Category: Uncategorized

Y’all know how much I love to dye things. Usually here it’s been tack, but way back in the day (and here is where I shall date myself a bit for sure) I also used to dye a lot of TS breeches. That was when they were a 95% cotton blend (which honestly sucked, that fabric was terrible and tended to fade badly over time) so they were really easy to dye with RIT in the washing machine. I would buy used faded ones for cheap and re-dye them. It has admittedly been a while since I tried to dye any items of clothing, though. The thought hasn’t even entered my mind, to be honest. And then someone posted on COTH about dyeing their old sunshirts, which Kelly was quick to try, and DUH I dunno why that thought had never even crossed my mind before.

I did have a couple old Kastels that I was getting close to retiring. One was originally white with purple zipper/accents but over the years had turned to a sad dishwater gray. The other was originally buttercup yellow but had faded to just a sad pastel.

Given my two starting colors, I settled on light blue for the white one and burgundy for the yellow. These shirts are a nylon blend, so you need a dye specifically for synthetic fabrics. The COTH poster and Kelly both used the RIT DyeMore synthetic line, so I stopped there first. They had a light blue, so I got that, but they didn’t have burgundy and I didn’t particularly care for their other colors (or wasn’t sold on how they would look over yellow). So after some research (thanks, The Googles!) I decided to try Jacquard Acid Dye.

The blue arrived first, so the white shirt was the first victim. These types of dyes require a stove top method, so you need a big pot (I used our soup pot because it was the biggest one we have – it worked fine) and a stove and a plastic or metal utensil to stir with. I followed the instructions on the bottle exactly, pre-wetting the shirt, getting my huge almost-boiling pot of water (with the bottle of dye and a splash of dish washing soap) ready, and then in went the shirt.

It requires some effort as far as regular stirring, and keeping the temperature of the water steady. The super hot water is the crucial element that you need for the dye to work, so you will have to be close-by and available to keep a pretty constant eye on the pot. I did make a bit of a mess on my stove top when I splashed some water out during my stirring, but it cleaned up fine. The color was a bit slow to get to it’s full blue, so I kept it in for 45 minutes (remembering of course that colors look slightly darker when wet, so I wanted it to look just a bit past the color I ultimately was trying to achieve).

Once it was done I pulled it out, and again followed the instructions for rinsing/washing (it’s all on the bottle and Kelly talks about it in her post so I won’t repeat it again) and this was the final result:

Which in the sunlight is a really pretty sky blue (the color is called Kentucky Sky, which is a perfect name for it).

With impeccable timing, my burgundy Jacquard dye showed up the next day. Admittedly I was really looking forward to this one most, because I’ve wanted a burgundy sunshirt for a long time but either a) didn’t like the tone of the ones I found (too red) or b) just couldn’t justify yet another shirt.

The Jacquard dye is definitely different from the RIT. The RIT is a liquid and comes in a bottle – all you do is add the liquid to your water (plus the bit of dish soap). The Jacquard is a powdered pigment, which you add to the water along with 1/4 cup of vinegar (the vinegar is the “acid” in this situation – don’t be scared off by the “acid dye” name). The Jacquard is available in a lot more colors, but otherwise they’re quite similar as far as process goes. Again I prepared the dye water exactly according to the directions on the label. The shirt went in, and immediately I was like OH YEAH HERE WE GO! Right off the bat it was already a mauve color.

But of course, I was looking for a deep merlot, so I let it keep going. I expected it to take the full 40 minutes to reach that darkest pigment that I was looking for, but honestly… it was there in about 20.

When I first took it out of the dye I thought maybe I had gone a bit TOO far, it almost looked dark purple, but by the time I was done rinsing and washing/drying, the color was absolute perfection. Exactly the deep gorgeous merlot burgundy shade that I’ve been looking for.

It seemed like a waste to just toss the rest of that gorgeous dye down the drain, so I quickly went and raided my closet for something else to toss in. I came across an old pair of charcoal For Horses tights that I didn’t really love because they were gray, so I just kinda shrugged and thought… why the hell not. The label was long gone so I wasn’t sure what the fabric content was but I figured worst case scenario they were mostly poly and the dye just wouldn’t take. I suspected they were more of a blend though, so I had a hunch that they would at least take some of the color… spoiler alert, it actually took a lot.

Of course, since these started out as a deeper gray that had blue-ish tones, the breeches went more toward the purple side of the spectrum by adding burgundy. I only left them in for 15 minutes, because by that point they had gotten to a really pretty dark eggplant color (yet another color I’ve been trying to find for a long time and haven’t succeeded). Much prettier than gray!

I’m super pleased. These are 3 items of clothing that I was pretty close to tossing or giving away and now I kind of love them even more than I did originally. Especially the merlot shirt. I’m obsessed.

This isn’t a very hard process either, just… follow the instructions. There are also about a billion youtube videos about it, if you would feel better having a visual before you try it. For me, I preferred the Jacquard dye over the RIT, at least for these mostly nylon sunshirts. It reached it’s peak color in about half the time and IMO is more vibrant, plus they have a wider range of colors. It does require a little vinegar additive though, which might be a deterrent if you don’t have some or don’t want to buy some. Ultimately they both got the job done in the end, and both brands are about the same price ($4-5) depending on where you buy from.

Some things to keep in mind before you start dyeing everything in your closet:

1. you must know what the fabric content is, and buy the right type of dye for that fabric. Cotton dyes won’t work on synthetics, polyester needs it’s own special type of dye, etc. Look at your labels before you purchase and do some Googling, there’s a lot of info about what types of dye to use on what types of fabric.
2. Read ALL the directions on the bottle before you start and follow them to a T. If you don’t, your results will probably be shite.
3. Take into account your starting color. Obviously you aren’t going to be able to take a navy shirt to a light purple, or putting blue over yellow will get you a greenish hue, etc. The color wheel is your friend.
4. It won’t dye plastic/metal. Notice the contrasting zippers on my shirts – those stay the same color that you started out with. So keep that in mind when choosing a new color – how will the old zipper color look on the new shirt color? Maybe you don’t want a purple zipper on an orange shirt (or maybe you do).
5. This type of dye won’t work on anything that’s polyester. Hence, if the garment is stitched with polyester thread, the thread will not take the dye (you can clearly see contrasting thread color on my burgundy one, which I don’t mind, but you might not like it). That will be more obvious the darker you go.

If you have any old shirts that need new life or you just don’t like the color of, this is a pretty cheap way to revamp them. Overall I’m super pleased! And kind of sad that I don’t have any more crappy old shirts to dye…

We need to talk about Presto’s ability to tell what day it is. Horses can’t really count, right? They don’t own calendars. They have no concept of days.

RIGHT?

But Presto is equal parts adorable and creepy with his ability to tell which day is his ride day. We’ve settled into a routine where it’s always Sunday, unless there’s something special going on (like his Saturday trip to the XC facility). But, ya know… pretty much always Sunday. Sometimes I lunge him on Wednesday, and I usually bring him in and groom in on Saturday, but Sunday is his Funday (do horses classify being ridden as a “funday”? I dunno.).

Anyway, for the past many Sundays, he acts completely different than he does on other days. I always ride Henry first, since it’s cooler earlier in the day, and then go get Presto. And on Sundays Presto has taken to coming up to the fence and staring intently at me, from the second I start untacking/bathing Henry, right up until I come get him. Like he leaves his friends, comes to the fence, and straight up STARES at me. For as long as it takes until I come out there to retrieve him. As if he knows it’s his day and his turn is next. But horses can’t know that… right?

Once I noticed that he was doing this, I started to pay more attention to what he does on his non-riding days. During the week he pretty much never pays me any mind. He will come up to the fence by the arena and watch me ride Henry for a few minutes sometimes, but he never does the staring-at-me-and-standing-by-the-fence-as-soon-as-I-dismount thing. I go out and give him cookies on most weekdays, so if there were days where you’d think he’d be stalking me, it would be those. I don’t even halter him, I just walk out and give him a cookie and leave. But no… on those days he’ll usually walk up and meet me halfway, but he’s never waiting for me and watching me. He doesn’t do it on his Saturday grooming days either.

So I started thinking, okay maybe I’m doing something different on Sundays and he’s picking up on it. But… no. I’m at the barn a little earlier than I am on weekdays, but the same general time as Saturdays. I always ride Henry first. There’s nothing different about my routine between the days that I can figure out.

So how the heck does he know? What’s cluing him in to the fact that yes indeed, it’s his turn next? Or is all of this just completely random coincidence (that’s happened at least 5 times in a row now, since I’ve noticed) and it just so happens that he picks his riding days to display this behavior?

I mean, I’m not complaining. At all. I think it’s really cute that he clearly wants so badly to come in and do stuff and go on adventures. My heart grows 3 sizes each time I catch him staring at me and demanding I come get him. He wouldn’t do that if he didn’t enjoy it. But still, it’s a little odd. The practical side of me says it has to be coincidence of course, right? How the heck would he know? But after so many times in a row… I’m not so sure.

You’d think that since it’s 9000 degrees here in Texas, these horses would be subdued and well-behaved. YOU’D THINK. But no, both Henry and Presto have been up to no good, in their own unique ways.

Henry has been… honestly kind of wild. Which makes no sense because it’s so hot he can barely breathe. Apparently oxygen isn’t really a necessary component? I’ve been riding him fairly lightly since I don’t want to actually kill him in this weather (the high today is 105. Not the “feels like”, the actual friggin temperature.) and he got an extra day off last week. I came out a little earlier than usual yesterday to jump him before it got too hot and good god I was riding a bronco. He squealed and leaped his way through almost every corner before and after every jump. It’s kind of hard to see a great distance when your horse’s head is between his knees most of the time. He seemed completely non-plussed by it though… *squealleapdolpinwheeJOMPleapsquealdolphinJOMP*. I have nothing but eye rolls for him right now (he’s lucky that I find his particular brand of naughtiness to be pretty amusing). He might spend most of his days huffing and puffing because of the heat but clearly he is not suffering.

I did do an ACTUAL dressage ride on him last week, like… in my dressage saddle and with his dressage bridle/bit. I thought he might be terrible since that was our first real dressage ride since… coughFebruarycough… but he was actually pretty good. He’s not as strong and as fit as he was a year ago when he was show-ready (we were at Coconino a year ago, btw. Sob.) but otherwise, he honestly felt almost the damn same. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I mean it’s awesome that he hasn’t regressed, but also… for real, we can go 5 months without taking this very seriously and it doesn’t really matter? I used to do dressage 3 times a week for what reason exactly? Ha. Hahahaha (more sobbing).

Presto, on the other hand, has been excellent under saddle. Yesterday I took him out for his second solo hack, but this time I skipped the arena work and just got on him at the barn and headed straight out.

He definitely had more pep in his step this time, just heading out “cold turkey”, but he was still really well-behaved. His ears get so busy as he tries to take in everything at once, it’s pretty cute. He seems to really enjoy exploring, because he marches right around there by himself like he’s totally entranced. This time we didn’t really have to stop to take in any scary things either, he was pretty bold. The only thing I didn’t really love was that he has this tendency to want to trot DOWN the hills for some reason, which… he’s super narrow and he’s 3, thus it kinda feels like you’re gonna tumble into a heap and die. So we had to do a few halts on the downhills. The first time I did it, I kind of forgot that his verbal “whoa” is REALLY sharp (I almost never say whoa when I’m riding him, it’s mostly a lunging cue. Usually when I’m riding I stick to his gait cues “walk/trot/canter” or if I need something to steady the tempo I tend to say “easy”, but his whoa from the seat is pretty solid so I just don’t really use the verbal cue) and when I said whoa he screeched to a halt on that hill so fast that I about lost my balance. Note to self: be real judicious about the use of “whoa” under saddle, it works like an e-brake.

While Presto is the better-behaved one under saddle right now, surely you know he’s never exempt from his own personal brand of naughtiness. And this time, it came about in the form of murder. Not just murder, but terrible gruesome murder complete with dismemberment and an attempted framing.

Those are the body parts of Ball #3. Ball #1 lasted months before he finally bit it hard enough to put a quarter sized hole in it. Ball #2 lasted about the same amount of time, and it just had a slow leak from being rolled through a cactus, nothing dramatic or violent. Ball #3 just debuted last weekend, and I came out on Saturday to find this particularly horrific crime scene. I dunno what the hell Presto did, but he did it very thoroughly. I can’t be sure of who actually popped the ball (I found a hole that looks suspiciously like the same teeth marks that led to the demise of Ball #1, though, which would point to Presto since JB tends to play with it more with his feet than his teeth) but there’s zero doubt at who mutilated the body. That’s TRADEMARK Presto. He ripped the cover apart, pulled the dead ball out, and then tore chunks off of it before depositing the largest piece over the fence into Henry’s field, as if dumping the body on Henry’s property would somehow shift the blame. It was in 9 pieces. Total massacre.

So, ball #4 is on it’s way. I apologize in advance for what’s going to happen to you, Ball #4.

Clearly this terrible disgusting heat hasn’t taken much out of the horses, if they’re both still managing to be cheeky. Me, on the other hand. I feel like a walking swamp creature.

You know it’s bad when you have sweat dripping off your second chin like a faucet before you’re even done tacking up. Ugh. Is it October yet?

The 2020 foals are taking a bit of a break this week from being quite so actively adorable, given the latest heat wave and triple digit temps. And since breeding season is pretty much over, I figured now would be the perfect time to introduce the expected class of 2021! We’ve got SIX confirmed (with the possibility of one more), making it the biggest expected foal crop yet.

The first is beautiful TB mare Peyton (Remi’s dam) in foal to 5* eventing stallion Leprince des Bois.

Peyton

Leprince

We were able to see Leprince in person at the Burghley Stallion Show last year and he was a really lovely horse. Leprince had quite a career, starting out with a bang early by placing in the top 5 in the French Eventing Championships as both a 5yo and a 6yo. From there he worked his way up to the 5* level with German rider Kai Ruder, competing at Badminton, Burghley, Pau, and Luhmuhlen. After he stepped down from 5* he was a young rider’s horse, winning the German Junior Eventing Championships, and in his retirement to stud he’s still sound enough to be ridden regularly at age 21.  This foal will be 82% blood.

We also have a couple of full siblings en route (thanks to embryo transfer) with two foals from Chanel Z by Faustino de Tili.

Chanel

Frosty

After a couple years of battling various breeding issues these will be the first WTW foals for Chanel! She jumped through the 1.40m Grand Prix level herself and has two offspring in Europe competing up to 1.45 as well. Faustino de Tili, also known as Frosty (which I think is ridiculously adorable – COTH did a “Behind the Stall Door” column with him if you’d like to read more about him), has been tearing up the GP circuit the past few years and has jumped through 1.60m level. It should be fun to see these two full siblings and how they compare!

There’s also one other embryo transfer foal on the way, this one by Utrillo van de Heffinck out of Lasilissa.

Utrillo is a very well known stallion who jumped through the 1.60m level and has produced the same. He is an excellent, very proven producer of top showjumpers through the highest levels. Lissa herself competed through 1.50m, so this should be a really nice one! We got to see some Utrillo foals at his home farm in France last year and they were lovely and intelligent looking horses.

And last but not least, I hope y’all like Oakley and Ollie, because they’ve both got full siblings coming in 2021! Daisy and Stormie are back in foal to French sportpony phenom Usandro Tilia Derlenn.

Maybe Michelle will finally get her grulla (well… one that won’t turn gray *ahem OLLIE*) this time?

Fingers crossed – there should be a little bit of everything in 2021!

It finally happened. I finally felt the twinge of disappointment and sadness about not showing this season. Well, let me clarify. I’m still not sure that I miss the actual showing aspect (aside from XC, of course), but I sure do miss Coconino itself and my two week summer escape/vacation/adult summer camp. All year in my facebook memories, old pics of lots of different horse shows have been popping up. My reactions to them have ranged somewhere from “oh yeah that was a fun one” to “god that was hot and humid and miserable, never again” (looking at you, Chatt). And then the Coconino memories started popping up this month and I felt my first true sense of longing. I had really wanted to take both boys this year, Henry to show and Presto to just hack around. They ultimately had to cancel their summer shows, which eased the FOMO, but it didn’t really make me any less sad about it. I absolutely love that place.

It’s nice to know I’m not totally broken though. I was starting to wonder. I have to admit that I thought that there was a big silver lining to the horse world’s forced covid break from showing. For the first time I saw lots of pros posting on social media about trail riding, or riding bareback, or doing other fun/silly things with their horses. The same seemed to be true of everyone who was able to keep riding and accessing their horses during that time. It was almost like we all took one big collective deep breath and there, for a hot minute, we were all back to being plugged in to what made us fall in love with the sport in the first place. For the sake of riding and training progress, maybe the forced break wasn’t great, but for horse and rider mental heath… I don’t think it was a bad thing.

I also think that a big part of not missing it as much as I felt like I should is because I’ve admittedly become a bit disillusioned with upper level horse sports in general over the past several years, and like it or not, it’s trickled down a bit. Looking back I think it really started with a big name rider/trainer/coach saying that the USA has to “be prepared to win at all costs”. That comment latched on to my brain and dug in deep. It still makes me feel queasy.

It got hammered down a bit more after listening to some interviews with top level riders that, while they spoke kindly of their horses, definitely gave off a “horse as a means to an end” type of vibe. I know there is a huge difference in people who are trying to make it as a top rider in the sport vs people who just have a horse or two or three that they deeply love and are committed to having fun with. We want different things out of it, and that’s okay. I used to be the former and have kind of morphed into the latter so I see both sides.

In my head I think of it as “horse oriented” vs “goal oriented”. The former buys the horse and if necessary adjusts their dreams/goals in accordance to what that horse needs/wants, whereas the latter has very specific goals for themselves and buys/sells the horses that will or won’t get them to said goals. And there’s nothing wrong with either, in my mind. It’s 1000% fine to have clear cut goals for yourself in your athletic endeavors. I don’t think everyone has to keep a horse forever, not by any means, or stick with a situation that makes them unhappy. We don’t all have to approach or enjoy the sport the same way. But I do think that everyone has a responsibility to the horse, and it admittedly bothers me to hear them talked about as if they’re a piece of equipment vs a living breathing animal. Used up, pushed to the limit, and spat out. Putting bandaids on physical issues to try to eke out one more show or season, or resorting to some barbaric methods just to gain some advantage. Not everyone does that, of course, it’s just a small percentage, but now that I’m really listening for it… I hear it and see it more than I’d like in the show world.

Most recently was the Andy Kocher debacle with his electrified spurs. I kinda feel like at this point nothing surprises me anymore (especially from that guy, whose list of horse welfare offenses could fill up a CVS receipt). It’s infuriating to think about how long he’s been getting away with this. It’s infuriating that he was still winning. It’s infuriating to think that people around him KNOW what’s going on, likely including some of the owners, and they felt it was permissible. It’s infuriating that even now, in the face of a mountain of photographic evidence, people are still defending it (god if there’s one thing the last year has taught me it’s that no matter what the atrocity, there will always be people waiting to defend it). And it’s especially heartbreaking to see a top level judge/official say things like “you would be surprised at how many top level riders use these”.

Ugh. It’s disgusting.

It’s all been weighing on me a lot a lot over the past year or so especially, and I’m still grappling with how to get my brain around it. I love horse sports. I always will. The things horses will do for us is amazing. But there’s a dark side to it, too, and I don’t know how to (nor do I want to) compartmentalize that. It has made me think long and hard about my own motivations and decisions though, that’s for damn sure. I don’t want to be someone that uses a horse up, or ekes every last bit of “usefulness” out of them. I don’t want to become willing to slap bandaids over physical issues or resort to questionable training tactics. No competition is worth that to me. It’s repulsive, and it’s stained my view of everything.

So it kind of makes sense that the first memory in my feed that really made me remember what’s so great about horse showing was Coconino. That’s the show where I get to live 40′ away from my horse’s stall for 2 weeks straight, able to see him any time of day or night. That’s the show where we get to hack through the pine trees before or after our rides, and just unplug from the world and enjoy the view. That’s the show where the cool weather and crisp mornings make him happy and comfortable. That’s the show where I sit outside of his stall every morning before anyone else wakes up and share breakfast with him. That’s the show where I’ve always felt most connected to my horse, no matter the outcome. That’s the show where I’ve inevitably driven home bursting with pride for my horse and all that he’s done for me, whether we had a ribbon or not.

That’s the epitome of what I love about horse showing, and that’s why I do it. I remember now.