all times, and I kept flicking my eyes to my mirrors constantly. He was not very happy for the first 15-20 minutes. There was a lot of neighing and he kept trying to put his head over the divider, which freaked me out a bit worrying that he’d get stuck. Mostly though he just seemed mad that he was tied and couldn’t move around like he wanted. A couple times he thought about doing a mini-rear so I lightly brake checked him and brought his feet back down. He gave up pretty quickly. By the time we cleared San Antonio he was munching his hay and did so for the entire rest of the ride.

When I pulled up at the barn he was already neighing, and Henry’s pasture happens to be right next to the part of the driveway where you unload. He came running up immediately to check it out. I swear he gave me a special look when he realized that it was ME and HIS TRAILER. He paused for a second like WTactualF.

Backing Presto out of my trailer proved to be the harder part. I have to give him a ton of credit, he never once panicked and went flying backwards, he just seemed really confused. I had to very slowly and carefully ask him to back, one step at a time, trying to keep him straight so he didn’t fall off the ramp. Halfway down he tried to turn around and slipped a bit, so then he just stopped and looked at me like “ok, let’s keep doing it your way then” and we backed the last few steps off the ramp. Kid is stubborn, kid is crafty, but kid is not dumb.

I took him over to his little pasture, which he’s sharing with the mini donkeys. He gave them the hairy eyeball at first but they’re persistent little things, so they soon made peace. Presto seemed more interested in being friends with the 4yo QH in the adjoining pasture though… he was a little snobby about being turned out with donkeys. Unfortunately that QH next door is really aggressive to any pasturemates that get put in with him, so they only get to be across-the-fence friends.

I watched Presto for a little while and he peed, pooped, drank lots of water, and then alternated between roaming and grazing. There was no grand gallop around, and very little screaming. Just a few neighs and a few little spurts of trot and canter. Again, not what I expected at all, in a good anti-climactic type of way.

Then I figured I’d go grab Henry and bring him over to see what he thought.

True to Henry form, he remained much more interested in the donkeys.

But there wasn’t any squealing or pinned ears, so that’s a win where Henry is concerned. He’s generally a mare when it comes to meeting other horses. If he doesn’t like them it’s very immediate and very obvious.

We left Presto to continue his exploration and I took Henry inside to groom him and tack him up for a hack. When we were done I walked him back over to Presto’s pasture to check on him again.

He was still just roaming around and grazing a bit, punctuated by short games of Bitey Face with the QH. Well then, I guess that’s that. We walked back around to the gate and Presto followed, seemingly a bit mesmerized by the horse with a human attached to it. They still seemed interested in each other, and friendly. If Henry got a little too pushy in Presto’s space, Presto would immediately resort to the open mouth chomping thing that babies do to show that they aren’t threatening.

After I put Henry away I sat and watched Presto a little longer as he was brought into his stall for dinner and given his nighttime hay. He ate with his typical gusto (although seemed pissed that his bucket was so high that he couldn’t get his feet in it) and then immediately moved on to his hay.

At that point I was like well… I guess this is all the hovering I can do for one day? I really expected a lot more drama and distress from his move and the introduction to his new life, but he’s taken it all really well so far (knock on wood). Today I’ll start bringing him into the barn for grooming and learning about things like crossties and how to behave like a real horse. I’m sure things will start getting a lot more interesting.

But… he’s HOME!

What originally looked like a super packed weekend slowly fizzled away into not much at all. I was 100% ok with this, because lately it’s felt like every weekend has been even more hectic than the week preceding it.

I had a nice happy hour with friends on Friday, during which much queso was consumed on my part. You know it’s bound to be a good weekend if you kick it off with copious amounts of cheese. Then a cold front blew through overnight that dropped us 40 degrees in a matter of hours. I dunno wtf that was about. Winter was over a while ago here. Like it’s been in the 70’s-80’s for a month already.

Of course, major temperature swings like that are prime colic weather, so I donned a bunch of layers and headed out to the barn extra early to check on Henry.

We have a new weekend guy, and I’m a helicopter horse mom, so I just don’t quite trust him yet. I got there right as he was feeding, so I tossed Henry a flake of alfalfa first, and then gave him his breakfast 15 minutes later. I wanted to wait around until he was totally done eating, to make sure he still looked good, so I set about organizing my trunk.

Honestly I didn’t do much besides realize I have A LOT of different creams, ointments, sprays, gels, and liquids. Like a lot. I really need to get them their own bin. Especially considering this doesn’t even include the ones that are in my trunk that’s in the trailer, or some unopened ones that are still in my truck. Nor does it include anything in my “injectable meds” collection, which also needs it’s own location. Someday I’ll buy a bin and organize this stuff. A 40 degree morning with howling winds was not that day.

I did finally get around to putting my Henry and Presto stickers on Stanley though, so that’s something? There’s still a lot of free space on him that’s just waiting to be filled up. I’ve fallen down on my sticker game.

After deciding that Henry was fine and happy and warm, I tucked tail and ran home. I will admit, it wasn’t THAT cold, but when it was 75 the day before and gonna be 70 again the next day, why even bother with a day where the “feels like” temp is 37? I’ll pass, thanks. Instead I went home and basically read a book all day, with a short break to build the cat a fort. Ok, it was just a clothes basket with a saddle pad in it, sitting on top of a Yeti cooler. Whatever, she loved it.

Sunday was much more reasonable, although still only 50 degrees by lunch time. It wasn’t very windy though, so it honestly felt kind of pleasant. I tacked my horse kite Henry up for a conditioning ride and headed out to our hilly field. It was a very snorty, spooky journey. I rode him every day last week, but way lighter than normal, since after a show I like to give both of us a bit of a mental break. Mostly we’d just hacked, did some long and low days, and hopped through a gymnastic a couple times. The rides were short and easy. That, combined with the day off, combined with the weather, left me with a fresh horse on Sunday. I figured it seemed like a good opportunity to do canter sets, and I grabbed his sidepull since I was too lazy to go warm up his bit.

When we got out to the field I noticed that the winds from the day before must have blown this cardboard box out into the middle of the field. We went up to investigate, and sure enough it was empty, just flopped over and stuck on a mound of grass. Then I thought… hmm… we could totally jump this.

We went off and did our warmup trot, did a couple of canter sets, and then I aimed him at the box. The first time he leaped WAY up over it, not knowing what the heck it was, but he went straight over it. Extra points for honesty. Then he thought it was quite a fun game, and we jumped it off of each lead. At that point I was like “I really need this on video”, but alas… I was alone and there was nowhere nearby to set my phone. So instead I decided I’d just hold my phone and video it that way. Which required holding both reins (of my sidepull) in one hand, and holding the phone steady with the other. Could I even steer that way? Guess we’d find out.

 

Y’all, this is Henny. OF COURSE I can jump a 2′ wide cardboard box in the middle of the field while holding my reins in one hand and a phone in the other. Duh. He may not be perfect but not many horses would put up with my crazy-ass shenanigans, much less be super into whatever dumb idea I come up with. He’s the coolest.

It was a pretty anti-climactic weekend, but the calendar is quite full for the next couple months, so I was glad for the break. I feel a little bit more relaxed and recharged. Which is good, because something important is happening today…

I tried to make a Friday Five, but clearly I can’t play by the rules so instead this just turned into a Friday Free-For-All of all the randomness that I’ve been really into this week.

Seaver update

First and foremost, an update on my post from yesterday about the Seaver girth sleeve. I tried the modified attachment method that they suggested when I emailed them about my issues (velcro straps through the sleeve loops, and then the cinch straps all the way around the entire thing on each side) and that did the trick! The sensors are so sensitive that if it’s not sitting flat, the data ends up really skewed, and the app won’t display it if there are a lot of anomalies. Yesterday’s data looks pretty darn spot on though, and I was really impressed by just how much it shows. Heart rate, tons of gait data (duration, symmetry, elevation, cadence, left/right analysis, etc both average and at each gait), plus average and individual jump data. Like it literally shows your trajectory for every fence you jump. How friggin cool is that? The heart rate data is amazing too, I like seeing just how fast his BPM returns to normal once we come down to a walk. This will be useful for our conditioning rides, for sure.

 

The Hate U Give 

I downloaded this on Audible to listen to last weekend while driving to/from the horse show and a couple of y’all commented on how good it was. You were right. It was amazing, and it’s so important, and I’m so glad it’s being turned into a movie. It’s one of those books you just can’t stop thinking about. Also props to the narrator of the Audible version… sometimes I get really annoyed with narrators but she was great. If you haven’t read it, or listened to it, I highly recommend.

 

Majyk Equipe’s new saddle pad line

I have been a devoted Majyk Equipe brand from the very beginning, so I’m always excited when they roll out new products. They have yet to disappoint. Now they’re branching out from boots and getting ready to debut a line of saddle pads AND some girths! I’m 100% into this. I have yet to find the perfect short girth for my jump saddle, and I’m always interested in new saddle pad technology, especially coming from a company like ME that is always so thoughtful in their design. Really want to get my hands on the impact pad (the spine relief in the back!), and their Luxury pad comes in navy and golden yellow. I mean… are they making products specifically for me? I wouldn’t complain if they are.

 

Sadie

Everyone’s favorite resident elephant is at day 324 of her pregnancy today, if I’m counting correctly. That means she’s made it over the “safe” 320 day thresh hold, which is always a relief. So far, so good, knock on wood! Right now she looks about normal for her in this stage of pregnancy – ie she is freaking ginormous and looks like she ate a house. Presto’s newest half brother or sister should be here in another 2-3 weeks!

 

Leprince des Bois

 

On the same breeding vein, I just found out that we actually can get Leprince des Bois frozen semen in the US. For some reason I thought we couldn’t and now I’m geeking TF out. Who is Leprince des Bois? Oh ya know, just a proven 4* horse that was ridden by Kai Ruder and then “retired” to cart a junior to the win in the German young rider’s championships the following year. I’ve loved him forever, so the fact that we CAN get his semen here is very very very interesting news indeed. I might need one of these someday…

 

Wildflowers

We’re smack dab in the middle of spring in Texas, which means wildflower season! This is, admittedly, one of the few things I like about Texas. My entire jump field is coated in orangey pink, and the roads to and from the barn are layered in bluebonnets. Okay, granted, there’s also so much oak pollen in the air that you’re basically choking to death, but at least there are pretty flowers to look at? If you ever want to visit Texas, late March/early April is the time. Like, the only time. The rest is terrible.

 

Grem

And last but not least, a quick Grem update! She’s still adorable, still super fluffy (her butt is the fluffiest, omg), and still rules the house with an iron paw. She’s less snuggly and more… insane… than she used to be, but still overall a good cat as far as cats go. She has more toys and stuff than any of the other animals in the house, that’s for sure. She’s rotten, and she likes to destroy things. But her butt is so FLUFFY AND CUTE, so… it’s ok.

 

As I mentioned last week, my Seaver girth sleeve finally arrived last Wednesday. I originally backed this Kickstarter in summer 2016, so I was really excited to finally get it and try it out. Of course, I left for the horse show the following day, so all I really had time to do last week was read the instructions, charge it, and make sure it synced with the phone app.

I had some issues right off the bat. First of all, the instructions suck. I tried to think of a nicer, more polite term, but there’s no sugar-coating it, they SUCK. It basically shows you how to take all the measurements of your horse so that your data is accurate (although it doesn’t tell you where to input said measurements), where to put the “wither” electrode (but not HOW), and where to put the charger to charge it. Which… the position they tell you to put the sleeve in, in order to charge it, has the wireless charger itself sitting upside down, so that you can’t see the indicator light to tell whether or not it’s actually charging. That’s… not well thought out. I flipped mine around so that I could sandwich the charger inside of it with the edge poking out through the hole just enough to actually SEE the indicator light.

It also came with a bunch of straps but no actual directions telling you what they were for, or how to attach the sleeve to the girth. I had to go on their facebook and look at pictures to make sure I was doing it right. They sent two kinds of straps – little velcro loops (supposedly meant for thinner girths) and longer clamping straps (supposedly meant for belly guard type girths where you need a longer strap). I could not get those stupid little velcro loops very tight at all, they were cumbersome to try to put on and the sleeve didn’t seem very stable, so I switched to the straps. Their longer length means that there’s a lot of excess, but at least I could get it snug on the girth.

I also noticed on the first charge that the app is clearly still buggy. It was truncating my battery percentage, and literally none of the little help or info buttons in the app actually have any information in them. So like… good luck!

Just getting that thing charged and attached to the girth was a little frustrating in itself, but I figured it out and all seemed fine. I must not have been the only one with these issues, because a couple days later Seaver sent out an email with a lot more instructions and photos.

I used it for the first time on Monday, when I took Henry out for just an easy hack in the field. I was a little concerned about the wither electrode and whether or not that would bother him, but no issues with that so far. It’s pretty soft and flexible.

The first day’s data wasn’t much, we just walked. I did have to laugh at the heart rate graph… it showed a lovely spike at the beginning when Henry spooked at a round bale.

But heart rate data was the only thing it gave me. For everything else it gave me an error message about “abnormal data”. I kinda just shrugged it off, thinking maybe that since we just walked around a field, there wasn’t much data for it to give me.

The next day we did a w/t/c hack out on the hills, still short and sweet, but definitely more data for the sleeve to gather. This time I got heart rate data and gait symmetry, but nothing else. Just the same error message.

That was annoying, but I figured maybe I goofed somehow and didn’t have my girth or the sleeve tight enough, or maybe my dressage girth is too narrow so the sleeve doesn’t sit correctly on it. So yesterday I switched to my jump saddle with it’s wider girth, made 100% sure I had that thing on there super securely, made 100% my girth was tight, used conductivity gel on both electrodes, and did another hack followed by a handful of jumps. Now it should REALLY have plenty of data, right?

Sigh. Nope. Same message.

Ok, so at this point I admit defeat on my own “figure it out myself” skills. I have no idea what I’m doing wrong here. I’ve sent Seaver a Dear God Please Help Me email, because I’m beyond frustrated at this point, trying to make it work. I’ve scoured their social media and website for hints and tips and clues but information is hard to come by. Hopefully they can help me out here and we can get it working. I know other peoples’ are working, so I have to assume it’s something I’m doing. Either way they REALLY need to work on their user guides and help tools.

I hope I’m making some big obvious mistake and am just oblivious to it. I will keep you guys posted… I’d really love it if this thing would work. It’s cool, and it’s rugged, and I like that it’s waterproof, and I like the app interface. They do have a 2 year guarantee on it, so if something’s wrong I feel pretty confident that they’ll make it right. We’re just off to a frustrating start.

UPDATE: Seaver has said that the sensor is too “curved” along his stomach, due to him either being too narrow of barrel or the girth not being wide enough (my jump girth is about 6″ wide, definitely not particularly narrow). They suggested I use the velcro straps in the loops, and then use the clincher straps around the sleeve itself to help stabilize it. Like so:

I’ll try that today!