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Ya know how you try to plan things out very deliberately and life is like lols surprise? And sometimes its a bad surprise but sometimes it a good surprise? Or maybe sometimes an opportunity comes up and your gut is just like “maybe this is for you, be bold and see what happens”? I made it one of my personal missions this year to have a little more… audacity. To put myself out there more, to ask for things, to offer things to people, to make my presence more known. To kinda live more by the “the worst thing they can say is no” or the “but what if it goes right” mottos. I swear having a little bit of audacity goes a long way. It doesn’t come naturally to me, but I’m making attempts to cultivate it.

Anyway, that’s how this whole thing started, really. A little bit of audacity and a whole lot of luck. Or maybe fate, if you believe in that kind of thing.

See, what had happened was (I’d love to know how many of my posts over the last 10 years have this phrase in it).

One of the OTTB sellers that I follow in facebook (everybody follows these pages right? for like… science… or whatever.) posted a horse last week that just really grabbed me. Ten years old, raced a whopping 100 times, won 23% of them and placed in 59%, and won almost $940k. He was still owned by his breeder, and was very well-known and well-loved on the Pennsylvania racing circuit. Like, there were youtube videos about him and everything.

His ad also felt like it was targeting me specifically. The connections were being very selective about who he went to. They wanted him to have his own social media (since he comes with a built-in fan club already), they wanted lots and lots of updates, required references, someone with OTTB experience, and had a preference for RRP approved people. I mean for real. Did you write the ad for me? I read it, read it again, and had to chuckle to myself a bit.

Of course I was most certainly not looking to buy and even if I was he was a bit over budget before you even got to the fact that he was over 1000 miles away, so I kept scrolling down my feed. Then I was like “ya know what… I’m just gonna use a little bit of audacity, leave a comment, and put my interest out there in the universe. What’s the worst that can happen?”. Normally I wouldn’t even comment, but for whatever reason I felt the need. So I just left a comment about how I felt targeted and I wished he was closer to Ocala, and that whoever got him was going to get a super cool horse. All true.

The horse, named Ruby Bleu, was absolutely dreamy. Henny colored and so elegant and classy and well put together, with lovely clean legs. Ruby Bleu was, to be quite frank, exactly what I had been dreaming about last fall when I started looking for an RRP horse, but couldn’t find. He’s an older war horse, he comes from great connections that really care about him and want to keep up with him, he’s a great sporthorse type, and he’s got a cool story behind him. I kinda feel like, if I’m gonna have one, I want one that’s really an ambassador for how cool OTTBs really are. He’s exactly that.

Anyway, I left my comment, drooled a bit, stalked his previous races and drooled some more, and then moved on, figuring that was the beginning and end of it. A couple people liked my comment and friend requested me, which I didn’t really think much of…. I didn’t go look them up or anything. Just hit accept and moved along with whatever I was doing.

The person that ran the facebook page sent me a message and asked me to send her a little “about me” that she could pass along to the connections, as well as my budget, so I wrote her some bullet points and gave her some info. There was no response, and a few days went by, so I figured he must have sold and was honestly a little bit disappointed but not surprised. A lot of people had commented on him and showed interest, so I just assumed someone else had seemed like a more interesting prospect than me, and/or had a better budget. Then randomly on Sunday morning I got a message from one of the people who had friended me from the comment. Turns out it was Ruby Bleu’s trainer, and she asked if she could call me.

The person that ran the facebook page had sent her my info, and the trainer had spent some time scoping me out. We ended up spending an hour and a half chatting about all kinds of things. Horses, racing, Ocala vs PA, Ruby Bleu, the cost of hay, (and hence) ramen recipes, philosophies on horse keeping… we had quite a chat. She was getting a feel for me, kinda like an interview basically, but it was easy conversation. As we wrapped up our chat she said “I think we’ve found a great match, we’d love to offer Ruby Bleu to you”.

Knock me the eff over with an effin feather, y’all. I was not expecting that.

We talked budget (mine was low) and she said they were more concerned with the right home than with getting as much money as they could, so they could work with it. She then said she had a hauler friend who was headed back down to Ocala from PA the NEXT DAY and she could chat to him about sponsoring Ruby Bleu’s “freedom ride”. Like what. What what what. What is happening.

Things moved really quickly from there. I called Ruby Bleu’s owner and chatted with him (super super nice guy, and small world he owns Freya’s sire), sent him the venmo, his trainer set up the hauler, and holy shit. I… had another horse? Not just another horse, but RUBY BLEU. This horse gives me heart eyes in such a big way, something about him just speaks to me. Clearly the universe agreed, because how the hell does a horse purchase ever go down like that. What a weird Sunday morning.

But, um… that did leave me with a little bit of a problem. Mostly that I really can’t afford to keep, do the proper aftercare for, and bring two OTTB’s up at the same time and through RRP. I sat there for quite a while trying to make the math actually math, and it just DIDN’T. Sad truth, if I wanted to be able to do it right, I was gonna have to sell Lottie. I love her, she’s a super sweet girl and going to make a super nice horse, but she doesn’t make me tingly the way Ruby Bleu does.

So I went ahead and listed her on a couple OTTB groups on Sunday night, figuring it might take a while to find her person. The middle of the summer is never the best time to sell a not-yet-restarted OTTB. I wanted to make sure it was a good match, because I do quite care about her and I freakin hate selling horses. It makes me feel sick. But lo and behold, the universe once again showed it’s approval for the proceedings, because she sold literally the very next morning, 12 hours later, to the absolute PERFECT person. Lottie looks almost identical to the gelding she just lost (they have similar breeding) and she’s just so excited about having another one like him. Seriously, couldn’t have hand-picked a better match. I’m delighted for her and will get to watch her progress on social media. And it ended up being a financial wash, so truly a win-win.

And in the meantime, Ruby Bleu boarded a trailer out of Erie, PA on Monday afternoon and arrived in Ocala on Tuesday afternoon. And man… he’s even better looking than his ad pics made him look. His legs are pristine, I would never in a million years guess that horse had raced 100 times. He’s in amazing condition with a big beautiful athletic walk and a shoulder and neck to die for. This horse, he is an ATHLETE. I’m just wowed by him. I see you, universe. Good looking out.

So… yeah. Uhhh. That’s the story of how I bought one horse and sold another all within 24 hours, without having any prior intention to do so. Talk about Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.

I guess the moral of this story is… leave the comment? Even if it seems like the most unlikely or impossible thing, you never know what could come of it. I continue to believe in the power of putting things out into the universe. I feel so honored that they picked me, and I hope I can do him justice.

More to come about Ruby Bleu (he does already have his own facebook page, if you want some sneak peeks) and his background and pedigree. The great thing about him still being owned by his breeder after all those years is that I know A LOT about him, and he’s got a really cool story. I even have a baby pic! Stay tuned.

Welcome home, Ruby Bleu, aka Rubert aka Sir Rubert the Bleu aka Bloobert aka RubyDoobyDoo. Yeah he’s got lots of nicknames already.

Helllooooo again. I hope everyone survived the BoomBoom holiday with little to no emotional or physical damage. It was actually pretty calm here… definitely some loud booms but the rednecks were oddly less excited about the fourth than they’ve been about New Years. I was probably the most anxious animal on the farm, but kept my pacing to a minimum.

Aside from that, Presto and I also had a jump lesson last week. Finally! FINALLY! First jump lesson since right before International (so like two and a half months but who’s counting ya know?) and our first jump lesson ever with Ellie.

We kept things small and simple for both my sake and his. I thought Presto was gonna be wild, and to be fair I think he really WANTED to be, but the heat and humidity zapped all the yeehaw right out of him pretty quickly. He definitely lost some fitness while I was laid up but it might be working in my favor at the moment.

We started over a half circle of death with some small cavalettis, working on using the outside aids in particular. To be honest my ankle just feels weird now. It doesn’t hurt necessarily but it’s tight and it just doesn’t hang the same way, so learning how to use it again with some new limitations is a work in progress. It improves slowly week by week but I think it’s just gonna take time for it to be back to normal. In the meantime, I have to learn to cope with the new normal and not feel lopsided.

Anyway. After our warmup we moved on to jumping into a line, making a big circle, and then jumping out of the line. She wanted me to focus again on my outside aids (particularly leg, particularly when it was the right one) and not letting him get overbent in neck thus ending up crooked. We ended the lesson by hopping through a teeny grid a few times to get Presto’s feet moving quicker. All in all it was a great first lesson back, and a relief to know that I haven’t forgotten how to jump after all that time off.

In other exciting news, Fey’s papers arrived from Belgium. She’s officially registered and DNA verified, with a fancy Belgian passport and everything.

Big thanks to Studbook sBs for helping make this possible for me. Her dam is registered and approved Hanoverian but her TB sire hasn’t been presented for approval to the warmblood books, so they had to grant special permission based on his pedigree and performance history. It took over a year all total to get everything done, from the microchip to the DNA for both parents and for her, to the approval of the sire, to the issuance of the passport. A lot of people were involved and it’s much appreciated, because now she’s official! Her future foals will be eligible for full papers and registration.

I rode Wally quite a bit last week too, although this week his mom is back in town so he’s off the hook with me. It was cool riding something different for a while though. I got more swims in at the gym too, and I really really love being back in the pool. It’s not the most convenient thing but it’s worth it.

For all the other nerds out there, we had our FLAIR Strips webinar last night and it was really sciencey and cool. Science. Research papers. Proof. We love it. There was lots of stuff in there I actually didn’t know, particularly in relation to EIPH.

As a follow-up I looked up some of the studies, so now if nothing else I feel qualified to answer questions. I do still have a couple samples too, so if you’re interested hit me up.

Last but not least, I do have some really big (good) news to share. It was very random and happened really fast, and it was a little bit like being on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride for like 24 hours. I think I said “wtf is even happening” like 50 times. However, it’s also a long story (at least if I’m the one telling it) and it really deserves it’s own post. So for now, here’s a teaser.

I sat here for several minutes trying to think of a good opening line for this post and literally the only thing my decrepit brain spat out was “what up party people”. I’ll do us all a favor and not use that. Now that I write for a living I seem to use every crumb of creativity for that and have nothing but plastic wrappers left over by the time I make it here.

Maybe let’s start off with a Lottie pic instead.

That’s better, yes?

But also kind of teaser for nothing, because I don’t have a lot of updates on Lottie. She’s still on her post-track vacay, and I just bring her in to groom her and hand graze and explore. She might tell you she’s having her Best Summer Ever.

With last week’s update I told y’all about my first lesson with Ellie O’Neal, and Presto and I have our second one with her today, a jump lesson this time. I really hope I don’t die, we haven’t really jumped since International, like 2.5 months ago. What could possibly go wrong. I’m ready to rip off the bandaid though so we can start getting back in the groove and gain some momentum again. I feel like all I do is tread water.

Speaking of, I started swimming again! I joined the local (ok, local-ish since I do live in the middle of nowhere) Gold’s Gym last week and did my first swim over the weekend. I love love love swimming and used to swim a lot, but haven’t in like… 10 years? When I quit triathlon and went hard back into the horse thing, I stopped swimming. Lately I was really feeling like I missed it though, and it’s my favorite way to stay in shape, so hopefully I can keep it up. My goal is 3 swims a week. We’ll see what happens. More fitness never hurts?

I’ve also been riding this dude.

This is Wally, a thoroughbred owned by my friend Emily. She’s out of town for a couple weeks and asked me to ride him while she’s gone. He’s got major Henry vibes and is kind of like riding a younger, sportier Henry. He’s a super cool dude and more saddle time is always a good thing, even though if given the choice I think Wally would have just preferred a vacation.

In other news, last week I officially signed on to be a FLAIR ambassador! I love FLAIR strips and have been using them since the Henry days, so I definitely jumped at this opportunity. We have to attend webinars about how they work and all the details behind them, which I’m weirdly really looking forward to. Nerd stuff about nerd horse things that I like… twist my arm why don’t you?

Anyway, if you are also a FLAIR strip lover, I do have a coupon code with them now: you can shop their online website and use code AmandaFLAIR10 for a discount on everything except custom strips. I ordered a few packs (white and blue, the purple is backordered for another month or so, sadly) so Presto is stocked up and ready to roll whenever the hell we actually get back to showing. If you’ve never used FLAIR strips but are curious, I do have a (very) few samples… would prefer to not have to ship them so if you’re in the Ocala area and want to give one a try, let me know. Or if you write me a really convincing email maybe I could be persuaded to go to the post office. Really convincing. Lay it on thick. I hate the post office.

Also it’s fourth of July week, one of my least favorite holidays. Maybe my least favorite. I dunno, it’s neck and neck with New Years because of the whole fireworks situation. BoomBoom holidays. UGH. I hate fireworks even more than I hate the post office. Loathe entirely. I’ve got a plan for the horses but it will be a lot of me wandering around the farm for most of the night checking on everyone and getting angrier by the boom. The rednecks sure do love to blow shit up. I hate it.

I suppose one perk of the holiday is that Riding Warehouse is running their Bargain Bin sale again. Is that actually a perk? I dunno, up for interpretation (my wallet is in the background screaming “dear god no”). Those bargain bins always get me somehow. I have yet to sit down and rifle through it, because 1) I need the proper time to dedicate to the quest, 2) I know the fate that awaits me. Someone go dig around and tell me what I need.

I hope everyone is having a good week and survives the approaching Boom Boom holiday in one piece!

I do. Me. The answer is me. Ya girl out here feeling like a piece of stale beef jerky today. Why, might you ask? Because I finally – finally – had a lesson yesterday! Granted, I have zero media from said lesson so here’s a pic of Presto staring at the wall, contemplating life, after doing about a million walk-canter and canter-walk transitions the other day.

It was our first lesson at the O’Neal’s, we started off with just a flat lesson with Ellie. Presto spent the first 20 minutes gawking at himself in the mirrors “WHO IS THAT STUNNING ANIMAL” or spooking at the mirrors “WHY IS IT FOLLOWING ME” and trying to decide whether or not the very tall hedge at the end of the ring was harboring dragons (aka birds). But we did get some decent work done in there, even if I legit felt like I was gonna pass out by the end. I never remember that hydration thing until like halfway through summer.

Anyway, we’re on the schedule to go back next week to jump, which I already warned her would probably be a little exciting, considering he’s jumped like… once in the past 2.5 months. Yeehaw.

In other news, I rode Henry last week for the first time since he got his shoes pulled. Nothing fancy, just a hack around the neighborhood. Considering he’s been wearing front shoes for over a decade, the transition hasn’t been too bad. He’s obviously a little tender on the firmer ground, like asphalt, but pretty good in the grass.

He did almost straight up murder me when some donkeys ran up towards us as we were walking past another farm. He couldn’t decide which direction to spook in, so he just kind of chose all of them. After that he powerwalked home, which I’m 99% sure is because he thought he was funny.

That seemed to unlock Henry’s cheeky side again, because he’s been playing jokes on me ever since. First he took off his fly mask and threw it over the far side of the fence. Then he shat direction on top of the ledge between his stall and his turnout, after I’d told him to stop using his stall as a toilet and go shit outside. And then he did this.

Not only did he shit in the water bucket, he also sat on it and broke it. He’s on a roll.

Which, I asked in a poll on my Instagram stories which horse everyone thought had done the bucket poop, and most people said Presto. Poor AngelBaby, unfairly accused.

Presto is actually by far the neatest stall horse on the farm. He has one shit corner in his pasture and one shit corner in his stall. He pees before he comes in. He’s been spending the afternoons inside because of the heat, and he knows he’s going back out after dinner, so he’ll literally hold his pee until he goes back out. He might break a bucket (and has indeed broken many) but he would never shit in it first. That type of move is pure Henry.

We’ve got one more mare to do a pregnancy check on and then next-week-ish I’ll be able to post an announcement on who’s expecting what in 2025! We should hopefully have plenty of Foal Friday fodder for a while next year.

Guys… breeding season is officially OVER… we bred our last mare for the season on Friday! We still have a few more pregnancy checks to do (we scan them at 14-15 days post breeding) and heartbeat checks to confirm (30 days post breeding) but whether they’re pregnant or not, there won’t be any more attempts this year. Whoever isn’t pregnant will just get started earlier in the season next year. It’s been fun, it’s been real, it’s been a lot of middle of the night wake-up calls or medication alarms, but we are finished. Granted, next year will be even more hectic with considerably more sleep lost because we’ll actually have foals coming, plus we’ll be breeding. I’m not ready to think about that yet, it’s been a long past few months.

I was also planning on going over to the OBS sale last Friday to peek at the 3yo’s at the end of the sale. They tend to be the ones that have made a few starts and aren’t very fast, so sometimes there are nice horses for cheap. This year the ones I liked most were definitely not cheap, and one of the fillies I liked (who was a terrible racehorse but had a really good, commercial pedigree for breeding) went for a relatively obscene sum. At least I uh… know how to pick ’em? I was tired so I ended up not actually going to the sale, I just watched the live steam. Not as good as getting to see horses in person, but maybe next sale I’ll actually make it out.

Otherwise I’ve mostly been busy with work and my own horses. The ankle is improving, I’m back to pretty much normal flatwork now, and have cantered some poles in my jump saddle. I haven’t tried to actually jump anything yet, but I’m gonna take Presto out to gallop this weekend and see how that goes. If it can survive a gallop, it’s probably ready to start jumping.

Taking the extra time hasn’t been too bad, considering it’s taken me a while to get Presto back to feeling like how he did before the break. He was really convinced that he could be heavier on his forehand again, and not as sharp off my aids. It’s taken a couple weeks and a lot of effort (on my part anyway) for him to remember he’s actually fairly trained. Granted, I’ve been doing like 20 minute rides with a hack on each end in an effort to not irritate my ankle, so that’s probably part of why it’s been a slow return to normal Presto too.

In the meantime I’ve been making myself super useful by teaching him the ever-practical skill of fist-bumping. I dunno why it took me so long to decide to teach this horse some tricks, he’s such an ideal candidate for it. It started earlier this year with “smile” and then “kiss”, and now the cue of “bro” for a fist bump. He’s so freakin smart, he picks up and retains this stuff in like a single session. Of course he’s also hugely food motivated and tricks are a mega-easy way to get treats, so it’s really his ideal line of work, I think. Truly missed his calling as a circus horse.

And then there’s Lottie, Presto’s little introverted polar opposite. She’s been doing a lot of hanging out in the riding field, and I’ve led her over some cavaletti to see what she thinks (not much) and she even walked over a log a few times of her own accord. She’s smart too, but so sharp and quick and sensitive in ways that Presto surely is not, so I almost have to be two different people between them. Every day she’s a little happier and more settled though, so I’m pleased with that.

Last week there was an evening where I was standing there scratching her withers and her pasture mate tried to come up and butt in. Lottie is VERY submissive, a bottom of the pack type, so I was shocked when she not only stood her ground, but angled herself between me and the other horse. I felt super chosen, whether that was her intention or not. 😂

Oh, AND, in non-horsey things (which are admittedly rare here) I finally made it back out to Universal to the Wizarding World again! The first time I went was 2 years ago with my bf, who is not a Harry Potter fan, and this time I went with Hillary and our friend Emily… all 3 of us are mega HP fans. That was definitely more fun. Also last time the only thing I really really wanted was a Snape wand and they were sold out park-wide. This time they had them, so I finally got one.

I sucked at trying to do the spells around the park, but I did have quite the power trip walking through crowds and casting a nice Bombarda or Incendio at people who were in the way, in true Slytherin style.

I let Emily talk me into going on one of the rides and that was a mistake. I get motion sick incredibly easy, and if I’d thought about it in advance I would have brought something with me to help with that, but I didn’t. So I got on Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, which is in the castle, because that one supposedly isn’t as bad, and lord. By the end I was just sitting there trying not to puke. Didn’t puke, but was nauseous for a while.

But we got our butter beer, and our wands, I had some fish and chips and some Fortescue’s ice cream, and picked up a couple little things of Slytherin merch. I’ve decided I want to go back when it’s cold so I can get some robes and march around with them fluttering dramatically behind me ala Snape. Add it to the bucket list for next time. Either way, it was a nice little refresh to have a whole 9 hours away the farm and spend a day doing something entirely not horse-related.