I think we’re well past due for a Percy update! And instead of just showing you pictures and telling you how he is, I figured we’d let him show you for himself in his own little video.
As you can see he’s doing great, looking loads better, and is super super sweet. It looks like he’ll be just fine.
This week has been super busy at WTW with mares getting bred (it’s pretty much the end of the season for us) and foals getting body clipped (100 degrees is no fun when you’re covered in a thick foal coat) so hopefully next week we’ll have lots more updates and some sleek looking, magical color-changing foals!
I’ve always had pretty good luck with ordering things from overseas, at least when it comes to fit. Saddles, breeches, bridles, coats, shirts, boots… you name it, I’ve probably taken a blind leap of faith. My success rate is probably because I’m really annoying, and if I don’t trust a size chart I’ll email and ask, and/or do some deep dive googling. I did the same thing for this last batch of stuff too, especially the pretty blingy coat that I’m so obsessed with.
It’s so pretty
The size chart seemed a little wonky so I messaged the shop that had them and asked how the sizing ran. I gave them my measurements and asked which size they’d recommend, since the size chart put me in between sizes. She said that they run small and I should size up, but I was still kind of waffling on it so ultimately I decided to order both sizes and just sell whichever one didn’t fit.
Well, joke’s on me because neither of them fit. I’m not sure why one would recommend sizing up, because IMO they run big. Like bigger than the Motionlites, which are very “American” sizing in a world where most stuff is smaller European sizing. Even the medium coat was super baggy. I laid it out and measured it across the bust and it was 19″… REALLY big for a medium in any kind of equestrian clothing. My bust measurement is 35.5″, so… yeah, 38″ is a no. In the shirts (which had a different size chart?) I had ordered a small and a medium. The medium was definitely big, but the small sort of fit. The body was about right, but the arms were quite tight (maybe I should stop lifting weights lol). Honestly I struck out with all 4 pieces, despite thinking I was so smart for ordering two size options of each. Total fail.
😭😭😭
I had also ordered a shirt and a pair of breeches from Germany, and the shirt fits great (and I LOVE IT) but the breeches are too big in the waist. Being in between sizes is getting really annoying. I was hoping a true European brand might fit a bit smaller but no.
One other thing did fit, and that’s the set of boots that I ordered for Henry. I tossed them in the cart on a whim because I really wanted some navy everyday brushing boots, and these Weatherbeeta ones were only $25 a pair.
Their size chart was also a little weird, and the internet said the straps run long, so I ordered a pair of cob size for the front and full size for the rear. The straps are a little long but they fit well otherwise, and so far so good. They’re actually pretty nice little lightweight brushing boots and I love the color. We’ll see how long they last.
The downside of buying things from overseas is that returns aren’t really feasible, so now I find myself with yet more clothes to sell. The medium coat got scooped up fast but I still have the large (it’s 20″ across the bust) that I’d sell for $160 USD and the medium shirt (18.5″ across the bust) for $45 USD.
Plus the breeches (white with silver piping, knee patch, size 30) which I’ll sell for $75.
I also have some other show shirts to sell, all around a 37″ish bust size, but I still need to go through and make a list. If you might be interested let me know. Oh and a couple pairs of Kerrit’s Icefil tights in size Large, navy and black.
In the meantime, if y’all see any good deals (new or secondhand) on Horze Grand Prix or RJ Classics Gulf breeches in size 28, send them my way please! I also like Montar, size 40. I’ve been strongly considering trying the Struck, since they have in-between sizes (I wish more breech manufacturers would do this, like jeans sizing), but they’re really expensive. Like… really expensive.
Oh yeah, also I have my dressage saddle for sale too – an 18″ Devoucoux Loreak. I have not yet summoned the energy to list it anywhere but my personal facebook page, but… I really do need to get on that.
I really hate selling shit, buying it is more fun. Well… usually, anyway.
I finally got the pro pics from Texas Rose last month, and omg y’all this little noodle horse. I couldn’t choose just a few so I ended up buying the all images package like a creepy overly obsessed horsemom, because… ya know… baby’s first event. I had to buy them all, right? There are some really cute ones though, so no regrets.
This angle absolutely cracks me up, he looks even more like a giraffe
cross country game face: check
first photo series! 1…
2…
3!
Who’s horse is this even, it can’t possibly the same one that was sitting in my pasture 6 months ago murdering balls on the regular?
While I opted to end Henry’s horse show early, Presto was still having himself a grand time. He had about 4 hours between dressage and stadium, and he was the last of Megan’s 4 rides (or I guess 8 rides for the day, with dressage and stadium for each horse) to go. The morning hadn’t been TOO terrible with the cloud cover – humid AF but not that unbearably hot. As soon as the sun came out though, it got absolutely miserable pretty much immediately. Luckily Presto copes with the heat really well, and seemed more than happy to come back out and warm up for some jompies.
tell me that’s not the cutest noodle
By this point the ride times had kind of devolved into a “sorta numerical order but also sorta whoever is just there and wants to go” type of thing, and he ended up having to wait for a bit after a larger group. Then there was a short hold when a horse slipped and fell in the muddiest corner, pancaking himself and his rider to the ground. It took her a while to get up but they were ok thank goodness. I have to admit that up until then I felt like maybe I’d been a little silly to scratch Henry, but when I saw that I was like nope I definitely made the right decision for him, I know he’d have been struggling in the corners. Plus like, if I’d been sitting on him in warmup when that happened I’d have been like nah fam, I’m out. Really don’t need a repeat of Coconino stadium where he slid through a fence, thanks. After she got up they came and put a load of sand in that corner, which seemed to help a little.
Of course, PestoPasta was still having zero issues with the footing at all. He had yet to slip or stumble or look at all unsure of any footfall. After the slight delay Megan went back to warmup to do some rapid fire transitions to make sure she had some rideability, then they went in for their round.
The course was set on the softer side for sure, it looked a little small and nothing was particularly spooky or difficult. It was a bit loopy though, with lots of turns and bends. Presto naturally didn’t look twice at anything and the round was pretty steady, aside from the outside 5 stride to 2 stride line that he REALLY thought he wanted to do in a 4 but Megan insisted that he must do in 5. Party pooper (Presto’s words). He lightly tapped a couple rails but nothing came down… I think his shape in the air is getting a little better.
y’all, lookit his jompies face
He did have time penalties though, as did literally everyone except 3 people. Yes, that’s correct, only 3 people made the time out of dozens of rounds. I was standing there for a while during a few different divisions and even people who made pretty freakin tidy turns and left out strides were getting time penalties, and we’re talking an average of around 15 seconds over – not a small amount. I have a strong suspicion that it was either wheeled incorrectly or the math was incorrect, because there’s no way that a tidy round with appropriate pace should be that far over time. I personally felt like the time should have been adjusted early on in the day when it was first realized that no one was getting it (because, ya know, the last thing we should want to do at a schooling show on muddy ground is potentially encourage people to try to make tighter turns and go faster), but it was what it was. Presto’s round was very appropriately ridden, both pace-wise and path-wise. He was happy and eager to jump around and looked plenty confident and forward-thinking, so you can’t be unhappy about that.
still not impressed by these fences in the least
After stadium I hosed him off, let him graze for a bit, and then he went back to his stall and fan to get away from the heat.
They didn’t finalize the XC course maps until later in the afternoon, because they were still out there checking the footing and deciding which fences needed to be taken off. The entire far field was extremely wet, along with patches all along basically the first half of the course. In the end 6 jumps were removed from the Novice (2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 12) leaving them with 13 efforts. There were definitely still some really boggy areas on the course, especially around the water and the stretch in between 5 and 8, but it all seemed manageable enough for Presto. All the jumps looked totally fine for him too, pretty straightforward, and I didn’t anticipate that he’d have issues with any of it. Which is… kind of a nice feeling to have at a horse’s second event and first Novice. I figured if anything he might spook a bit at the bridge crossings between the fields, which are narrow and dropped off on each side about 10-15 feet down to a creek. Those bridge crossings scare even some of the most veteran horses sometimes. By this point he’d seen them a couple times though, and they had to cross one even just going to and from the barn, so hopefully by Sunday morning it would be moot.
4 to 5
14A and B
The teeniest last fence ever
Sunday morning went by quick juggling Megan’s four horses, since she had two in the Prelim and two in the Novice. It was also extremely hot and sticky and just disgusting outside… watching her get on horse after horse was making ME hot. But we shuffled through them all pretty quickly, and Presto was the last of her group to go, just before 10am. He’d had to wait by XC warmup in his bridle so we could switch her saddle over to him after she got off the other Novice horse (something he had to do all weekend, which is good for him). We were standing sort of near the water while we waited and every time a horse came through he watched them very intently. I think if he could talk there would have been a lot of very enthusiastic Buddy The Elf type of cheerful feedback from Presto “Look at you, running and jomping! You look amazing! That’s incredible! WOW! You’re so fast!” while he watched the other horses go.
By the time Megan got on him I think the searing sun had baked any possible wildness out of him, because he went straight to business. She spent all of about 5 minutes w/t/c, jumped two jumps, and went straight to the start box.
We couldn’t see the first few jumps in the other field, but soon enough he popped out of the trees on his way to 8. He jumped the house, cantered through the water (like a big kid!), through the swamp and over the ramp at 11, then the little hanging log at 13. That all looked very easy. Hillary and I jumped on her golf cart to follow him over to the next field (it was too bouncy to try to video but it was kinda fun to follow along with him from a distance). There was a nice galloping stretch between 13 and 14AB, and you could see him starting to click into his gallop a little bit. He jumped the combination at 14AB beautifully out of stride, swung around to 15 which also jumped great, and then disappeared from view again into the trees. He popped back out pretty quickly though, having no trouble with 16 or 17, and cantered easily over the little ramp at the last. It was a really easy and very smooth round – quite professional!
He had a double clear round, finishing in 4th place. Most importantly though, he again put together three solid phases, and managed to make some clear improvements over his first show despite not having worked much in between. He’s in that phase where he’s learning so fast, and his confidence in his job is very evident. The XC especially seems to be his strongest phase, he just eats it right up.
With that we’ve got ourselves a Novice pony! Next up Presto is heading to Chatt (knock on wood that he doesn’t do anything dumb between now and then anyway) in Georgia for the first two weekends in July to tackle his first YEH class and run the Novice there. I get to go with him, so I can’t wait!
Well that horse show was… something. It was considerably muddier than I expected, with plenty of standing water and even more boggy mud. You know what horse is a terrible freaking mudder?
I’ve never really ridden one that feels as terrible in mud as Henry does, but bless his heart he just really sucks at dealing with conditions like that and always has. I can’t even really describe how bad it feels. He balls himself up and gets angry, and loses all confidence in where he’s putting his feet. His little downhill short-strided way of going really doesn’t help things. The only time we’ve ever really had problems at shows with him has been when it’s muddy. Plus he’s not drilled and tapped at the moment because, ya know, he’s not really showing right now, so I didn’t have the option of putting studs in (I definitely would have if I could, that probably would have helped significantly). So… I was pretty skeptical about Henry’s ability to horse show as soon as I saw the footing.
not his cup of tea
I hacked him on Friday when I got there and he felt ok in the higher areas of the field, so I was hoping it would dry enough by the next morning to be passable. I decided to do dressage and see how he felt, and well… that was a shitshow. As soon as he got down there in that boggy ring he got super up and down, and I ended up just avoiding the muddiest parts of the ring (had to kind of chuckle at the “not accurate circle” and “did not use corner” comments… yes ma’am you are 100% correct, that was intentional). Honestly though by the second friggin circle I almost just stopped him and retired, it felt that unpleasant. A few horses pulled shoes, some struggled as much as Henry did, and others didn’t even seem to notice the mud. Henry though – he just was not handling that footing at-the-heck-all, so I went and scratched him after dressage. The footing in the showjumping was a lot better than that dressage ring (except for a couple of the corners) but I didn’t see a point in potentially causing a problem or rattling his confidence over a Novice round at a schooling show. I’d rather be overly cautious and save him for another day. Plus it was WAY hotter and more humid than the forecast had originally called for, and y’all know that’s really hard weather for him. Just not worth it. So, Henry’s weekend ended very early.
the angriest chonk in the squishiest ring
Presto on the other hand… he was one of the horses that didn’t even seem to notice that it was muddy. That kid has always been pretty good on his feet and on all different surfaces and that’s definitely true under saddle too. So, we’ll recap his show experience instead.
Henry was NOT pleased to see him, there was much squealing
They allowed schooling the day before the show started, so Megan took advantage of that and got him out to pop over some stuff. The plan right now is to do the YEH at Chatt in July, and 1) the 4yo YEH in the second half of the year includes a lot of Novice, 2) Chatt is pretty big and visually imposing anyway. Megan entered him in the Novice this weekend for that reason, but the Novice at this show was still soft, especially compared to Chatt, so jumping a couple bigger or more challenging things was a smart decision. Plus, like… Presto has yet to notice height or complexity in anything that’s been asked of him. He’s bold and willing and finds it all pretty easy. Megan hopped over a few smaller fences to warm up, then did a couple of Training combinations and called it a day.
It’s easy to forget how little this horse has really done and seen, or that he’s only been in training for 4 months, he comes at it so naturally. In the month since his first show at Texas Rose he’s had most of that time off, and had only jumped once. He’s only XC schooled a few times ever. But it just… makes perfect sense to him. Plus Megan has developed him well and prepared his basics so that the jumps just come more easily, and he definitely doesn’t find it to be physically challenging at all. I don’t think you’d look at him and guess he was as inexperienced as he really is. Definitely a different caliber horse than I’ve had before (plus, ya know.. never had the benefit of being able to put one in full time pro training, which… makes a huge difference)!
On Saturday for dressage, his warmup got a little bit interesting when a train came through. The edge of the warmup area has a fairly busy train track, and it is LOUD and kinda scary to see a massive train speeding by through the trees. He got a little worried and wound up (as many horses do there) but what I really liked about it is that he was able to go back to work and forget it once the train had passed. He doesn’t carry the tension around in his brain the way Henry does, or work himself up into brain overload. He has a moment, and then goes about his business again. It only took a few minutes to get him back together, and he was able to go in the ring and put down a solid test, train completely forgotten.
He scored 32.9, which was about a point higher than Texas Rose, but I thought it was a better test. He was more consistent in the contact and not wanting to look around/gawk quite as much. He maybe was a little less free in his ground cover, but given the footing I think that’s understandable. The stretchy bits are still hard for him (there’s so much to see, and wouldn’t you rather SEE ALL THE THINGS than stretch your head down?) but he did show a tad more inclination to want to reach down for the bit in the stretch movements in this test than he did in the last one. Considering that he hasn’t worked that much between the two shows, I thought there was still a clear difference, even if the score didn’t show it. Either way though, 32.9 is super respectable for his second ever dressage test and first Novice. He beat me and Henry by like 4 points hahahaha (literally no one is surprised by that, right?).
That was good enough to leave him sitting in 4th after dressage, off to a good start!
