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Henry and I are headed to an Ashley Adams clinic this weekend at my Trainer’s barn. Well… I have a private SJ lesson on Friday, and then Trainer is riding him. She’s mostly back in the groove from her post-baby/riding-hiatus, but all of her horses are green, so who better to gallop and jump big fences on than Henry? Plus I’m still planning on making her run Prelim on him so they may as well start getting re-acquainted.

I think it’ll be fun, and since I’ve heard nothing but good things about Ashley (especially regarding her experience with OTTB’s), I’m willing to give it a go. Normally you have to twist my arm a lot for the clinic thing… by the time all is said and done most of them end up costing about as much as a horse show, or a lot of lessons with your regular trainer. When your budget is tight, it becomes a matter of priorities and choices. Clinics don’t usually win.

I have been to some good clinics though. I’m lucky in that I’ve never ridden with a truly BAD clinician, although some have definitely been better than others. I’m not sure that I’ve ever walked away with any huge revelations though. Except for that little steeplechase lesson we got from Hawley Bennett as part of the 3-Day at Coconino… that one little lesson, and applying what we learned at the subsequent event that weekend, really made cross country riding “click” for me in a way it hadn’t before. Maybe the Classic Format in general should get the credit there (the whole event was set up as a semi-clinic, with jog up lessons and everything), but Hawley’s advice still echos clearly in my memory on cross country.

Granted, I haven’t ridden in a ton of clinics… only 5.

I’ve audited a lot more than I’ve ridden in, plus participated in a couple un-mounted ones (the YEH judging and FEH ones). Some were great, most of them decent, and a couple were just uncomfortably bad. Auditing Charles de Kunffy was a particular highlight in the “great” column, as was the YEH judging clinic with Marilyn Payne, both of which I ended up writing about here.

The bad ones that stand out in my mind were mostly bad because of the clinicians’ attitude toward some of the riders. There’s a difference in constructive criticism and just plain meanness.

So that got me thinking: what were the best clinics you’ve ever been to, and what made them so great? And on the flip side: what were the worst clinics you’ve ever been to, and what made them so bad?

It occurred to me that some of you might want to see the inspection pictures of Liam too, since a) he’s adorbs, b) he’s featured so prominently in Presto’s life story thus far, as the trusty BFF. But if I’m gonna post pics of Liam, I may as well post pics of all the WTW horses that were part of the inspection, right? I mean, in some capacity y’all have probably at least heard most of them mentioned on here before. And if you haven’t, you should. Because Willow Tree is the best and you will keep hearing about them forever and ever. Plus a whole post full of pictures of pretty horses is never a bad thing. So I guess consider this an update post on the horses you already know, and an introductory post for the ones you don’t. **The overcast pics were taken on actual Inspection Day, and the sunny pretty ones are from an impromptu “redo” with better lighting.

First and foremost: Liam!

 

And of course there’s Liam’s dam, Lissa (Lasino x Winnetou), the 1.50m GP jumper mare. I thiiiink Michelle is going to breed her back to Emerald next year and hope for a keeper filly this time? She borrowed Henry’s jumping bridle for the inspection… I think she pulls off the Lund figure 8 and the Boy-O-Boy browband with panache.

 

Chanel Z (Crown Z x Heartbreaker) showed through 1.40m classes both in Europe and here in the US. Chanel already had two foals in Europe before she was put under saddle and then sold across the pond. The first foal is currently jumping at 1.45m in the UK and the other is at 1.20m in Slovakia.

 

Inca R (Diabolo D’Esquelmes x Lux Z) is a super cute 3yo black filly that was started under saddle this year. If you know anyone that’s looking for a more petite sporthorse prospect, she’s for sale! Inca is very smart and easy and quiet, with a huge stride, and should mature about 16-16.1h. And she scored a 9 for her trot at the inspection.

 

Laken (Torino x Pikadero) is out of another mare that Michelle used to have – Portia. They look very very similar: big, powerful, and beautiful. Laken showed a little bit when she was younger, through 1.15m, and now she’s in foal to Diarado.

 

Hanna (Iris Landai x Iveday) was the very first broodmare at WTW, the one who started it all. Hanna is the senior lady of the herd but started her life in Belgium, where she won a huge young horse class before being imported and having a long career in the children’s and junior hunter ring.

 

And then there’s Stormie the sportpony, smallest in stature but largest in ego. This is the pony that all the big name riders keep trying to buy from Michelle every time she takes it to a clinic (yes, this is her main riding horse too!). Stormie moves fantastic and jumps even better. REALLY can’t wait to see some super nice sportponies out of this one! I haven’t come across very many ponies in the US that equal her quality. I just wish we had a stronger pony jumper market here.

 

There is one more that I just had to include here. Murphy is a quarter horse, and he’s bred for barrel racing, but he’s adorable. You might be seeing more of him in the future once Liam leaves, because this little nugget is Presto’s other friend. Granted, Murphy is like half the size, but he’s got more than enough confidence in himself to make up the difference.

I also really wanted to share these because this was Michelle’s first time hosting her own inspection at her own farm, and she really busted her ass making it nice. Sun up to sun down (or later) for WEEKS, doing upgrades around the farm, mowing, painting all these jumps and poles, making and stuffing flower boxes, watering, re-landscaping, getting the horses ready, getting shirts and banners made, etc etc. I’m proud of her and want to recognize her accomplishment, and I feel like everyone else should get to see it too. Round of applause for you, friend!

Oh, and if you’re not following Willow Tree Warmbloods on social media (facebook and Instagram), you really should.

When you’re having a shit week at work and your trainer texts you and asks if you want to meet up at your regular XC schooling venue for a laidback play day, the only suitable answer is omg yes please.

Having no real plan or expectations, I hopped on and headed out to the field to warm up. We had done a lot of raised trot and canter poles the day before so I thought Henry might feel a little body sore, but if he did, it was overridden by his cross country excitement. As soon as I picked up the canter he did his patented gleeful dolphin leaps, head between his knees. We popped over a couple little logs, then the first fence for Training, then the first fence for Prelim, then a random Prelim skinny that’s set on an awkward approach. All quite boring, in a good way, and Henry felt great.

It was a pretty hot and humid day, so I didn’t see the point in jumping a whole lot of stuff. We weren’t there with some kind of big important mission in mind, we were just there to have fun and go for a spin. So we jumped through the Prelim water a couple times

and then just ambled along through the woods while the rest of our little group schooled a few other things.

By the time we ambled through the woods and made it back to the big field, my friend Kathy had somehow convinced me to take her Advanced horse, Lofty, for a spin. This horse is an actual unicorn – big beautiful gray warmblood with huge fancy gaits and a ton of jump. He finished 11th in the Gold Cup Advanced final at AEC this year (I really need to write about Kathy and Lofty at some point, their story is pretty incredible). So like… he’s as legit as an event horse can possibly be.

He gets so much air time (hence the name Lofty) that just trotting him around my abs hurt almost instantly. His stride feels twice as long as Henry’s, and he seems twice as big and about a thousand times more uphill. I was 99% sure I was going to break him, but they finally peer pressured me into jumping the Novice ark and then the Training triple down banks to bench combination. Since Lofty is a unicorn, he packed my ass around with no complaints while I mostly just tried not to kill us both. It was a lot of me screaming internally “DON’T BREAK THE ADVANCED HORSE” as Lofty loped politely over the jumps like he was literally asleep.

Kathy had gotten on Henry, who expressed his disdain at her proper riding by pinning his ears and letting that helicopter tail fly in tight circles. He’s… special… to ride if you’re not used to him or his type. Sensitive is his first, middle, and last name, and he’s a little bouncing ball of a horse. Once she pointed him at a jump his attitude immediately improved, and we ended by peer pressuring her (fair’s fair!) into jumping the Prelim chevron.

Our two horses really couldn’t be more polar opposite. I love my little delicate flower, but it was definitely cool to sit on a really really fancy, really really trained one (even if I spent the whole time being terrified that I was going to break him).

We had so much fun though. It was nice to just come out for a relaxed day, no pressure, small group of friends, and just blow off some steam. I really needed it, and Henry is always thrilled to get a cross country day.

Plus on the way home I stopped at America’s Greatest Gas Station and grabbed two of my most favorite things in the world.

You can’t beat a day like that.

Or: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

A couple days ago Leah sent me a link to a quarter sheet she had seen for sale on saddlesworld.com, asking if it was my photo.

Not only was it definitely my photo, it had been photoshopped. The original photo is this:

clearly showing a HUGE PS of Sweden logo that had been quite obviously photoshopped out of the version on the saddlesworld.com site. Stealing someone’s photo for advertising use on your website is one level of shady… photoshopping said photo to remove another brand’s logo is a whole extra level. I emailed them and tagged them in a facebook post about the photo, and within half an hour they had taken the quarter sheet’s page down, offering an apology and a coupon.

Gee, thanks. Steal my photo, photoshop it, use it for false advertising, and then offer me a coupon for my troubles. You shouldn’t have!

No really… you shouldn’t have.

Because if you take a quick jog around their site, it’s absolutely chock full of stolen photos. This is clearly not an accident or a one off situation. You can recognize photos from SmartPak, Dover, Fairfax, Mattes, Sabre, Zaldi, Bates, Weaver, etc etc etc. Some photoshopped to remove branding, some that didn’t require alterations. All of it at super low, fairly unbelievable prices, of course.

And if you, the consumer, do a cursory look around the internet to see if the site seems legit, you would find that it claims to be based in Massachusetts, even sporting a Massachusetts phone number, and their facebook page has over 13k likes. Yet a closer look at some of the endless find print reveals that it’s clearly based overseas, most likely in India. My email was answered by someone supposedly named “Sam Seth”.

Bottom line, who knows what you’d actually get if you ordered something. Maybe they do their best to very cheaply knockoff whatever item is in the photo. Maybe they just give you the total runaround. Either way – YIKES. Come on, Saddles World, if you want to sell a bunch of uber cheap knockoffs, at least have the decency to take photos of your own products and only use THOSE for advertising, instead of stealing and photoshopping photos from other people and companies.

Sites like these are becoming more and more common, it seems. While most aren’t this blatant about stolen photos, there is definitely a huge influx of cheap knockoff products, often of extremely questionable quality. For some things, like saddle pads, it doesn’t matter much. But do you really want to be riding around in a bridle, girth, saddle (or other crucial piece of a equipment) that has been cobbled together by one of these sellers? Best case scenario – it’s hideous and uncomfortable. Worst case scenario – it breaks while you’re using it and you’re screwed.

Before ordering from one of these super cheap discount places, definitely do your homework. If there’s one thing the horse world teaches us, it’s that if something looks amazing in photos but the price is next to nothing, there’s probably a catch.

Guess what happened on Monday?

Yep, it’s true, Presto is an independent man now. Well, sort of. He and Liam are so obsessed with each other that it’s a little ridiculous.

It started out just by putting Presto and Liam in the double stall/run right next to Sadie, to introduce the concept of separation. Because really, there’s nothing worse than the destructive power of a mad giant hippo mare who likes to SadieSMASH. That went off without a hitch, although Sadie was still sidling up to the fence every once in a while to let Presto nurse. I mean, he’s 6.5 months old, you think she’d be tired of him and his crap by now, especially because she seems pretty uncomfortable when he nurses. She is really dedicated to the whole Momma thing.

There has been a thread going on in one of the breeding groups on facebook about “weaning by the signs”, which sounds either super hokey or semi credible, depending on where you stand on the subject of moon phases and it’s affect on people/animals. It just so happened that our timeline coincided easily with one of the “prime” weaning times, so we went with that. Hokum? Maybe. Gonna stack the odds in your favor as much as possible, especially when it’s easy? Yes. Either way, things seem to have worked out, because Presto was not particularly stressed.

It was discovered by day 2 of “Presto+Liam: Unsupervised” that Presto is indeed the more dominant of the two. Like to the point where he wouldn’t let Liam eat out of either bucket – instead he ran him off to the corner, where Liam just stood there licking his lips and looking like a Big Sad Dumb while Presto expertly monitored both buckets. So someone is kind of a jerk, and more creative feeding methods had to be adopted. Have to admit, I secretly kind of admire his “Bitch, please” attitude. The kid has this wordlyness about him, like he’s been places and he’s seen things. Or so he thinks, anyway. Cocky little turd. But I suppose that attitude is probably a big part of why he’s still alive, so I can’t really resent it now, can I?

The boys will go out to pasture and Sadie will go back with her BFF Lissa. The mares can focus on getting fat again, Sadie can focus on growing that Diarado baby, and they can enjoy a break from naughty little colts with flying teeth and flying hooves.

At some point Liam will be leaving, which will probably be the saddest thing ever for both colts. Granted, they both have other friends waiting for them that I’m sure will be almost as fun. And then Presto will be gelded (god, do you think that’ll take the cocky attitude down a notch?) once it gets cold.

It’s about time to buy him Baby’s First Rope halter, so he can start learning some real groundwork (with manners attached)!