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Let me tell you one of the many reasons why I hate Texas: it’s stupid hot for like 6 months of the year. With all the rain we’ve had this year it’s stayed cooler than most summers, in that we actually managed to make it this far without hitting triple digits. That’s supposed to change tomorrow, with a high of 100.

The rain has made it a bit more humid than normal, too (for example, right now – 88% humidity). Normally in the summer I switch my schedule and ride in the morning instead, but that just hasn’t worked out this year. We had a lot of big changes at work and right now I really can’t be coming in at 9am when the rest of my team is there at 6:30. Plus I have a meeting every morning at 8:30. It was a bit easier when my barn commute was 20 minutes and didn’t go through heavy traffic… if I tried to do that now, it would take me a minimum of an hour to get to work from the new barn. Trying to ride later at night, when the heat wanes, its also challenging, considering it doesn’t really get better until 8pm and crawling into bed at midnight doesn’t really work when I crawl back out of it at 5am. I am not a great sleeper, so 5-6 hours in bed would result in maybe 3-4 hours sleep. Not doable.

I also handle the heat about as well as my horse does, ie not well at all. Honestly Henry has been doing better with these hot afternoon rides than I have. He’s pretty much cooled down once I hose him off, while I’m still sitting there in a chair in front of the fan trying not to pass out. I’m taking walk breaks while I’m riding, I’m drinking water (I went through 4 bottles yesterday at the barn), but I’m just plain getting overheated. Because it’s hot AF.

I’m about to start investigating those cooling towels or weird ice neck bandanna things. Anything to help get my temperature under control. Anyone use anything like that? I just don’t have access to a refrigerator or freezer at the barn. Luckily I don’t have to do this for much longer since we leave for Coconino in two weeks (where the highs are in the 70’s, lows are in the 40’s, and there’s 15% humidity – BLESS THAT PLACE) and then Henry will be on his easy vacation schedule for a little while after that, and then I’ll be gone to Europe for a couple weeks after that.  For now though, I’m just trying not to pass out in the barn. I must look terrible given how fast the barn owner ran to get me a chair yesterday.

In other news, Presto has decided to get either a hoof bruise or an abscess THE DAY AFTER I sent in his entry for the FEH class this weekend, so we’ll see if we can get that fixed in time or not. The vet looked at him last night (real convenient to be boarding at the vet’s house when you’re a crazy person that likes to completely freak out and overreact about your horses’ maladies, btw) and it’s definitely something in his foot, just couldn’t tell exactly what. Considering that it’s been wet and he spends all night stuffing himself in front of the round bale, the muddiest spot on the farm, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was brewing something. We wrapped it up with animalintex so now we wait and see. Horses, man.

After Henry’s supposed near-death experience (if you ask him, anyway) on Saturday, Sunday was set to be a chill day at the barn. I got up early and did an 18 mile bike ride with my dad – finally finishing the Nessie race that took way too long thanks to my ankle – and then got to the barn about mid-morning. The big hay pasture was finally mowed and baled and open for riding, and I was hoping for a nice relaxing canter. Except I guess Henry decided the night before that he was in love with the two 2yo’s that they were turned out with, and thus was preoccupied with screaming his idiot head off.

This is why he didn’t have friends for so long. He’s so much better as a single horse. Lord give me strength. He’ll stop this eventually right? He was the only one that was concerned about any of it, of course. None of the baby horses cared one bit. No one else stands in the barn screaming for half an hour for no reason.

So there we were, trotting around the field, Henry alternating between screaming and spooking, and out comes the barn owner with one of the minis she has in training. Hooked to a cart. I had been waiting for this day to come, Henry’s first encounter seeing this whole driving thing, and now here we were. It finally happened.

We stopped, and he stared, but to my great surprise he really wasn’t scared of it. He seemed more concerned about the fact that something was chasing one of his minis. He was staring at him in the “omg do you need assistance” type of way. Little mini is a champion (literally, he’s won all kinds of stuff apparently) so he just trotted around the ring, all business, and after watching him make a few laps we proceeded on our way. Henry never stopped spooking at the sprinklers across the fence (that were not moving and not on, just sitting there) but he never spared a second look at the mini and the cart. This horse is strange.

After I put that dingbat away, I got Presto out. He’s entered in a FEH class this weekend (just like last year I managed to miss every single qualifier until this one, which is the last one, so if he doesn’t get a qualifying score then… oops?) so I’ve been doing a little more with him again, reminding him that he’s not feral. We did some w/t/halt on the lunge line each way, then I had him trot over some poles to try to help unlock a bigger trot.

That was all of maybe 10 minutes. Hillary was riding Dobby so I set jumps for her while Presto just hung out in the ring. If this horse ever has issues with ring traffic or keeping calm amidst chaos, it won’t be for lack of trying on my part. After Hillary was done I asked her to get some video of Presto’s best party trick – groundtying while I wave the whip around him.

All the groundwork has definitely paid off. I’m trying hard to make him into a horse that is respectful but also calm and trusting. I have the benefit of raising this one myself, and I can’t help but see so much contrast between him and Henry. Even with our years of partnership I don’t think I will ever overcome Henry’s beginning, or his natural tense and nervous nature. It makes me wonder how different he would be if he’d had different experiences earlier in life. Would he be a more confident horse today?

This week I need to put Presto’s bridle back on and get him used to it again (and probably let it out a few holes, let’s be honest) and practice his in-hand stuff some more. I’m hoping that when we’re at the show he’ll decide to be a little wild and show some more active/uphill trot, because what I’m getting at home just kind of looks like he wants to go win the hack class at a hunter show. It’s hot. He’s lazy. It’s uninspired. Of course, he’s also covered head to toe in bite marks (THANKS HENRY) so that’s great. And he’s in the middle of a growth spurt. Also great. Oh well. Guess we’ll how well this judge can see potential?

The new barn is only about 25 minutes from a 1,000+ acre park that has a lot of equestrian trails, so on Saturday we decided to take the boys. We were thinking it would be a nice relaxing change of pace, we would get out and enjoy some nature and look at the scenery, and just enjoy the horses. Henry was not on board with any of this.

Henry has been foxhunting. He road hacks. He’s a freaking EVENT HORSE, for god’s sake. I will admit that he hasn’t done much actual trail riding like this, but it’s not as though the horse only ever sees the inside of an arena. We ride out almost every single ride. But there was something about this place, with all of it’s terrible horrible nature… Henry was a spooky snorting idiot the whole time.

He spooked at everything that moved. He spooked at everything that didn’t move. He was convinced that every little stick on the ground was definitely a snake. He gave any little depression/ditch/hole a very wide snorty berth. If anything so much as moved in the brush, lord help us. And then there was that time when we encountered (brace yourselves for the horror) another horse and rider and I could actually feel Henry’s heart pounding until the demon was safely past.

Dumb. Real dumb.

He was so busy snorting and spooking at all the fake snakes that he missed the one actual snake that crossed our path. For real, he was too busy staring down at a stick and he totally missed that thing slither across the trail in front of us. Thank goodness. I can’t imagine how smug he would have been if he realized all of his idiocy had been justified.

We tried to get down to the river access, but with all the rain we’ve had lately the water was too high. We still got a nice little hill workout out of the deal, going down and then back up the steep trail that leads down there. Up until this point lazy-ass Dobby (I swear, the horse walks SO SLOW) had actually been keeping up with Henry. Then the big long hill happened, Dobby thought he was gonna die, and then he was out of juice. Henry had no problem leaving his ass to get eaten by wolves or bears or whatever else he thinks lives out there (neither of those things actually live out there).

I think the best part was when we were walking along the river trail and A MASSIVE LOG had fallen across the trail. And by massive log I mean like the tiniest little tree ever, it barely qualified as more than a stick. It was about the same size as a ground pole. Henry completely refused to go over it. Like… snorting and the whole 9 yards. At one point he reached his nose toward it and touched another stick, spooking himself. This is my Prelim event horse, ladies and gentlemen. Refusing a tiny log. And then spooking and snorting as he walks sideways past a puddle.

Yes indeed you can hear me say “This is really embarrassing” as we’re both cracking up. Oh Henry, you weird little horse.

So as it turns out, Henry isn’t much of a trail horse. Nor did he find the day to be at all relaxing or pleasant. He might be scarred for life.

It’s kind of sad when the 4yo OTTB on his very first trail ride is much more chill.

Oh well… at least the humans had fun?

If you’re getting tired of these pedigree breakdown posts, I’m sorry. I won’t stop. I’ve become dangerously obsessed with studying this stuff and my spreadsheets are out of control. But also this time I’ve tried to pull in a few more “fun facts” as I’ve gone through the field, so hopefully it’s a little more interesting even for those who aren’t breeding nerds.

Today is Day 2 for dressage at Luhmuhlen, which is always one of my favorite cross country courses. It looks like something straight out of a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, like you might turn the corner and run into Hansel and Gretel. If you have a Horse & Country subscription (do I have a subscription to pretty much all of the streaming equestrian event channels on the internet? maaaaaybeeeee…) you can watch the live stream online. If not, Eventing Nation has pretty good coverage.

This year there are only 34 starters in the 5*, an even smaller field than Kentucky, but it’s chock full of an interesting mix of heavy hitters and first timers. My usual disclaimer: if I was unable to find enough of a horse’s pedigree to calculate a meaningful stat, they were excluded from the numbers.

As usual, the most represented stud book is Irish Sporthorse, with 10 entries. Of those 10, 4 have traditional Irish breeding (no European warmblood). Despite the Holsteiner studbook having only 3 horses representing, 55% of the field carries some Holsteiner blood within the first 3 generations.

The average blood percentage of the field is 56%. I looked at the pedigrees a little differently this time in that I broke out one more generation of sire information. This time I looked at the entrant’s sire, the sire’s sire, the dam’s sire, and the dam’s damsire. This revealed something kind of interesting. If you look at just the sire, sire’s sire, and damsire, the number of full thoroughbreds is about the same – 7 horses have full TB sires, 7 horses have full TB sire’s sires, and 8 have full TB damsires. But if you go back a little more and look at the dam’s damsire, the number of full thoroughbreds doubles – to 15. That’s exactly half of the pedigrees that can be verified that far back. Is it an important place in the pedigree to have blood, or is that just a coincidence?

This field is chock full of horses that came up through the FEI young horse classes – 62% of the field participated in 6yo and/or 7yo 2* and 3* classes.

Several sires show up more than once throughout the field, with Irish Sporthorse stallion Touchdown being the sire of two horses and the sire’s sire of another. Touchdown (now deceased) was a 5* showjumper, sired by the Selle Francais legend Galoubet and out of an Irish mare that had a full TB sire. Touchdown has been a successful producer of showjumpers through the 1.60m level and eventers through the 5* level.

The stallion that shows up the most throughout the field, despite having no direct offspring, is Contender. He is represented via his sons Contendro I, Contendro II (full brothers), Con Air, and Cristo.

For the thoroughbred stallions we see a lot of the usual names like Heraldik xx, Master Imp xx, Mytens xx, Damascus xx, and Sir Ivor xx.

The most eye-catching horse in the field is probably Tullabeg Flamenco, who is hard to miss with his buckskin coat, 4 white socks, and a blaze. I am admittedly a little obsessed with him, so I fell down a rabbit hole while looking into his breeder and family. Bear with me here. Tullabeg Flamenco is one of at least 6 full siblings, out of a skewbald Irish mare named Tullabeg Heidi and by the dun stallion Tullabeg Fusion.  One of the older full siblings, Tullabeg Vision, is competing at the 3* level. Another, Tullabeg Tango, is being produced by 2018 WEG silver medalist Sarah Ennis and currently competing at the 2* level.

If you dig more into the families and siblings of the entrants, you find some other very successful mares. The dam of Ascona M, Naomi IV, is also the dam of Clifford M, a 4* horse ridden by American rider Charlotte Collier. Ascona M is by Cassaro, while Clifford M is by Cristo (one of the Contender sons mentioned above). Cristo is also the sire of  Luhmuhlen entrant, Calle 44.

Paulank Brockagh’s dam, Calendar Girl (by TB stallion Triggerero xx) is also the dam of 4* horse Paulank Kings River. Both horses are ridden and have been brought up through the ranks by Australian Sam Griffiths. Palanks Brockagh is by Touchdown, and Paulank Kings River is by Kings Master (by TB stallion Master Imp xx).

On a sort of interesting note, American hunter stallion Ultime Espoir also has an offspring in the field – Efraim. Of course, as is typical of many hunters of these days, before Ultime Espoir came to America, he was a jumper in Europe. Efraim is one from one of his earlier European crops.

Let’s see how the weekend unfolds! The leader after dressage is Brookpark Vikenti, a traditionally-bred Irish horse with 81% blood by the TB stallion Master Imp xx. Can he keep his lead? Who are you rooting for?

On my last update about the new barn and how the boys were settling in, Presto was kind of being a dingus. He spent most of the first couple days staring out his window into the distance, snorting and pacing and flagging his tail like he was trying out for some kind of elite Arabian squad. Luckily that was just a phase, and he finally settled back into his normal weirdo self (which is loads better than his cracked out Arabian self).

Presto is not the smartest horse in the world when it comes to social situations, so he’s currently missing many chunks of skin and fur. When other horses come at him he just kind of curls himself up into a ball rather than MOVING OUT OF THE WAY, so… I dunno if/when he’ll figure that out. His right flank especially has like 5 chunks missing right now. Pretty sure at least 4 of them are because of Henry.

He did make a new friend in a black gelding named Otis, who actually seems interested in playing with him. That’s rare. But naturally, this has caused Henry and Otis to kind of hate each other. You should see the mare glare they exchange from across the barn aisle, and Otis tries to bite Henry when I lead him past his stall. Poor Presto doesn’t even know that this whole power struggle over “ownership” of him is going on. He’s just delighted to have discovered that this place has ROUND BALES, which he rolls on, scratches himself on, tries to climb on, and eats almost non-stop.

I’ve seen him out there basically hugging the dang thing, he loves it so much. I mean, he was born in one, so I guess it makes sense.

Last week I ponied him with Henry once, and got him out for grooming a couple times. He’s already spent some time under his new Tree of Knowledge out in front of the tack shed. It’s nice and shady and right in my line of sight, so it’s perfect for baby horses. He’s pretty solid at the whole Tree of Knowledge idea by now though, so he mostly just stands there like a decent citizen.

Yesterday I decided it was finally time to do something a little more involved, so I put him in the crossties, tacked him up, and took him out to the arena to lunge. I thought he might be a little wild, but… I got like a minute in before the barn owner was like “do you need a whip?”. I think she was tired of hearing all my clucking, trying to get this crazy childerbeast to keep trotting.

We practiced his whoa and his go and his standing skills, then I left him groundtied while I waved the whip around his head, smacked it on the ground around him, and stood behind him and waved it in circles above my head. Presto stood there looking bored like “stupid human tricks, am I right?”. So I guess we’re definitely back to normal now.

Oh, and… he fits in Henry’s dressage girth.

It’s a 28, and considering that Presto is literally 2 inches wide, I have no idea HOW, but that’s a new thing we’re doing I guess. Granted, I have to put it up all the way on both sides, but… it does technically fit. He’s hardcore growing right now so he’s mega awkward and scrawny despite spending 20 hours a day knee deep in hay. You can tell he’s starting to get a little deeper through his body though.

He’s come a long way from that little bebe we saw on the ultrasound 3 years ago today (thanks facebook memories!) during his fetal sexing appointment.

He was still cute though, even then. Big ears and all.