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It’s been a hot minute since I did a review post! I have a few things on the docket to review over the next couple months, but I figured we’d start with the most budget friendly item: the Kunkle Everyday Riding Gloves.

The Kunkle brand isn’t new, but they’ve recently started branching out into more designs than just their standard black show glove. It’s been a popular brand in the h/j world in particular, winning over a lot of diehard Roeckl fans. Admittedly these are the first ones I’ve actually had, mostly because I tend to buy “fun” gloves and the plain black ones just never called to me.

But, ya know…. slap some purple accents on them, put them at an irresistible price point ($29 is basically free these days for gloves – don’t argue with horse girl math), and what do you know, I’m in. It’s also worth mentioning that I have a bit of a glove problem obsession and may or may not have *mumbles a number that definitely ends with teen* different pairs of gloves, only like 3 of which I use on a regular basis, because I am a harsh critic and a bit of a weird fit. So, with all of that said, lets get into it.

Fit/Sizing

I have big hands for a woman my size, and quite long fingers. It’s very common for the fingers of gloves to be too short for me and I end up either not being able to hold the reins well or I bust through the end of the fingers (for example, me and Heritage brand gloves just cannot coexist ever). I would say the fit on the Kunkle are very average – the fingers aren’t too short for me, but I could use another half inch to make them perfect. Which means that pretty much everyone else in the world will fit in them just fine. I like that they don’t come up too far on the wrist… I hate it when they’re so long they interfere awkwardly with a long sleeve shirt. I ordered my regular glove size, 8.5, and they fit true to size.

Durability

I’m almost 4 months into pretty much daily use and they’re holding up remarkably well so far. I mean… I have a pair of Roeckls that cost twice as much that I popped a seam on within the first 3 weeks. These bad boys aren’t showing any wear yet (I use rubber reins, before anyone asks) and the stitching and seams are all pristine so far. Ask me again in another 6-8 months, but so far I have high hopes for the long term durability of these.

Grip

I ride a ginormous elephant and live in Florida’s left armpit, so grip is important. They’ve been through rain, super super super sweaty rides, and everything from dressage rides to jump schools to gallops. So far so good with the grip. I also like that they’re touchscreen friendly, which is a must-have feature for me at this point.

Style

There is nothing particularly groundbreaking about the general design – it’s a synthetic leather palm and fingers with a mesh back. But for the above reasons (re: armpit) I really appreciate the breathability and airflow that a mesh back provides. As far as looks go, I love the little purple accents with the purple piping, purple stitching, and purple logo. I like purple but not enough to want a full purple glove, so for me these are a happy medium.

Value

As I’ve already said, I think these are pretty darn cheap as far as gloves go, especially for comparable styles. I feel like pretty much everything is $40+ these days, so for a lighter-weight, durable glove with the grippy synthetic leather, the price point is really nice.

My only complaints are that 1: I wish they dried a little faster. To be fair, this is a problem I have with literally all my gloves except the thin fabric ones, because Florida. It’s just moist AF all the time, there’s no getting around it. 2: selfishly I wish the fingers were just a tad longer, although I know that would probably make them too long for most people.

The TLDR version of the rest of this post: if you’re a fan of the classic Roeckl gloves, you’re going to like the Kunkle. They have a similar design and feel but seem to be more durable, and the price point on these are a major selling point. Even though I’m picky about gloves, these have wormed their way into my rotation of Top Tier gloves that I always reach for, which I think says a lot.

Exciting news guys! It went almost a week without raining!

Of course, as I type this it’s currently pouring outside. But ya know… it wasn’t swampy there for a minute. And a couple days the humidity even stayed below 60%. It was like a little mini-autumn preview. Short-lived, yes, but appreciated. And a reminder that this summer thing ain’t gonna last forever.

The other thing that signals an impending changing of the seasons: horse show entries. Starting with the schooling shows, knocking off the rust, but the first fall recognized officially opened for entries this week. It do be coming! I feel like August is always a surprise… at the beginning of August you’re like whew middle of summer, and then by the end of August you’re like omg only a month til OCTOBER. At least that’s how my brain works. It’s kind of a surprise every time. Also, AECs are next week. Like, what? Already? (we qualified at M again this year but I just don’t think I’ll ever be convinced to spend a week of my time and a lot of money to haul far away for a horse show in August)

We had another lesson this week with Ellie, which went well. She thinks Presto looks stronger every time she sees him. I do go home and work on all my homework (which she always gives me, it’s delightful to me) studiously every week, so progress is rewarding. He does feel good, albeit this week he decided to be a very distracted version of himself, staring off into the distance at literally anything that caught his eye. That typically means he’s gotten bored of what he’s doing. So sorry if I’m holding you back, my dude. Get used to it.

After the lesson we chatted about a rough plan for the fall and what it might look like. Granted, it’s a horse, so. Will it actually go to plan? Probably not. But I’ve got an entry in for the M/T division at the POP show next weekend, and then we’ll prob do an M CT at the Majestic schooling show a couple weeks after that. I’d really like Ellie or Alex to do some training rides on him a little bit, I always just feel like he learns so much from a good ride. After those two schooling shows we can look closer at what’s next and how we want to structure the recognized shows this fall.

In Rubes news, the bug situation has improved a bit since it’s been less swampy. He still takes violent exception to the gigantic horseflies that come out for a couple hours around dusk, so he’s been coming in after dinner, but he’s settled back into daytime turnout at least. The last couple days he’s been able to go sans fly sheet, but that’s kind of a day to day decision. Poor dude. Plopping a lifelong Northerner into Florida in the middle of summer really isn’t the best.

Henry has remained his trusty emotional support animal, although Henry has also gotten a bit less interested in him as time has gone on.

I did give up and put front shoes back on Henry this week. His feet just weren’t having it, I couldn’t turn him out at all without boots on, and the boots cause problems of their own with our coarse sand. It wasn’t improving after two cycles despite my best efforts, so… I quit. Back into shoes. Plus like, he really needs to be able to be ridden some, his topline is just entirely gone and it’s not doing him any favors in general. I don’t love my farrier bill that’s two full sets, one half set, and a trim every 5 weeks, but it is what it is. Horses are good at being expensive.

This weekend I’m gonna take Presto over for a gallop, since it’s really time to buckle down a bit more on his fitness if we’re really going back to this horse show bidness. Can’t wait to have a super fit Presto when that first cold front of the season finally hits (whenever that may be). Yee-freakin-haw.

The weather gods have continued to play jokes on me. Like last weekend, when I had signed up and paid for a dressage test at the Majestic show, actually learned it ahead of time and practiced it, and was almost… kind of looking forward to trying out the Prelim test for the first time. I had even cleaned and packed all my shit the afternoon before and gotten everything ready to go. Really, I brought this on myself I guess, now that I think about it. Far too much preparation.

Last Saturday was hot and gross but ya know… we’re used to that by now. The radar stayed blessedly clear, and I got Presto out after lunch to groom him and get him ready to go. After I loaded him up I checked the radar again, and some storms were starting to pop up. As I was driving to Majestic, the sky in my rear view mirror started looking blacker and blacker. By the time I got there 20 minutes later and went to get my number, you could hear the thunder, and there was now a red blob of a storm on the radar headed right towards the show. Estimated arrival time? Literally like 5 minutes before my ride time.

But it was just the one blob, and Florida do be like that, so I just plopped myself in the trailer to wait it out with Presto. But as it went along, the storm got nastier and nastier, with a TON of lightning. Florida is the lightning capital of the US for a reason, but this was definitely an extreme. There were several very close lightning strikes that scared the bejeesus out of me.

Naturally the show went on a storm/lightning hold, and as that storm started to pass over us, I checked the radar again. In the time it took for the first blob to pass over (it grew tremendously as it did so, by the way), another one had popped up behind it, also headed straight at us. This is the point at which I was like nope ok, I’m out. Mostly because 1) Presto’s quarter was starting to run out. 2) the footing in those grass rings isn’t great right after a lot of rain, so what was the point. 3) Have I mentioned I hate lightning? I was ready to bolt. Every bit of desire I had to ride the Prelim test had quickly fled my body.

So I just… got back in my truck and drove home. Come to find out later they actually ended up cancelling the rest of the show anyway, so even if I had waited it would have been for naught. That was a really annoying way to sacrifice an entry fee. Plus I still had to get ready and drive there. Boo. But ya know… that’s a Florida summer afternoon for you. The storms can absolutely come out of nowhere, and they’re violent when they do.

Womp womp.

But the weather cleared up within a couple hours, and that night we were able to head over to WEC to watch the last Saturday night Grand Prix of the summer season. I don’t think I’ve been to one since… last summer? But we met up with some friends, had some dinner, and watched some nice horses jump under the lights.

Monday was my birthday, which was also the day Rubes decided he had cellulitis and needed an emergency vet call. Thanks buddy, I love getting antibiotics for my birthday, what a great gift. He felt very sorry for himself and was all the drama about the entire ordeal pretty much all week.

I did get a couple things with some of my birthday money though (aside from a vet bill). I’d heard a few people rave about the KL Select breeches so I tried some on last week and absolutely loved them. I’m so picky about fabric (especially in the summer) and have a hard time finding breeches that don’t gap at the waist or have extra fabric around the tummy. These were legit the absolute perfect fit with really comfy, stretchy, lightweight fabric and I wanted 97 pairs of them immediately. Unfortunately the shop didn’t have anything in my size in colors I liked, so I went looking online and found a fun new (to me) gem of a tack shop in Ohio called Equine Essentials. They had a 15% off code for new customers, so don’t mind if I do, and when I took a few minutes to peruse their consignment section, I found the most STUNNING brand new Waldhausen sparkle noseband for $10 and a zippered Spy Coast tote for $2. Add to cart. Quite a pleasing little mini haul, plus they sent along a bag of free goodies too.

On Wednesday I had another jump lesson – my first lesson back in a couple weeks since Ellie and Alex were out of town on vacation. It was, to be fair, an absolutely SWAMPY day. 9000 degrees with 700% humidity or something like that, even at 10am. I was just walking liquid, really. Sweat was just pouring into my eyes and I couldn’t see shit. Luckily Presto is well acclimated to the weather, and to be honest I’ve been handling the heat a lot better since I’ve been swimming my 3 miles a week. It’s just helped my cardio fitness so much, and I swear I think something about the hypoxic breathing of swimming does something extra helpful when you live in an environment where you’re legit breathing as much water as you are oxygen. I’ve gotten used to having less oxygen or something? I dunno, I don’t have science to prove it, but riding in the peak of summer has been a lot easier for me this year versus years prior, even when I was doing a lot of cycling.

We kept things fairly brief since the weather was so gross, but we worked a lot on putting Presto in more of a haunches-in positioning going into the corners so that he stays more balanced and doesn’t go quite so wide behind as we come out of the turn. Sometimes we achieved it, sometimes we didn’t, but it did seem to help us both. I swear 2024 is just gonna be known as The Year of the Haunches because I feel like moving his ass left and right has been the subject of 90% of our work this year.

He feels good though, and I think we’re ready to start knocking some rust off at the schooling shows before the fall season ramps up! It feels good to be back on a more normal schedule and back in the swing of things. My ankle has been holding up pretty well… it gets sore sometimes (it def was sore the evening/next morning after the jump lesson) but I wouldn’t call it painful anymore. It’s progress!

We made it through the first hurricane of 2024! It’s funny, I think because this one was pretty weak, all things considered (just established as a Cat 1 before it made landfall) no one was really concerned about it. The number one thing you’ll see Floridians do before a minor hurricane or tropical storm? Mow their grass. Because it’s pretty much a full time job keeping the grass mowed here in the summer anyway, but if it’s not freshly mowed before it gets a bunch of rain dropped on it, you’ll be at jungle status within a few days before its dry enough to mow again. Everybody and their grandma was mowing on Sunday as it started to blow in.

We’re pretty far inland so all we typically get is some wind and rain, and that’s what we got this time too. The wind wasn’t too terrible, but man we got A TON of rain. More than any of the last hurricanes from the previous two years for sure. It just absolutely poured buckets for like 24 hours straight. And it’s been raining a lot the past month anyway, so it was water on top of water. The biggest issue we had was flooding.

I was concerned that with all the moisture and the wind we’d lose trees, and with that the secondary concern is structures, fences, or power lines. We did lose one tree but it was in an unused front area and it didn’t land on anything. We also got really lucky in that we didn’t lose power, although it flickered pretty hard a few times. Tons of people around here did lose power, there were trees down all over the place. We got lucky this time!

And even though we got something like almost 8″ of rain, as soon as it stopped actively pouring from the sky I was able to get the horses turned back out. Gotta love that Florida sandy soil… as long as it’s not a low area it dries quick and isn’t slick.

We ended up only missing one day of riding, so aside from being water-logged in our drainage areas, things have been back to normal.

My trainers were on vacation last week so no lesson last week or this week. I did take Presto over to Sweet Dixie yesterday to gallop, but it was so freakin humid that even he wasn’t that enthusiastic after the first few minutes.

I think he was also unenthusiastic because he was alone. Like really really alone, the only horse on the property. It’s always quiet there in the off season but not usually THAT quiet. He kept looking around for his BFF Wally and seemed genuinely disappointed to have no friends. The ground felt GREAT though, and he’s starting to feel stronger again (both muscularly and cardio) after all that time off he had. I’m ready to skip ahead to September so we can get past the worst of the summer and get closer to doing things again. This is truly the swampiest, most boring time of year.

Although I signed us up for a dressage test at Majestic tomorrow… Prelim A. That’ll be our first time tackling that test, which I totally definitely have memorized and have ridden through more than once. Tooooootally. Definitely.

My ride time is like 2:40pm though, which is really testing my resolve to participate. But unless it’s doing some kind of death thunderstorm I really have no reason not to, and I’ve already paid, so… let’s go? I guess?

Next week we should be back to our lesson schedule and starting to pick up some steam again, or at least be back to things that are more interesting. Now if we could turn Florida’s thermostat down a little bit, that would be superb.

Ya know that feeling when you mean to post something on Tuesday and then forget, and next thing you know it’s Thursday? Whoops. Things have been poppin’ around here! Or maybe I’m just getting old and forgetful. Maybe both.

Rubes has been going to Groundwork Kindergarten every day and he’s just a little Rhodes Scholar (Rubes Scholar?). He’s figured out that when I come to get him it means mints (these remain his favorite treat, although I’ve gotten him to eat German Horse Muffins too. He’s not very enthusiastic about anything else.) and groomies, so he always makes an absolute bee line for me. I would be flattered but it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with my services rendered. He is DOWN for a nice long full-body curry, heavy on the belly scritches.

The groundwork is doing wonders for his focus though, and him having and knowing rules and boundaries seems to help his brain settle a bit too. He’s a lot more like Henry in the brain… he’s very eager and always thinking ahead, which is good, but he can also get anticipatory and is really sensitive about being wrong. So we keep things very methodical and consistent and black and white.

The groundwork has really helped him figure out how to take a deep breath, focus, and wait for me. He’s been working on staying out of my bubble, stopping when I stop, moving away from me if I move into him, yielding his front end and his hind end, backing, and the verbal cues for whoa, walk, and trot on a circle. This week I also starting teaching him to sidepass over/park up at the mounting block, which he’s starting to understand pretty well. Oh, and he’s learned to smile a little bit, although his is considerably smaller and much slower than Presto’s.

It’s really almost no “work” but it does seem to occupy his brain pretty well, and he’s gotten into the routine. I’m pleased that, if nothing else, he’s a horse that you can now lead around anywhere and never have to even touch the lead rope, vs when he came and was accustomed to kinda dragging people around by a nose chain. For this lifestyle it is a significant improvement in his general day to day handling.

He really does detest the bugs here though, like if there’s one fly on him he thinks he’s being viciously attacked, so he wears a lot of fly gear. Mask and boots at the very least, and fly sheet when it’s not too suffocatingly hot/humid. He got his own fly sheet (from Bow Horse USA, the first thing I’ve tried from them!) so he doesn’t have to keep borrowing Presto’s. He looks absurd when he’s all dressed up, but he’s happy to be bug-free, so… whatever RubenOnRye wants I guess.

In the meantime, I had another jump lesson last week on Presto, with more course work, and it was also good, like the week before. He had one feral moment when a dog came shooting across the ring (Ellie finally got to see what I call his patented Sit And Spin maneuver) but he was really rideable about the jumps. She and Alex are out of town for the next couple weeks so lessons are on hiatus until their return.

And then on Friday Presto came in with a chunk missing out of his fetlock and a puffy leg. I feel like I deserve an award for not freaking out as much as I wanted to freak out, because my first inclination was omg what if there’s a puncture I can’t see and it’s in the joint and he’s gonna end up in the hospital with a joint infection and cellulitis and and and. I’m fine. It’s fine. There was indeed not a puncture, and with some cold-hosing and bandaging and poultice and long walks it was back to normal within a couple days.

What isn’t normal is the fact that Presto is obsessed with licking the poultice off his own leg. He’s such a weirdo about injuries or topical medications… he always wants to lick, like a dog. That’s how he ripped his stiches out last summer if you recall – with his own teeth. Something wrong with that weirdo.

Yesterday we went for a fun casual XC day with my friend Emily, just popping over a few small things so we (mostly me, who always wants to go too slow/underpowered XC) can remember our job. We ended the day by coming the bigger way through the water and he was really super. I wish it was easier/quicker for me to get myself back into the more forward/attacking XC mode… I think I really need to come out once a week and just gallop a few fences so I don’t lose the feeling entirely.

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I’m very clearly not going to be back in the swing of things well enough in time for the August Ocala recognized. I briefly debated just entering the Training, but if I’m gonna do that I might as well just do the unrecognized (which has starter through Training) a couple weeks later and spent 1/3 the money. So, meh. Instead I entered just a dressage test a couple weekends from now (the Prelim test, which I haven’t ridden yet!) at the Majestic schooling show, and then maybe I’ll enter a Modified CT or a M/T three phase at the POP schooling show. We’ll see how things are going a month from now. There’s legit no rush, but it’s prob time to start stepping it back up!