Author: Amanda C

This past weekend was my first one at home in over a month, and I made the most of it with lots of riding time. On Saturday Bobby and Halo came over to gallop!

I’ve already talked a lot on here about how amazing the giant field is at my barn, and I’m really not kidding. The footing is almost always perfect, the rolling hills are great for conditioning, and it’s huge (YUUUUGE). I also keep my coop out there to practice galloping fences (I still want to add brush to the top to give it more height, someday I’ll get to that). Bobby wanted to come over to give Halo a good gallop since my field dries faster than his (let’s be honest though, his real reason was to see me) which worked out fine because I needed to give him his birthday present anyway.

Plus, I won’t lie, it’s nice to have someone to ride with on occasion. My favorite thing about my barn is that there’s never anyone else riding when I am. I never have to share my jumps or my fields or my riding space. The flipside to that situation is that sometimes when you just need a good hackout and chat with a barn friend, there isn’t one. Or, if you ride a particularly lazy Henry who has no real interest in participating in conditioning rides until we get to the gallop part, it’s nice for him to have someone in front providing motivation (bc seriously I’m so tired of kicking to keep trotting).

We had a fun ride in the field, doing our trot and gallop sets together. We each popped over the coop a few times too, although by that point Henry had decided he was VERY FAST RACEHORSE and kept wanting to drag me past the distance. Someone will be wearing his Dr Bristol for XC schooling this weekend.

We went for a nice long walk all the way around the property after we were done, then hosed the boys off and let them graze. It’s so funny how even though they don’t live together anymore, it’s like they haven’t missed a day. They still love each other, but not too much.

Halo neighed a little when he got back into the trailer, and Henry watched him as they pulled down the driveway before going back to his grass. I swear I’ve never seen a horse that was so content to be alone in turnout. Henny does Henny, he don’t need no man. He definitely has a lot more affection for Halo than he lets on, though… Halo is Henry’s favorite horse to pin his fuzzy little ears at.

On Sunday (my 5th day of riding in a row – yay for being back to a normal schedule) I had a happier, more forward horse for our dressage ride. There’s still much clucking in the beginning to get him in front of my leg, but he’s getting more and more consistent in the contact and more and more rideable. Maybe it’s the green hat?

 

I agree, 5 days is entirely too long without a Presto update.

First of all, everyone and their grandma has been asking about Uncle Skeeter. He did finally get picked up by his owners last week, so he is now safely and happily back home with his people. Yeah I know, it broke up our weird little family, but it’s great for Skeeter to get to go home. Meanwhile, Presto has been hard at work making friends with Liam. And by “making friends” I mean playing a whole lot of Bitey Face.

I’m pretty sure Presto could play Bitey Face all day long. Liam sleeps a lot more than he does, and Presto spends a lot of time standing at the fence neighing at Liam to come play with him. Usually Liam acquiesces eventually, and the game begins. And unfortunately for Presto, Liam is much better at it. He’s faster, bigger, more aggressive, and he’s not the one sticking his head through to the other side of the fence.

So, ya know… Presto is missing some chunks out of his face. It hasn’t dampened his desire to play with Liam at all, so apparently he isn’t very deterred by the fact that he keeps losing.

Presto’s other favorite activities include pestering the crap out of Sadie (particularly when she tries to sleep)

And pulling on basically anything that’s tied down, be it a lead rope or a bucket handle or a piece of baling twine on his stall grill. He still thinks it’s pretty fun to swing his Jolly Ball around too. Little dude is quite active and curious and into everything.

Yesterday Liam and Presto went out together for the first time. Presto kept walking around behind Liam, but Liam was still a little bit too shy to fully engage in playing. Plus whenever Liam’s mom came around, Presto very wisely booked it back to Sadie. Liam’s mom isn’t quite so lenient about letting him wander or play. But Presto did get to stretch his legs a bit more, and I think it won’t be long before he and Liam are playing together in turnout. Hopefully Presto doesn’t lose too much more hair in the process.

Speaking of hair – how freaking awesome is this custom Leistner brush set from Teddy’s Tack Trunk???

He’s already pretty spoiled for a one month old foal. Also he’s adorable and I love him, so it’s ok.

Well, uh, March didn’t quite go as I had planned. I knew better than to enter any shows in March, since Sadie’s due date was mid-month. But I only planned on being in Midland for 4 or 5 days, giving Henry a little mini-vacation and then being ready to come out swinging for a couple shows in April.

Ha.

Instead I spent 10 days in Midland, and 4 straight weekends. Henry’s mini-vacay turned into basically a month off. I was able to ride him on the weekdays when I was home, but mentally I was just not in the right place to be able to put in a serious ride. Mostly we just trotted and cantered through the fields, because every horsewoman knows that a canter really is the cure for every evil. Henry didn’t seem to mind the time off from real work, but he’s a little bit fat and in dire need of a spa day at the moment.

Because of all that (and, uh… the general state of emptiness in my wallet), we’re sitting out the shows in April too. We really haven’t jumped since that one little jumper show at the end of February (omg…) so it seems a bit unwise. Plus I need to get him a little more fit again. And that whole dressage thing I suppose. Ugh.

Money is also in short supply, so I’m having to do some creative wrangling of my show schedule but I think we’ll be able to eke out some cheap ones. We’ll try a little show or two in May, to dip our toes back in, start back up with some lessons again, and as of yesterday Henry is back into his regular riding schedule. And after 6 days off, geez was he spooky. Spring Time Henry is weird. He’s sluggish but he’s wild and spooky at the same time.

While I didn’t really plan on skipping basically the best two months of the year for showing Henry (because it starts getting hot in May, and Henry does not do heat), I’m not as upset about it as I would have been a year ago. The pressure is off this year anyway, and the whole extremely scary and honestly kind of traumatizing ordeal with Presto put a lot of things into perspective.

So, the lack of horse show recaps and photos will continue here for at least a few more weeks. Hopefully filling the void with a bunch of Presto pictures is more than enough to make up for the lack of HorseShowHENNY? Plus there’s ROLEX (anyone doing the RK5K?)! We’ll eventually work our way back to where we were in February and then figure out all the show stuff from there. At this point I’m just really glad to have my boys… everything else isn’t nearly as important.

Normally I really hate Wordless Wednesday posts, but today I’m short on time and long on pictures. Let’s call it a Fewer-Words Wednesday? Whatever.

Either way, I got the pics from Michelle’s nice camera of Presto’s first little gallop in the big field the other day. There’s also video at the bottom for those who would like to hear the soundtrack. He pretty much just ran around neighing at everyone and everything, which is really cute when you’re a baby horse. Maybe not so much when you’re older, but ya know… a squealy little high pitched neigh is adorable when you’re bitty.

Sadie and Presto had lots of fun running around for a few minutes while Sadie blew off some steam from being cooped up. He had never galloped flat out like that before!

Eventually Sadie slowed down to a trot

and then finally down to a walk (much to Presto’s relief) and made a few “look at my baby, isn’t he cute?” laps past all the other horses.

Sadie tried her best to find a good spot to roll, but Presto was having none of it.

And then finally we got to the supermodel stage, where Presto just kept making adorable pose after adorable pose. So photogenic, this one. Ok maybe I’m slightly biased, but neh no I’m not, he really is the cutest.

These two. I just love them to bits. ❤

We came out the little side gate on the way in because it’s closest to their stall… the bottom “board” doesn’t move so he had to jump over it. Liam loved to leap over that thing his first few times in and out, but clearly Presto is not impressed by this. He kinda looks a little insulted, actually.

And with that, his first real “day out” (which was all of 10 minutes, really) was over and he was pretty pooped. Stretching those long legs out for the first time was a lot of work. Or maybe all the screaming was a lot of work? You decide (sound on for the video, of course):