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Every year when I leave a summer horse show, coated in 15 layers of sweat and filth, rubbed raw in places that shouldn’t ever be, I think “omg, why did I do that? That was miserable.” and then the next year I do it again anyway.

Horse people, we are gluttons for punishment.

I feel a little bit like a walking piece of beef jerky today. I drank 12 bottles of water in less than 24 hours (and was asleep for 8 of those hours) but I still basically attached my mouth to the hose after XC and chugged. Then stopped on the way home for a Powerade and chugged that too. I have to give the show management many props for how they organized the ride times this year, though. My dressage was late on Saturday evening, and we were done with stadium and XC before 9am on Sunday. The riding parts were the most pleasant.

The show recap will have to wait until tomorrow though, mostly because I need to organize myself a bit more before I tackle that. Spoiler alert: we won.

But I have to be honest, it didn’t really feel like a very deserving win. I made some mistakes and had some bleh moments and picked up my ribbon mostly just feeling like I’d ended up on the lucky end of things that day. A friend of mine said that I was the most self-deprecating person she knew, a comment that I kept mulling over as I packed my things and started driving home. I fell into a cycle of glancing at the ribbon on the dash, mulling over my rounds in my head, and then thinking about her observation.

Finally I got tired of myself and starting flipping through radio stations, trying to find literally anything without static until I could get enough signal to turn on Spotify. Quite serendipitously, as I was pushing that Seek button over and over and over, one sentence came through loud and clear out of the static – “There ain’t nothing gonna steal my joy”. Not sure if you’ve ever spent much time driving through Texas, but the stations we unfailingly have the most coverage for are the Christian stations, and that’s what this was. The signal quickly faded away to static again as I went down the hill, but I found myself pausing for a second on that particular lyric.

That was really the perfect way to phrase what I was doing to myself… stealing my own joy. We won our first HT ever (pretty sure? I think our other wins have been in derbies and CT’s.) at a level that at one time seemed like my own personal version of Rolex, and here I was, stuck on a couple of fences that I rode sloppily. My friend’s observation was spot on – I AM super self-deprecating. I couldn’t even give myself one friggin day to just enjoy the fact that we finally came out on top before I started analyzing and tearing apart every single mistake.

I decided, in that moment, to just stop it. I turned my brain off, got just enough signal to open Spotify, and selected my “Horse Show” playlist… something I made a couple years ago to play when Bobby and I were driving to shows together. It’s a ridiculous mixture of really random songs, but they feel celebratory to me. I cranked that shit the whole rest of the way home and set everything else aside.

So, tomorrow we’ll tear this thing apart and talk about what went right and what didn’t and what we need to work on. There are always plenty of those things. But for today I’m just gonna shove a bunch of cookies into my fantastic horse and appreciate the awesome journey that he’s taken me on.

Yesterday I sent the entry in for Presto’s first Future Event Horse class! Despite my pretty gung-go attitude earlier this year about taking him for FEH, I admit that I’ve really been waffling a bit. It took a lot of convincing and second guessing and back-and-forth on my part just to enter this one, and honestly it kind of left me wondering why I was being like that.

I love Presto. I think he’s going to be exactly the type of horse I was aiming for when I bred his dam, and I’m pleased with how he’s developing. His temperament is super, his gaits are good without being too much for an amateur to ride, he doesn’t have any major structural issues, and he’s brave and smart. That said, I have always been able to very easily see the flaws in all of my horses, and Presto is no exception to this. My eye is probably more critical than anyone else’s and I always go the imperfections first, like I have some kind of weird case of reverse barn-blindness. It’s made me hesitant to take him to FEH, although I don’t really know why, because logically it doesn’t make sense.

It’s not like he’s for sale. I don’t even put much weight on FEH scores translating to useful feedback about a horse’s potential – all they can do is evaluate confo and walk and trot on a baby horse, which are definitely not the most important things for an eventer. Not to mention that babies go through some seriously funky stages, and the judge may or not be able or willing to see through that. I tell people these things ALL THE TIME. Some babies score really well at FEH and totally flop as eventers. Some score really meh at FEH and are fabulous eventers. Line classes are really hard when it comes to predicting horses that will do well in a sport like this.

For all of those reasons, his scores don’t actually matter. At the end of the day, it’s just one person’s opinion of a horse on that day, given what they can see. I know all of this. I know it really well. But that hasn’t stopped me from being hesitant about entering him. I already know his scores will just be average (y’all, the llama phase, it is real) and I already know that it won’t matter anyway. But I was still hesitant. I just… I dunno. I’m not sure if it’s that I don’t want to take him out in public when he doesn’t look his best, or if I just don’t want someone handing me a scoresheet telling me that they think he’s gross. It’s not as though I’m not already very used to the concept of subjective judging and one person’s opinion.

After thinking about it for a while, I still don’t really know the root of my hesitation. I don’t totally understand my own psychology here, so I’m probably just being dumb as hell. But after talking it through with some people, and realizing that this next show is my last chance at getting him to a FEH class at all as a yearling, I decided to just buck up. Yeah so he’s gawky and he still hasn’t sprouted his chest and the orientation of his neck can change 100% from day to day (today: upside down). Who knows what he’ll look like the day of the show. But we’re gonna go and support the program and trot around that triangle like a real horse with no actual expectations (aside from good behavior), because why not? And if the judge doesn’t like Presto then oh well.

So Henry has a schooling show this weekend where we’re gonna play with a few new ideas and get an XC run in (we haven’t been out on XC at all since our March show, I think?), then Presto’s FEH is next weekend, and then Henry and I leave for Chatt! The next month is going to be busy.

If you follow me on Instagram at all, you’re probably thinking that Presto spends his entire life tied up in some place or another. While it’s not quite THAT much time, he’s definitely logged his fair share of “patience hours” lately.

Since his weekend adventure with The Tree of Knowledge a few weeks ago, he’s become quite reliable about tying. It wasn’t a one-and-done for teaching him how to stand quietly, but it definitely taught him that resistance is futile. I’ve been tying him in the barn for grooming every day, either straight-tied in the aisle or crosstied in the grooming area, and he’s been rock solid. Not totally STILL, per se, he still wiggles and tries to chew on things and sometimes tries a few half-hearted stomps that are the saddest attempt at a temper tantrum that I’ve ever seen. But the thought to pull back or resist or try to escape does not exist in him at all.

So, as I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I moved on to tying Presto at the rail in the arena while I rode Henry. He was a little mad the first time, but honestly handled it better than I thought he would. I could ride Henry right behind him and he didn’t care (I mean, he looked more mad, but he wasn’t upset). I don’t ride in the arena very often though… generally only when the fields are too wet or too hard.

The next time I rode Henry out in what I call my “dressage field” – a smaller, flatter field in front of my jump field – I noticed something that hasn’t really registered with me before. Tall, very solid poles that I assume used to be part of an old fence. Now it’s a lower wire mesh fence, with my dressage field on one side and a corn field on the other, but a few of the taller poles are still in place.

So after one more session hanging out on the rail in the arena to make sure he understood the game, I ponied him out with me for a dressage ride one morning, tied him to the tallest pole (which – it is not that easy to tie one horse on a fence line while riding another, btw. Put THAT in field hunter classes!), and rode away.

Not like… far away. I slowly spiraled Henry away from him, watching to see what Presto’s reaction would be. After all, he was tied next to a loud corn field (it’s kinda scary when it’s windy!), out in the middle of nowhere, and the only horse he could see was leaving him. This was definitely a lot different from just tying him to the arena rail, right by the barn. I could see the wheels turning as he decided what to do. It only took him about 30 seconds to choose the “good boy” option and start nibbling at all the grass that was tall enough to reach.

I heard nary a peep out of him that day, and he’s been out on that post three other times since. I ride Henry past him and towards him at every gait, but Presto never seems to care. Sometimes he gets bored and tries to paw or pace, because yearling, but he never seems worried or upset. He’s become a bonafide Railbird.

I’m hoping that, in addition to continue developing his patience skills, this also helps make him a little more independent and not worried about what other horses are doing around him, especially under saddle. I guess we get to find out in like… 2 1/2 years.

Several people asked me to post my impressions of the Quick Knot once I’d had a chance to try them out. I haven’t actually shown in them yet, but I did pop a couple braids into Henry’s mane the other day and go for a ride, so I’ve definitely at least got enough feedback about them to hopefully be helpful to those of you who were curious.

First: keep in mind that these ship from the Netherlands (yeah, even when you order from the USA site) so order them at least a couple weeks ahead of when you need them. Mine took about a week and a half to arrive, which isn’t bad from Europe at all, but if you’re expecting 3-4 day US-based shipping, you’ll be kept waiting.

I’ve been eyeballing these things since they first hit the market last year, but the price has always kept me a bit hesitant. At $40 for a pack of 100, they aren’t that cheap when it comes to braiding implements. And while they say you can get at least two uses out of each piece, it still made me wince a bit. I mean, $5 for a pack of rubberbands or $15 for a spool of nice waxed thread are prices that I’m more accustomed to for braiding products. At my core, I am cheap.

But I friggin hate sewing in braids, and I also friggin hate rubberbands for about a thousand reasons, so finally I just said screw it, had a “Treat Yo’self” moment, and bought the overpriced paper clips. Well, ok, first I did try following a suggestion I saw online that said to do the same thing with bobby pins going up through the braid and then an “arm” bent to each side, but a) it didn’t blend with the mane very well, the bobby pins were pretty clearly visible even from 10′ away b) it didn’t seem very secure. So after that I said fine, admitted defeat, and ordered a package of Quick Knot.

I got a good giggle out of the fact that the customs form listed them as “paper clips”, but really that’s kinda what they are. They’re very simple little things, basically just a little metal T that you stab down through the braid and then bend the end up to lock everything in place. I wish I’d come up with this, the profit margin has to be great.

My main concerns were that a) the metal piece would look like a big staple from the backside, b) they wouldn’t stay in. So the day after they hit my mailbox I took them out to the barn and popped a couple braids in Henry’s mane at 5:50am before our ride. He eyeballed me hard. But the first thought I had was “wow, that was fast!”.

So after taking the obligatory photo of the first braid, I turned on my phone timer and did the second one. Despite some fumbling with the rubberband that secured the braid itself (#manhandsproblems), it still only took 41 seconds start to finish. Rolling up the braid and securing it was ridiculously easy. The Quick Knots were stiffer and harder to bend than I had anticipated, but I quickly got the hang of how I needed to manipulate it to secure the braid. They blended pretty darn seamlessly into Henry’s mane though, making them almost invisible.

BUT WOULD THEY STAY? After a 45 minute w/t/c conditioning ride, those buggers didn’t even move. And taking them out? 5 seconds, including pulling out the band securing the braid. I hesitate to say that I’m sold until I actually use them at a show, but my interest is hella piqued.

My only real complaint so far, aside from grumbling about the price, is that I absolutely hate the container they come in. I wish they came in a nice, thick, sturdy zippered bag like some of the bands do. If you tried to use these at a show, out of that cumbersome box, they’d be all over the stall floor in 2 minutes flat. And that thought makes me more than a little nervous, being a piece of metal. I’ve already transferred mine into a baggie.

In trying to justify the price to myself, I did a little math (oh dear god). I bought the package of 100, and let’s just say that I put in an average of 15 braids (I usually have 10-12 on Henry, but erring toward the side of caution). That’s 6+ uses if I only use each one once. If I use each one twice (I’ll probably try for 3 times but let’s account for some losses and/or failures here), that’s 13 uses. Aka 13 times being braided, which for me is 13 shows. That’s about 2 years, at the rate I’m going. 13 uses equals out to about $3 per use, or if you’d rather break it up by year, $20 a year. Definitely nowhere near as cheap as bands or thread or yarn, but a palatable cost. Especially when you consider that it should save me at least 10, probably more like 15 minutes per braid job. That’s over 2 hours of my life that I get back.

So, I’ll come back to these and update you guys again when I’ve used them more, but for now the first impression is generally positive. Hopefully they don’t let me down! We’ll find out at Chatt. And next weekend at FEH… but more on that later. 😉

As I mentioned yesterday, Sunday was ADVENTURE TIME with the boys. I’m really loving the rare weekend days where I have nothing to do but play around with these two idiots.

I took much the same approach this weekend as I did last weekend. We started out with ponying – which Presto has gotten a little bit cocky about as of late. I think he finds it to be a really fun game, and he’s not intimidated by anything at all, so sometimes he tries to nip at Henry or canter in place. He’s funny though, in all of his antics he never actually pulls on the lead rope. He’s just really excited to be there, bro.

Originally I had wanted to just do a nice long walk on the hills, but Mr. CanterOnTheSpot had ants in his pants, so we went for a big long trot lap of the entire field first. That 10 minutes was enough to take a lot of the cockiness out of him, after which we were able to settle and walk, with a few bits of stopping to practice standing still (Henry’s favorite – Presto’s least favorite).

I brought them back in and decided to chop both of their manes off, then it was bath time again. Henry is trying his hardest to do his “I don’t have hair here or here or here” summer routine, so I’ve been keeping after him daily with my variety of shampoos and tinctures. Presto has stayed funk-free so far (he’s fading into a buckskin really quickly in the summer sun though, which is sad) so he just got hosed off and then had to stand in the wash rack and wait politely while I attended to Henny. And when I say “wait politely” I mean wait not-at-all-politely, as he proceeded to try to very deliberately stomp on the hose for the next 15 minutes.

Since Henry kind of ruined courtyard grazing privileges last weekend with his attempted escape (why do they take turns being brats?), I stuck them into the little front paddock with the citrus trees. I took Henry’s lead rope off but left Presto’s on at first, to continue his lessons with the drag rope while I supervised.

As soon as I let them go I could see the mischievousness in Henry’s eyes. Sometimes he just gets that cheeky look about him where you can tell he’s just waiting for the right excuse to be naughty. But they both just walked off and started grazing, and I figured maybe I was wrong.

I was not wrong.

A few minutes later Henry spotted the chickens, and that was exactly the excuse he’d been looking for. He took off bucking and leaping and galloping and squealing and farting. Poor Presto was tagging behind like “Oh, are we spooking? FUN!”, while Henry proceeded to run around like a rodeo horse for the next 10 minutes. Even Presto got tired of his shenanigans and tried to go back to grazing, but Henry would come blazing past him again and Presto would have to duck and cover to get out of the way.

I decided to rescue Presto a little bit and at least take the drag rope off, since he already had enough problems with his idiot brother the bucking bronco.

Presto alternately chased him and then got chased, but he kept it mostly to a trot, because he’s never impressed. It was almost like they were playing tag.

I eventually had to stop their game and take them in, because Henry was getting a little TOO rambunctious. Total idiot, I dunno what wild hair got up his butt. Clearly being ridden 6 days a week with a ramped up conditioning schedule isn’t taking anything out of him. Not feeling particularly guilty about the summer horse shows anymore.

When I put Presto back in his pasture he tried his best to continue the game of tag with his donkeys, but they were 0% interested.

Watching Henry and Presto interact definitely brings me a lot of joy, even when one of them looks like a coked out dolphin and the other is a baby giraffe. Life is never boring with these two!