Author: Amanda C

Despite being pretty busy these past couple weeks, I’ve managed to fit in a good amount of saddle time. Hillary was gone for the holidays so I had both Henry and Grace to ride, and usually ended up riding both of them on my lunch break.

Despite the crazy temperature swings we didn’t get much rain, which is kind of a double-edged sword. At this point we need it for the grass, things are looking a bit brown for this time of year, but it did mean that there was no interruption to any of my riding time. It was also nice to spend some time behind my favorite little fuzzy bay ears again.

One day I didn’t have enough time to ride them both so I figured I’d see if Grace ponied. And naturally I’m lazy so I just stuck a bareback pad on Henry. For as big of a jerk as he can be to other horses in the pasture, he’s usually pretty business-like when it comes to ponying duty, and after a couple laps around the courtyard it definitely seemed like Grace was familiar with the concept. We set off with no issue and I was able to walk and trot them both up the little hills in the back.

I rode in Hillary’s saddle a few more times while she was gone too but honestly being able to buy a new saddle isn’t in the cards for me for… quite a while probably, so I just had to quit riding in it. It was making me too sad about all the struggles I have in my own saddle that I didn’t in hers. Is what it is for a while I guess! It’s good to know where to start looking whenever I do finally end up buying something else though.

Hillary was back before New Years, and we were able to get rides in on NYE as well as New Years Day. On NYE we just wanted to do something fun, so we went out in the back on the hacking path and did a long walk and then galloped around videoing each other like a couple of 12 year olds for a while. It was deeply entertaining, and a nice way to cap off the year just doing something purely fun with the horses. Henry may or may not have run off with Hillary and tried to decapitate her on a tree. That’s how you know he loves you.

@breed.ride.event

Watch out for that tree… #newyear #ifidiedumb #equestrian #horsegirls #horseriding

♬ If I Die Dumb (A Parody of If I Die Young) – Maria T Comedy

In all seriousness, it’s nice to see him feeling good though. He’s such a cheeky horse, I think he’s having as much fun with Hillary as she is with him. He’s got her completely wrapped around his little hoof, milking tons of cookies out of her, and whenever he feels like she’s mastered something well enough, you can see his eyes light up as he tries his best to do something “naughty”. Which is really never that naughty… no one tell him. When it matters, he’s all business, but he also likes to pull out his arsenal of cheeky things to keep her on her toes sometimes.

On New Years we did some flatwork. Grace is getting better and better, feeling stronger and a little more fit as we go along. She’s been out of regular work for a long time so I always have to be mindful not to push it too much or make her tired, but I can feel a difference in her over the past month. She’s still convinced there are horse murderers in all the bushes and trees (and sometimes in the arena letters) but she’s got a lot of “try” in her so that makes it fun no matter what we’re doing. To me I think she rides more like a thoroughbred, at least in the brain, which IMO is a compliment.

This week Hillary’s been focused on riding Henry in a bit, which is a lot different, less fun, and harder than riding him bitless. He carries a lot more tension and requires a thoughtful, tactful ride… I swear he’s a million times easier to jump than he is to flat, and a million times easier to ride bitless than in a bit. She’s figuring out his buttons though, and how to get him through the tension. Hopefully the weather cooperates over the next month or two and she can get him to a show. I think he’d be delighted to show her just how amazing he is.

I’ve also been jumping Grace a bit more. Not a lot, usually just a few small jumps here and there, but she’s definitely really fun to jump. I’ve figured her out a bit more as far as what kind of ride she seems to prefer. I did give up on keeping her in front shoes though, she pulled two in two weeks and had another one halfway off by the time the farrier came for our regular 5 week appointment, so I had him just take them off. I tried. At this point I think she’ll do more damage pulling shoes off and possibly taking chunks of foot with it. So far she seems to be doing ok without the shoes, not quite as good as she was with them, but good enough, and I’ve been putting stuff on her feet, so… we’ll see. I think it’ll be fine though.

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That pretty much brings us up to date on what the horses have been up to I think. We’re hoping to be able to go XC schooling this weekend but it looks like its supposed to rain Saturday, so we’ll see how the ground ends up. If not this weekend then soon!

Well hey there, long time no post. For me anyway. As you may have noticed I did indeed end up taking last week off from the blog and took a few days away from social media entirely. Now that we’re through all the holidays I feel like I’m in a better headspace and feel at least a little bit recharged, so this week we’ll try to get back to our regular business.

Of course, work is still super busy for me (those last two weeks of December are killer, and January isn’t much better) and today is our annual inventory, so I’m still a bit crunched for time. Tomorrow I’ll give more updates on what’s been going on with the horses, but for now a quick update on what else has been happening…

The weather has been nuts. Like it was 85+ degrees for most of December and then on New Years Day a wicked cold front blew through and dropped us down into the 20’s. Nothing like a 60 degree temperature swing to turn horse people into balls of anxiety. I started upping the horse’s salt a few days ahead of time and gave them soaked alfalfa pellets with a bit of flaxseed oil with their meals (boy does Grace love her mash) and they seem to have done just fine, knock on wood. The weather is supposed to normalize a bit today, aside from another much more minor cold front later in the week, so hopefully we’re past the worst of this particular go-round. I hate the cold. Like really really hate it. Last year’s awful winter storm has left some lingering trauma on my psyche for sure, I absolutely loathe the cold snaps to a level I never quite reached before. And the insane temperature swings that we get here are what make it that much worse… nothing like going from summer to winter in a 6 hour period. Texas is ridiculous.

The holidays were fairly low-key for me… I’m not super into Christmas but I did exchange gifts with a few people. I got a very cool metal sign from the barn owner, luggage (that I picked out) from the SO, some cash, etc. We had our traditional Chinese food lunch on Christmas Day and I didn’t leave the farm all weekend, so we’ll call that a success. As for New Years, it’s always neck and neck for 4th of July as to which one is my least favorite holiday. I HATE fireworks, and this year it sounded like everyone bought the biggest loudest things they could find, judging by how the booms shook my windows. And it went from like 6pm through 3am. Just, WHY? The horses were all freaked out, Mina kept barking, and it made me feel positively murderous. We got through it in one piece though, so… there’s that.

I did also win a couple holiday gift cards from various Instagram contests, which was a nice little bonus perk. I’ve got an Epplejeck gift card waiting to be used, and won enough from Ride Equisafe to get a much-needed new XC vest. I also managed to go through all my trunks, the tack room, the trailer, and my closet and pull out my next round of sale items to clean out. I’ll probably post all that stuff later this week. And, perhaps most exciting (to me anyway), Hillary and I decided to re-open our little shirt business!

We started Barn Dog Apparel in 2017, and it was fun, but as we both got busy with other things we just kind of let it go dormant. Lately though we’ve been talking about some other business ideas for the future, and we were thinking we might as well start up the shirt shop again in the meantime. We spent last week making up some new designs and redesigning the store, and it went live again yesterday.

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We’ve still got more designs to add, but it’s a start! I think I will probably add a few WTW items in there soon too for those that want some little low cost items. Plenty of stuff is in the works, but we’ll see how this first run of new designs does before we go too crazy. Most of the designs are offered on womens t-shirts for now but if you want one of them on a hoodie or a mens shirt or a long sleeve or a sticker, just let me know and I can add the item to the shop for you to order.

So yeah, that’s pretty much what I’ve been up to for the last week and a half. Sweating my ass off, freezing my ass off, trying not to murder people, obsessively keeping horses hydrated, working, cleaning out and organizing stuff, and designing shirts! I hope everyone else had a good holiday too. On to 2022!

From the WTW Class of 2021 to you, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I am mentally drained this week to the point where I’m probably going to take next week off of the blog and social media entirely, so… here’s your pre-Christmas content. It’s the best I can do. Thanks to Anxiety at A for the fodder.

Spooky or Steady:

• For their own sake, not spooky. No one wants a horse to be stressed and worried on a regular basis or have a horse that is reactive and could hurt themselves or a rider. That said, I don’t mind taking a spooky one and making it more steady, which is why I tend to do a lot of desensitizing with my young horses.

Matchy Matchy or Mismatched

• Not really either? I’m not a fan of mismatched but I prefer fairly boring colors, not like… everything pink or turquoise or yellow or whatever. If I had to pick one I guess matchy.

Tall boots or Half chaps

• Tall boots. No contest.

Indoor or outdoor

• Outdoor, always. This is one of myriad reasons why I can’t live somewhere cold.

Bay or chestnut

• A nice rich dark bay is always my favorite.

Hard shell boots or sport medicine boots?

• SMB’s are death traps of heat, hard pass. I wouldn’t really choose hard shell boots either unless they’re well ventilated, but not much is worse to me than SMB’s.

Free Board for a Year or 20k for a shopping spree?

• Easy choice, 20k please. Even that “relatively small” amount of money would be life-changing for me.

Long or short mane or roached mane?

• Short, first choice, roached, second choice. I like having something to grab if I need to but I don’t like how a long mane looks so I’d still pick roached over long.

Lazy or hot horse?

• Hot. I’d prefer them to not be bordering on belligerence, but something responsive to seat and leg that’s light and forward-thinking is always my choice.

Private barn or a boarding barn?

• Private barn, 100%. Way way way 10000000x better than the whole boarding experience.

Create your dream barn or own your dream horse?

• Dream barn, but I did have to sit here and think about it for a second.

Roman nose or dished face?

• Roman. It looks noble to me, I’ve never minded a roman nose. My brain reads dishy as delicate for whatever reason.

Ride an Olympic-level horse or take a lesson with an Olympian?

• Depends entirely on what horse or what rider we’re talking about. I’d kill for a lesson on Tullabeg Flamenco, but I’d also kill for a lesson from Ingrid Klimke. How do you choose?

Own a miniature horse or a donkey?

• Gosh I love mini donkeys but for the sake of practicality and things I could do with it, I guess I’d pick a mini horse.

Alright, let’s see, what else has been going on around here besides that whole farm closing thing…

While most people are off work or on vacation, Dec/Jan is actually the busiest time of year for us with my job, particularly the last two weeks of December. Last Thursday was a 5:30am through 8pm kind of affair. Everyone’s trying to close out the last of their year’s invoicing and budgets, so it always puts us in a rush to get things out the door and completed. Nothing new there, we just kind of hunker down and power through.

I’ve still been able to ride most days though, thanks to working from home and having the horses in the backyard. Last week Hillary came out and rode Henry some before she left for her Christmas trip, so I set up a single barrel exercise, which they nailed. He’s pulling out all his party tricks for her.

I modified the exercise for Grace, making a little mini-gymastic with a skinnier fence but no single barrels. This mare definitely loves to jump and is really quite quick and clever with her footwork considering she’s such a stout horse. She’s different than I expected her to be, but I do quite like her a lot. I’m pretty sure she’s one of those that can and will do her best to jump from pretty much anywhere, no matter how she has to contort herself. The brakes aren’t always 100%, but she does love the job and you never doubt that she’s gonna find the other side.

Granted, I almost got yeeted right over her head that day because she “fancy footworked” her way right out of a bell boot, flinging it into the air on the other side of the pole coming out of the grid, causing it to land right beside her as she was cantering away. She thought it was a horse-eating pterodactyl and I had some chestnut mane for lunch. Near death experience for both of us.

Hillary also let me ride in her saddle while she’s away, just to see how I feel about it. I’ve been feeling increasingly discombobulated in my Devoucoux, like I’m constantly having to fight to keep my balance where I want it to be. See, it’s a 18.5, which when I bought it years ago I really needed an 18 but that was the only one I could find in my budget that had the panels Henry needed. It was close enough, and while it was always big, I never really felt like it was too big. Fast forward to now where I’ve lost a good bit of weight and gained a lot of muscle and the Dev is now definitely way too big. As in, I can fit two hands behind me when I’m sitting in the seat kind of big. Two sizes too big for sure. I find that I’m constantly trying to shift myself to the front of it, and it pulls me backward, shoots my leg out in front, and I just cannot get my balance right in it. I end up gripping with my legs to try to hold myself where I want to be, which as you can imagine doesn’t work in any regard.

Granted I wasn’t totally sure if it was the saddle or me… maybe both. Hillary’s is a 17.5 Voltaire, so when she offered to let me sit in it I jumped at the chance. I wanted to see what problems carried over from the Devoucoux and if a better fit for me really made much of a difference. And well… I maybe shouldn’ta done that because it made a huge difference, right off the bat.

The instability I’ve been struggling with for months, the gripping, the shifting, the leg getting shot out the front and always being tilted back on my seatbones… all massively improved. I can actually sit in the saddle securely and way more balanced, where I’m supposed to be on the horse. My leg lines up way better underneath me, so my whole base of support is more stable. I was hoping there would be some difference of course (please god let it not all be my own shit riding) but it’s a massive one. Not that I’m magically a super rider or anything, but at least I’m not constantly struggling with the same things over and over day in and day out. Of course now that I know this it’s to the point where I don’t even want to ride in the Devoucoux anymore, it just makes me sad and frustrated. But it’s the only saddle I have, and there’s no room in my budget right now to casually drop the few grand it would cost on a used saddle, so instead I just get to be depressed about it. Cool, cool. This is fine.

I swear there’s nothing more frustrating than knowing you have the wrong equipment. Wasn’t it Bill Steinkraus that said something like “Get your tack and equipment just right, then forget about it and concentrate on the horse”? Well shit.