Author: Amanda C

Continuing with my apparent 2022 theme of Major Life Changes, on Monday I quit my job.

It wasn’t something I had planned. I’d worked there for almost 18 years, but recently they’d made some changes that I just couldn’t stomach, and treated me in ways that I just will not accept. Obviously I’m not gonna go into the very lengthy and boring nitty gritty details publicly (the Patreon facebook group knows the whole story but I don’t want to put it on blast to the entire world) but short version: managerial changes over the past few years made it unrecognizable compared to the company that existed when I started. The way I was treated the past couple months would never have happened 5 years ago, and the direction they’re headed just… isn’t for me. It was quickly getting toxic.

Alas, while quitting wasn’t something I wanted to do, at some point I realized that no one else was going to look out for me except for me, and I had to put myself first. Life is too short to feel like your soul is dying a little bit more every day, and I care about myself too much to put up with being constantly disrespected. Having to walk away from a career you’ve dedicated your entire adult life to, though… it’s a big step, and it’s scary, no matter the circumstances.

Once I actually ripped the band-aid off, I’ve mostly just felt a sense of relief. First the first time in months, I feel like I can breathe. I slept better last night than I have in a long time. I feel lighter and in a better mood already. Between that and literally all of my former co-workers (including my manager) saying “you did the right thing, I’m proud of you”, I feel like I definitely DID make the right choice, even if it was a hard one. I will miss the friends I made there, but I know we’ll keep in touch. I hated leaving some of them behind, especially knowing that my absence would make their jobs harder, but ultimately I had to do what was best for me. Everyone I care about was very supportive and understanding of that.

I have nothing else lined up yet. I’m going to take some time to focus on Breed.Ride.Compete. and I’ll be taking on a few more social media clients as well. Mostly I’m going to see what kind of opportunities present themselves. When I took that job in my early 20’s I sure never intended to dedicate my life to the corporate 9-5, so in a way this feels a lot like freedom, and a chance to find something that I find more fulfilling. I do live in Ocala now, after all… we’ll see what happens! If you hear of anything that you think might suit me, feel free to send it my way.

WEG showjumping starts tomorrow! As mentioned yesterday, I made a very extensive, in-depth spreadsheet for BRC (which is available here if you’re interested in the full shebang), but y’all know I love going through the data and pulling out juicy little tidbits. This time is no different. Granted, in the past we’ve only done the eventers, but we figured we’d branch out to the showjumpers this time too, since we’ve had a few requests for it. (I will admit though, we haven’t sold enough of the SJ spreadsheet yet to justify doing the showjumpers again, so… we’ll see how it shakes out. If you know someone who might be interested, please pass it along!) If you’re more interested in the eventers, we’ll be doing a big spreadsheet for them next month when it’s their turn. For now… to the SJ!

The most-represented direct sire is Chacco Blue, the sire of 6 entries, followed by Toulon with 5 entries, and Nabab de Reve with 3 entries.

The average blood percentage of all the horses in the field is 42%, with the highest being Django II at 77% and the lowest being Callisto des Bieffes at 18%.

Django II is also the only entrant from a full Thoroughbred mare. His dam Flower Power xx showjumped to 1.60m herself and has produced three 1.60m horses and a 1.70m horse. Her sire, Brilliant Invader xx, sired six 1.60m showjumpers and three 5* eventers (including Olympic Gold Medalist and double gold WEG Champion Reddy Teddy).

Several stallions also show up in the damsire position multiple times, with the most appearances belonging to Nabab de Reve as the damsire of 4 entrants, For Pleasure the damsire of 3 entrants, Calvaro Z the damsire of 3 entrants, and Calido the damsire of 3 entrants.

32% of the entrants in the field have a dam that competed in sport herself. This level of sport ranges from mid-level dressage to 1.60m showjumping.

Seven different mare families are represented twice among the entrants, including: Hanover Stamms 687 and 2191509; Holsteiner Stamms 1020, 671, and 741; Selle Francais 139; and BWP Merrielijn 2, Fokfamilie 8.

Five entrants come from a TB mare family and two entrants come from a French AngloArab mare family.

One horse’s sire competed to Grand Prix level dressage and another’s sire competed to PSG level dressage.

One entrant competed to 3* level eventing before switching to showjumping, and two entrant’s dams have also produced an offspring competing at 4*L level eventing.

73% of the entrants have a sire that showjumped to 1.60m level or higher.

Three breeders produced more than one entrant in the field: Getstut Lewitz/Paul Schockemohle bred 12, Eric Polfliet bred 2, and Witt Pferdezucht bred 2.

Who are y’all rooting for in the showjumping?

Well last week was… something. Good news is, the covid has passed and I’ve officially tested negative. Aside from having an extremely sore throat (I couldn’t talk for like 3 days, much to everyone’s delight but mine) and being tired, it wasn’t too terrible. There’s a little bit of a lingering cough here and there, but I haven’t noticed any impact to my lung capacity or anything – I still feel the same amount of riding fit, and like I’m getting enough oxygen. Fingers crossed the random sporadic coughing resolves itself soon and then we can forget about all that mess.

I actually had every intention of popping up a Foal Friday post at least, and when I sat down at my computer to go through the pictures I realized it was Saturday. Whoops. I seriously lost track of days. So uh… my bad. I’ll make it up to you this week, I promise.

I did take some of that forced downtime to work on some BRC stuff though, cranking out a few more custom pedigree reports (it still surprises me how much I really enjoy doing these, and I just love people’s reactions to them) and making a spreadsheet of all the WEG showjumpers. I pulled even more data this time, including whether or not the mare competed in sport herself and if so to what level, the mare family the horse is from, we made another page of facts, interesting tidbits, etc. Oh, and we gave a lot more sorting options so that hopefully it’s a lot easier to view and look through however anyone wants. We tried to make something that would be cool and useful both for breeders or for people that just want to follow along with the WEG horses at home and have all the info. My eyeballs may or may not have been bleeding after all 124 horses worth of data but… hopefully it’s useful to someone. But if anyone is interested it’s up in our Etsy store now.

Otherwise most of the fun stuff from last week happened over the weekend. Tack Shack was having a Clearance sale with 50% off of everything in their already-marked-down Clearance room. Had to go check that out. They actually had a bunch of the Cavallo summer shirts that I really love, but none in my size sadly. And plenty of breeches, but… I don’t need any. I did grab a smaller halter for Gemma and a tech material t-shirt for a grand total of $30. Not shabby.

Presto also had another training ride yesterday. We’d been doing a couple a week but obviously that got derailed last week until I was solidly testing negative, but he picked right back up where he left off. She had some grids and footwork stuff set up, which is perfect for him, and he was actually quite good for it. I’m going to try to take Gemma over for a lesson sometime early this week… it’s time to start getting her off the property by herself, and a 5min trailer ride down the street for a lesson seems like a good start. She’s been great at home so I’ll be interested to see how she handles things when she’s got to go out on her own.

Henry remains the real MVP, proving more and more every day why he’s the king. SO decided he wants to go on road hacks, and I said that before he can do that he has to demonstrate to me that he has at least the basic proficiency at riding. Which means, ya know… he can steer and stop and isn’t going to fall off at any second if the horse trips or whatever. So he got on Henry and meandered around the field, learning all the basic “controls” (non horse people are hilarious with their lingo). Henry thinks this job is THE LIFE.

There are a couple other things happening that hopefully I’ll be able to give updates on publicly soon. For now though – everyone is fine, covid is (hopefully) behind us, and we’re ready to crack on. I promise not to be a ghost this week!

Well, I managed to evade covid for almost 2 1/2 years, but it finally got me. Probably no coincidence that it happened literally a week after the SO got here, and he was making me go all kinds of places I normally don’t. Usually I’m a hermit of epic proportions. I’m totally blaming him, although really… it was probably just a matter of time given the way covid cases are going around here. Thanks Florida.

I’m hoping it passes quickly, because we were actually starting to get in a groove here with our program. Presto’s had a few jumping-oriented pro rides now, mostly working on that annoying little head fling that he likes to do if you want to touch your reins the last 4 strides in front of a jump. He’s always done it, since Megan first started jumping him, and I cannot stand it. He’s a bit (just a WEE FREAKIN BIT) egotistical and overconfident, and so unchallenged by these smaller jumps that he can get away with flinging his head all over the place, but as a rider let me just say it is goddamn annoying. Really really goddamn annoying. And I also don’t think it’s something that can just be ignored, because it’s only going to become more of a problem as he goes up the levels. I have to be able to half halt and he has to be able to adjust without flipping me the bird… those are just facts. So ya know, now is the time to fix it. With Steph’s help, because I was at a bit of a loss on my own. She’s making slow but steady progress (he’s pretty dedicated to being right, who’s surprised by that?) and I can already tell a bit of a difference in him at home. It’ll take some time to totally iron out I think, but we’re headed in the right direction. Or we were, before I got stupid covid.

He had a couple days off but now we’re back to it, just waiting for a negative test for me so we can actually leave the farm/interact with other people again and schedule more rides. I also was going to start scheduling lessons with Gemma now that she’s back in full swing. It would be nice if both of these kiddos were ready to hit some horse shows by the fall.

And I’m feeling especially eager to hit the horse shows now because LOOK WHAT CAME.

About a month ago Hillary and I were lucky enough to get fitted for Fabbri boots at Luxe EQ when they were in town at WEC, and yesterday our boots arrived from Italy. Mine are the navy ones – they’ve got a metallic navy stripe and white piping. Hillary’s are the black ones, with a black glitter top and navy patent piping. I wanted something a little “wild” by my standards, because if you’re gonna do it you may as well DO IT. The goal for me was to make boots for XC that would be fun and unique and look good with white breeches. I think these meet all of those criteria. You’ll definitely be able to spot me on XC now, and I love the little touches of white – I think it’ll look bomb with white pants.

I couldn’t resist grabbing Hillary’s and laying them next to the mid blue Espoir coat, since it’s also got some black glitter details. And then I had to throw my black glitter helmet into the photo too. Ya know… FOR SCIENCE.

It’s stunning. I am obsessed. I dunno why I’m so obsessed with light blue coats right now but I 100% am. It would look amazing on Gemma, don’t you think? Hopefully we’ll find out soon.

Not much else has really been going on obviously, since covid. I did have a post all queued up for yesterday to announce that Breed.Ride.Compete. was open again for custom breeding reports, but uh… our email subscribers bought up all the available spots in 10 minutes. They got advance notice of when we were going to open, and my plan was to give them a 30 minute head start and then roll out the public posts. I just.. never actually made it that far. Sold out again! Every time we open the spots sell out faster and faster, which thrills me to no end. The reception we’ve been getting with these is just amazing. I wasn’t sure anyone would actually care, but so far the feedback has been wonderful and we’re already seeing repeat customers. I’m having a good time doing them (well, usually… sometimes I really have to get creative with my digging), so it feels like a win-win.

So now we’re rocking and rolling through this batch, hoping to be able to open up more spots ASAP. I’m also in the middle of working on the next phase rollout for BRC, which will be a brand spanking new service that I’m pretty excited about. More on that later this week or early next week! Big things are coming…

Ok so it’s Saturday… I lost track of days and forgot to post this yesterday. I swear I had it drafted, gimme a break…

While Quinlee is the only foal at WTW West this year, she’s certainly not suffered from a lack of companionship. She’s got her own little built-in family really, with a few moms and a couple sisters.

Most of the time though, she can be found in the Trio of Fillies, which consists of Quinlee, Pippa, and Teddy.

It’s an interesting dynamic. Quinlee obviously is the silliest one, being the youngest and full of that bouncing foal energy. Pippa is more of an old soul, so she’s the the older sister of the group… she participates in some of the shenanigans but she also knows where to draw the line.

Teddy is somewhere in between. She’s a yearling, so not as full of beans as Quinlee, but she is a pony after all, along with everything that entails (chaos, it entails chaos).

She’s the cool badass older sister that Q always wants to hang out with. Thus, it’s no surprise that Q sometimes attaches herself to Teddy like velcro. Literally.

And yes, Teddy might sometimes act as though Quinlee is her bratty annoying unwanted little sister, but for the most part they’re two peas in a pod. She’s found someone more in tune with her maturity level.

Well, at least until Q gets a liiiiittle overboard on the playing… then Teddy starts to wonder if she’s created a monster. The answer is yes.

Happy Friday!