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Whether you call it a body protector, safety vest, or XC vest, the end result is the same: it’s pretty much time for me to get a new one.

My current one is only 3 years old, which is on the shorter end of the recommended replacement period. Yes, vests do indeed have a limited lifespan. If what people say/buy/sell on facebook is any indication, it seems like not many people know that they have pretty much the same “replacement requirements” that helmets do. From British Eventing:

Body protectors should be replaced at least every three to five years, after which the impact absorption properties of the foam may have started to decline.

If you should have a heavy fall, your body protector should be checked immediately for dents. The foam will expand back to its original shape within 30 minutes; but if a dent is showing on examination, then it’s likely that this part of the garment has lost its impact absorption properties and should be replaced.

Hidden damage that a body protector may have sustained is also a good reason for avoiding second-hand garments or those with unknown histories. Taking good care of your body protector means that it will last longer within the three to five year recommended lifespan. So don’t leave it lying around at the yard or in the lorry to be chewed and trodden on. Spending too much time in a hot car or damp tackroom won’t do it any good either.

When not in use, body protectors should be hung on a clothes hanger. Doing up zips ensures they keep their shape, while closing Velcro fastenings will help prevent them becoming clogged with horse hair and hay particles.

Most body protectors are made from heat sensitive PVC nitrile foam, which is why they feel increasingly comfortable as they soften and mold to the wearer’s body. 

Lots more info about body protectors can be found here, if you’re interested in reading up. Many people like to keep their XC vest in their trailer or car – that’s bad. Don’t do that. Also if you’re wearing an old ass Tipperary, or have taken a few tumbles in your current one, love yourself enough to buy a new one. It’s as if we think that since it’s not covering our head, it isn’t as important. I’ve been guilty of that many times too. In reality though, proper protection for your body is obviously really friggin important. And putting an air vest over top of a damaged, old, or sub-par body protector does not make it more safe either. I won’t even start on my thoughts about air vests though, ain’t nobody got time for that.

Anyway.

It’s not so much the age that is the driving factor for me buying a new one. It’s 3 years old, I haven’t fallen in it, and I store it inside (ok a few times it’s been forgotten in my truck for a few days because I am a hot mess of a person). But anyone with particularly keen eyes will notice in the banner picture of the blog that a little bit of orange is showing at the chest strap of my current vest. This means that it’s a bit too small. For more information on properly fitting a vest – go here.

That vest was a pretty snug fit when I bought it and I’m a bit… er… fluffier than I used to be. If I tighten those chest straps to where they really should go, I legit have a hard time breathing. So either I get to breathe or I have to set the strap in a place that isn’t ideal. Neither of those are good choices.

I’ve been really happy with my current vest, the Airowear Outlyne. It’s a bit bulky, but basically any BETA 3 approved vest will be. Thorough protection requires a certain amount of bulk – example being approved helmets vs unapproved hunt caps. Foam takes up space. I definitely want another BETA 3 vest, and knowing that the Airowear brand fits my shape well (they have different cuts/sizing for men, women, and teens) I have been eyeballing their AirMesh model since it came out. The idea of better airflow is really appealing, since I live in the devil’s armpit.

The only bummer is that it doesn’t come in navy. – black or dark gray only. Airowear, why you gotta go harshing my navy vibe? Granted, the one I’ve been wearing is half navy and half gray, so whatever. The color isn’t that big of a deal (does any eventer actually say that and mean it? No.). I haven’t quite decided which color I want yet, although there isn’t a huge difference between the two since the gray is pretty dark. I can certainly overanalyze this decision past the point of oblivion though. Either way, a new vest is definitely on my radar as an upcoming purchase.

Anyone else buy a new vest/body protector lately, or currently shopping?

Even a “boring” weekend at home will always be anything but, whenever Henry and Presto are involved. These two boys… they keep things interesting.

I’m in the middle of a long barnsitting stint, so I hadn’t really seen the boys all week aside from a quick visit on Wednesday. Several more packages had arrived in the meantime (continued sorry’s to the mailman, also I ordered a couple more things over the weekend omg SORRY), which meant that I headed out to the barn armed with all kinds of new goodies. The most exciting box was from Majyk Equipe… Henry got one of their new Impact pads

and Presto got some of the super fancy limited edition white with turquoise dressage boots.

They’re Smalls, which at this point barely fit him because Giramoose, but they sure do look cute. Or they did before he slobbered all over them, anyway. Now they’re sporting some lime green highlights. That’s ok, it’ll wash out. I’m pretty pro at cleaning white ME boots at this point, since I’ve been using white ones on Henry for XC for years. Lots of people have already asked me and yes, I will definitely be reviewing the Impact Pad once I get to use it a bit more. So far I like it A LOT and it has some really cool features that I’ve had a hard time finding all in one pad before. They did a good job with design.

Presto’s Nathe bit also came in, which I was probably more excited about than he was. I’ve just had such great luck with this bit for babies, from learning to wear a bit all the way through starting w/t/c. We worked more on bridling (with some molasses, you’re welcome kid!) and he wore his bridle Saturday and Sunday while we ponied.

He seems pretty happy with the bit. He does chomp a little for the first few minutes that he’s wearing the bridle, but stops as soon as he’s distracted by something else. What he’s more persistent about is trying to rub the bridle off. He’s kind of dramatic about it, like omg he’s dying of face itchies someone halp.

While the bridle doesn’t fit him that well, I do think he looks quite cute in it. Now I’m kinda waffling on whether I want to show him in a halter or a bridle for FEH. I need to work him more in hand in the bridle and see what kind of difference there is, if any.

Presto has also decided to start shedding like crazy, like waaaaay more than I’ve ever been able to get him to shed in his life, and the coat underneath is so shiny and silky and dark. Maybe he’s FINALLY getting a bloom on him, for literally the first time ever? Between his food and his lifestyle and his groomies, I’m definitely trying hard, that’s for sure.

On Saturday while we were walking in the back of the hilly field, Henry decided to use the noise of the nail guns from the nearby construction site as an excuse to be a total moron. He’s heard it plenty of times before, but THIS DAY he just Could Not. He’s officially done with vacation, because it took me 10 minutes to get him to stop jigging and walk in a straight line. Even Presto was looking at him like “Dude, WTF?”. Time to start adding some trot sets back in and get Henry legged back up, because he is officially wild. He got 4 weeks “off”, anyway, that’s a pretty good vacation.

So on Sunday after a long walk I tied Presto to his Post of Knowledge and did 8 minutes of trotting with Henry.

Henry seemed REALLY happy to back doing something, and decided to break out his fancy trot. Whether it was the time off or the new pad or a combination of both, he sure seemed to be feeling good. After his trot we grabbed Presto (who was very preoccupied with trying to figure out how to chew his mouthful of grass with that pesky bit in the way), did another 10 minutes of walking, and then headed back toward the barn. On the way we came across a hay tarp that had blown loose and was now strewn across our path. Naturally Henry’s first reaction was to stop and snort, whereas Presto’s first reaction was to march straight towards it. Once I convinced Henry to walk up and sniff it he relaxed, at least until Presto decided to pick it up.

 

Poor Henry. He’s by far the spookier horse of the two, and Presto just about gave him a heart attack with that thing. I feel kind of sorry for Henry sometimes with all the shit he has to put up with, so I just make up for it by giving him a lot of cookies.

Both boys also got a bath. Henry is still so freaking itchy, and Presto is a filth magnet, so baths happen a lot around here these days. I still have another week of barnsitting left, so I won’t get to play with them much until the weekend, but it’s amazing how much fun we can have just from easy “boring” days like these. Presto is in such a fun stage, he soaks everything up like a sponge, and having Henry there as a role model (um, most of the time anyway) is fantastic.

Hope you guys had a good weekend too!

We’re officially less than 2 months away from Future Event Horse Championships! Well ok it’s still 8 more weeks from today, but who’s counting?

Presto changes so much from day to day, from horse to camel to giraffe and back again, I’ve long given up on worrying about whether or not he’s actually going to be attractive on that day. He still needs a damn topline, but he can’t seem to stop growing upward long enough to even think about finding himself a neck or a loin or a butt. I know he’s likely to end up near the bottom of the placings at Champs, and that’s ok. I really just want to take him somewhere fancy, get him some experience in a big atmosphere, and be like “Remember when they said 5-10% chance of survival? Look where you are now, kid!”. Because I’m a firm believer in taking full advantage of those kinds of opportunities every chance you get. He came awfully damn close to not getting any.

Last week I remembered that the local summer h/j series has a hunter breeding class at their last show, which is next weekend. Presto is kind of the polar opposite of a hunter breeding horse, but any chance to get him off the property and into the ring for relatively cheap is something that I appreciate. I mean, he’s already moonlighted as an in-hand trail horse, why not go play hunter baby for a day? One more little test run before Champs would be nice. Plus the show is literally like a 20 minute haul so it’s the perfect first outing for Betty 2.0.

Of course, while I grew up in the hunter ring and spent much of my 20’s there, it’s been quite a while since I’ve lived in that world. I think 2011 was the last time I stepped foot in the hunter ring? It feels like a lifetime. I’ve forgotten most of their ways, which are certainly VERY different from the world I reside in now. To start, they show all their babies in bridles, whereas for us, halters are an option for yearlings. They stand them up differently, they trot them differently, they present them differently, they wear different clothes, and of course they judge them very differently. I had to go back and watch some videos just to remember how it works, lest I commit some kind of gargantuan faux pas. A small faux pas or two… I can live with that. He ain’t a hunter baby, after all. Just nothing gargantuan.

The bridle thing is a small issue. He hadn’t worn a bridle yet, and I definitely didn’t have any hunter appropriate bridles anymore (they’re so boring it legit makes me sad). A friend offered to find me one to borrow, and a plain brown cob bridle that I’m getting from Lund may or may not get here by then. In the meantime, he tried on his cob size Kavalkade bridle for the first time last weekend. He’s got kind of a weird in-between baby and horse head at the moment. The browband was a bit snug and the throatlatch had to go on the loosest hole, but the cheekpieces were up as tight as they would go. The noseband, even tightened all the way, was still so loose it was floppy. He’s got like a horse size brow and jaw with pony size nose.

I also kind of forgot that loose rings aren’t really a thing that hunter folks do, so I had to dig in my collection for something else. I did find a happy mouth D ring, which is perfect, except it’s a 5″ and his little mouth is SO narrow.  He looked relatively ridiculous when I tried the whole thing on him. The sizing issues alone are a good enough reason to not make yearlings show in bridles, y’all. They’re awkward as hell.

I also couldn’t even remember how you enter these shows, which is extra sad because it’s only been like 2 years since I did some jumper classes at a regular h/j show. In eventing we have to enter so far in advance that I’m now perplexed at this whole last minute thing, and with not having to pay in advance, or provide/sign a bunch of different forms. And the lack of ride times. How did I ever survive that chaos? This is madness.

I’m not braiding him, because it’s not rated (also GET REAL with those hunter braids, I can’t do that, not happening) and also because I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this but he’s not a hunter. A braid job won’t change that. We’ll pull ourselves together well enough to not insult the judge, but otherwise… we’re gonna stand out like sore thumbs no matter what. He’s very bleached out, when he stands just the right way his neck looks like it was put on upside down, AND you can see some ribs. Hunter ring horrors! Just passing through folks, nothing to see here.

Presto was not a fan of the bridle so we’ll work on that some more this weekend. Honestly though he might spend the whole class chomping away in misery, wondering why I keep doing this stuff to him. As long as he behaves himself, I don’t really care.

Last week I ordered him a little scrim sheet for $20 on clearance, just something to keep the dust off of him while he’s in his stall at FEH. The smallest they had was a 70 and I was worried it would end up being gigantic on him. Joke’s on me, I guess, since the damn thing fits. He hates it, but he’s cute in it, so he’ll wear it at FEH because that’s how life goes. Also now I’m getting concerned that the 72 sheet I bought him for this winter might not fit by the time December actually comes around. What happened to my little baby horse??? He’s not such a baby anymore.

The original title for this post was “Singlehandedly Keeping Amazon in Business”, but then I realized that it isn’t JUST Amazon boxes that are taking up half of my dining room and providing Grem with endless If-I-Fits-I-Sits opportunities.

I ordered a bunch of random crap from Amazon for the new trailer. I mentioned most of it last week, like the hanging mirror and the wall gripper thingies and the rug. I was not totally honest with you guys. The full list is actually something more like:

• rug
• wall gripper thingies (2)
• hanging mirror
• cross tie rings (2)
• hanging organizer
• USB rechargable fans (3, on 2 different orders. Approximately one bajillion people have asked me for the link to these so here ya go.)
• wheel chocks (2)
• expanding hose
• twin air mattress
• carabiner clips
• bungee cord assortment
• trailer ties (2)
• folding step stool
• trailer decals
• heavy duty outdoor velcro (2)

And Tik Maynard’s new book. Not for the trailer, but… just because I wanted it, ok? Tik is an eventer. Tik is cool. Buy Tik’s book.

Anyway… as most of you know, the thing about Amazon is that pretty much everything ships separately. Or at least it seems like pretty much everything I ordered did. A couple days after I placed the order, boxes started showing up in groups (side note, what do you call a group of boxes? A flock? A herd? A murder?). One afternoon I drove up the street, saw the poor mailman parked in my driveway, digging boxes out of his truck and making a pile. It was 105 degrees out, he seemed less than thrilled. I was a wee bit embarrassed. He’s gotta be wondering wtf I’m doing and why I can’t stay off of Amazon. I feel a need to put a big “I’M SO SORRY” sign on my front door.

I also placed a Riding Warehouse order, for a hitch cover (recommended to me by aforementioned FatBuckskin) and another gallon of fly spray. Of course, I didn’t realize until after the fact that the fly spray was backordered, so guess what got split into two separate shipments? At least those are the UPS guy and not the mailman… spread some of the misery around.

And then stupid Dover got me (again) with their stupid summer sale (again) because who passes up a wool dress sheet for their dog for $4.50?? Ok, lots of people probably. But not me. I have an old JRT that gets cold easily and will look fancy AF in this thing. In the winter. Which is like 5 months away. And lasts all of 6 weeks in Texas. Details.

But ya know, in order to make that purchase worthwhile I had to throw a few other things in, right? And it’s possible that I have a minor show shirt addiction problem, especially if said shirt is a kind of unique Horseware design. And $8.99. I will totally wear this.

Plus I’ve been hemming and hawing over the idea of nameplate bracelets for a long time but didn’t really love the padded halter looking ones. This simple braided one is more my style (it looks very similar to a bracelet I bought in downtown Austin that says “Badass Motherf*cker”… without the star part… because if you put the f word on a bracelet I will probably buy it, it’s my favorite word.), especially at $7.50 a pop.

But then I had to order nameplates for them right? But not from Dover, because they were $11-15 each. So I snuck over to Haltertags.com and ordered two nameplates for $12. I pick the weirdest possible ways to pinch pennies, I know. Jewelry is not one of the things I want to spend money on, so spending less than $14 a piece on the bracelets makes me happier.

The saddle racks for the trailer are almost here (again, sorry mailman) and then the packages should start to slow down a bit, barring some Amazon stragglers.

Oh, and the Nathe bit that I snagged on eBay because somehow I used to have 2 Nathes and now I have none. They’re my favorite “baby bit”, so I definitely need another in my arsenal. It’s en route.

Then there’s that Ogilvy order that I placed in May and completely forgot about until my friend asked me a shipping question pertaining to it. That one should be extra fun to open because I legit don’t even remember what I ordered anymore. Pretty sure it was an all-navy dressage half pad and then a new cover for the jump half pad, but I definitely do not remember what colors I got. Surprise!

And there may or may not be some new Lund stuff coming too. And some Majyk Equipe. Ahem.

So… what do y’all get your mailman for Christmas, because I might owe him BIGLY after this little spree…

Newsflash, y’all: this kid can be a real punk when he wants to be. At least for a few minutes at a time, anyway.

I have to give him credit too, his moments of punkiness are 100% calculated and planned. Presto is not a reactionary horse in the least, he is a plotter and a planner, a mischievous little semi-deviant who sees himself as a bonafide rebel with a rad punk rock hairdo and an overactive sideeye. But on the inside, he’s 0% committed to being a Bad Horse. He’s easily swayed by his desire for snacks, and easily intimidated by authority, so usually all it takes to get him back in line is a growl or a swift correction. He is all bark, no bite. All hat, no cattle. All foam, no beer. Or I guess in this case: all mohawk, no… piercings?

I’m pretty convinced that he spends most of his free time brainstorming new schemes. You can usually tell when he thinks he’s struck gold, because he’ll have a particular little gleam in his eyes when I go get him. When I see that I’m always like “oh boy, here we go, what bright idea have you come up with today?”. Except his ideas are never bright. He thinks they are… right up until Reckoning time when I put the kibosh on that shit real quick. He’s just so bad at being bad.

The latest in his string of bright ideas has been experimenting with various turdly ideas during ponying. Clearly he’s gotten a little too comfortable with the routine, if he’s graduated into being a punk about it. When things are genuinely new, scary, or interesting, he’s usually a golden child. But we’ve been ponying a lot more lately, 3-4 days a week for 40ish minutes at a time. These are forward, marching walks out through the fields, up and down our hills. Presto used to have a hard time matching Henry’s pace, but as he’s gotten a bit stronger, his walk has gotten bigger and more forward too. Now that he’s not struggling to keep up, he’s got a little less to keep his brain occupied. We all know what that means.

The first bright idea was the Must Eat Now day. On that particular afternoon he spent the first half of our ponying session trying all myriad of ways to get snacks. The first attempt was just your standard plant-feet-and-yank-head-down approach, for which he got a swift smack on the butt and a series of extremely dirty looks from Henry, who does not take kindly to having his hacks interrupted by shenanigans. That having failed, Presto next tried to randomly exit stage right, throwing himself into the bushes and grabbing desperately at whatever greenery ended up near his mouth before I could reel him back in. One quick jungle extraction later, he spent the next 10 minutes plodding along politely, clearly pouting about his failure. And since his bottom lip is very square and juts out a good inch beyond his top lip, it’s extra amusing when he pouts.

Then out of nowhere he just completely disappeared from beside me and I looked back to see him fling himself down on one knee, grab a huge bite of grass, and pop back up again, all in one swift motion. Honestly, it was kind of impressive from a sheer athleticism and cleverness standpoint. So naughty, but really crafty. You gotta admire that. Of course, it can’t be tolerated either, so we spent a few minutes moving his feet (while I chuckled a lot more than I should have, probably) and reminding him that ponying time is business time, after which he promptly gave up and hasn’t tried it again since. He’s SO not dedicated to his rebellions, it’s actually kind of pathetic.

After another few near-perfect ponying sessions, he’d come up with his next scheme. This time he spent the first five minutes constantly trying to reach over and bite Henry. That in itself isn’t new, he usually manages to summon up the courage for a little nip at least once or twice per session. This time, though, it was constant. The end of my lead rope turned into a whacker, and every time that naughty little nose pointed our way he got a nice wallop. Of course, not being totally new to this game, he would quickly nip at Henry and then leap to the right or duck down to avoid the wallop. That was a new one. Granted, all I had to do was increase the range of my wallop, which really seemed to have him stumped. HOW WAS I STILL ABLE TO NAIL HIM, DESPITE HIS AMAZING ACROBATIC ESCAPES?

Baby horses are really stupid, guys. It’s hilarious.

So again, that game ended after a few minutes, and Presto trudged along looking defeated once more. I have no doubt that sometime in the next couple weeks when I go to get him, the gleam will be back and he’ll roll out his newest brightest idea. I also have no doubt that it won’t really be that bright, and we’ll go through the motions all over again. He is nothing if not entertaining.