Category: Uncategorized

Life has been a little stressful lately. Not the horse related stuff so much (omg knocking on so much wood right now) but personal stuff. Work. The future. A big crossroads that would completely and totally change everything. Ya know, light stuff. No biggie.

I’m not much of a talker, my standard MO is to internalize things until I’ve figured out the solution and have a plan in place, which I haven’t done yet. It’s very much a state of limbo, like I’m lingering on the precipice of some big life decisions, trying to decide whether or not to jump. As I said… light stuff. On the outside it’s a lot of this

but inside it’s more like this.

I’ll talk about it eventually. When I figure it out.

In the meantime the horses have been my refuge, so to speak, and I’ve kind of chosen to drown myself in them even more than usual. Cuz, I dunno… valid coping mechanism? I also may or may not have had a weak day while scrolling through Instagram last week. The good thing is that my retail therapy budget is basically nill right now, there was very little damage I could actually do.

But yeah, I’m sorry, I can’t resist dark purple breeches. Especially when the alternative is eating an entire roll of cookie dough or something. Breeches are better, right? These were stupid cheap anyway, AND I’ve been wanting to try this brand for a while, AND I’ve been waiting for someone to make a super dark purple for a long time, so I’m going to consider it totally justifiable. Go ahead, tell me I’m wrong (jk, please don’t do that, let me have my dark purple breeches without judgment). I don’t know why these things make me feel better, but they do. They’re fun and they’re different, two things I’m actively seeking for myself. And, well… purple was my mom’s favorite color, after all. It’s as if the sheer act of owning them might somehow transfer some of her wisdom to me via spiritual osmosis.

Or maybe I’m just reading way too much into a pair of purple pants. That’s also 100% possible.

Do I actually have to even bother to justify these? I hope not. I stood no chance against the f-bomb socks. They really complement the inner turmoil nicely. Ok let’s be honest, they suit me perfectly regardless of life phase.

Never stood a chance against this one either. It’s great and it’s the truth and it’s something that quite suits the situation. The more I see it, the better. Also it was on sale, so.

Plus I totally just realized that in my stress-splurge I created a whole new ROOTD. Bonus.

I found a lot of inspiration in Maya Angelou last week when I listened to the audio version of her book “Letter to my Daughter” on my drive to Midland. It was so good I listened to it twice and then went on Thriftbooks and bought a hard copy ($4.99, Thriftbooks never lets me down). If you haven’t read it I highly highly highly recommend.

“My life has been long,

and believing that life loves the liver of it,

I have dared to try many things,

sometimes trembling, but daring, still.”

 

Melodrama aside, I’m all good. Things will work out and I’m nervous but excited to see what happens. And until then, I’ll be rocking some pretty rad purple breeches.

Anyone else had a little mini-splurge on something fun lately?

First, the “nice” versions of the pictures from Presto’s actual inspection last week:

But since the weather was so gross that day, Michelle was pretty bummed at how the pictures came out. She’s got a nice camera and takes actual good pictures (unlike, um… me) so she wanted to redo the whole thing. Especially since the boys are about to enter the weanling uglies, from which there is no return for like… years, really. This might be the last chance to get nice pictures before all of their parts start to look like they don’t belong on the same horse.

So as soon as the weather cleared up and the farm dried out, she braided Presto back up, and did a “redo” of the inspection photos. And these definitely came out much better. It’s amazing how much difference THE SUN (and a cooperative baby horse) makes.

Maybe I’m biased (I’m not) but he’s so cute. I continue to be really thrilled with how he’s maturing, and the quality of horse that I’m seeing. He’s just about everything I could have asked for in an event horse, so far.

Someone remind me of that in a few months when he looks like a giraffellamapotamus.

Presto also had something else SUPER EXCITING happen to him this week, but we’ll talk about that in another post.

I’m starting to think that Henry really IS in cahoots with the weather gods. It’s just not possible for a horse to get his way this completely, over and over and over again.

Somehow he found out that I had signed us up for two dressage classes at the local Thoroughbred rescue’s benefit show. They didn’t offer any jumping classes high enough, but they let you write in whatever dressage test you wanted, so I happily sent in our entry for USEA tests Training A and B. It’s hard to find schooling shows in town that will let you do eventing tests. This was going to be perfect practice.

Or it would have been, had it not started raining last Tuesday and kept right on going through Thursday night. The venue had no choice but to reschedule the show for November, and I swear I heard Henry snickering from his stall, 20 miles away. But a cancelled dressage show didn’t get him out of regular rides, so on Saturday morning I showed up ready to do a dressage school anyway. As soon as I got there the main barn worker told me that he’d been an absolute NUT in turnout the day before, galloping and spinning and leaping and whirling around for almost an hour. First thought: I wonder how many shoes he has left? Second thought: I wonder which part of himself he managed to hurt? Because this is Henny. Those two things are pretty reliable.

I got him out to find that he’d managed to keep all four of his shoes (small miracle) and he appeared to be free of obvious injury. Suspicious. Very suspicious. So I started currying, and he just about hit the floor when I got to the right side of his back. Aha. I knew there’d be something. Pretty much the entire length of his psoas on the right side was super tight and sore. Obviously all those airs above the ground had caused someone to tweak his back. I got to work and starting stretching, rubbing, stretching some more, and whipped out his massager. It got better as I went, so I decided to hop up and go for a long bareback walk to help loosen everything up. After that there was more rubbing, stretching, and massaging, and by the time I put him up it was significantly improved. Nice try, Henny.

On Sunday I had signed up to jump judge at a schooling horse trial a couple hours away, so I was at the barn at dawn to fit a ride in first. He was still tight in his psoas, but much improved, so he got a quick 10 minute massage and stretch, then we went out for a dressage school. He felt tight at first, mostly in the lateral work, but improved quickly and actually managed to give me some good work. More massage, more stretching, and I tossed him in his stall to have his breakfast then headed off to meet Bobby so we could carpool to the show.

I always forget how much I like jump judging. I wish these venues were all closer to me so it was easier for me to do it more often. Sitting in the woods for 4-5 hours with a walkie-talkie, watching horses go by… there are worse ways to spend a Sunday. I was also slightly horrified to find that the Prelim jumps did not look horrifying to me at all, even up close and personal. What. Is. Happening.

So while we didn’t actually get to show this weekend, we at least got to go TO a show, see some friends, and get some volunteer time in. Someday we’ll actually make it to a dressage show, despite Henry’s best efforts. Maybe.

The Belgians were in Texas for the Willow Tree Warmbloods sBs inspection yesterday!

This registry is fairly new to this country, having come over to the US around 2010, but it’s starting to really get a good foothold with the jumper breeders. Studbook sBs horses are known as “Belgian Sporthorses”, not to be confused with Belgian Warmbloods (from the BWP registry). What’s the difference? Mostly which part of Belgium the studbooks are based in. Studbook sBs covers mainly the southern (French) region of the country and BWP covers mainly the northern Dutch speaking region. Although BWP has been known here in America for longer, sBs was actually the first Belgian registry. It’s quite small, numbers-wise, but has still managed to produce its fair share of superstars (ever heard of HH Azur or Rothchild?) and consistently finds itself near the top of the WBFSH Studbook rankings for jumpers.

Basically, it’s legit. Maybe you’d never heard of it before, but you have now. Also their brand looks kinda like the Budweiser logo, so there’s that.

One of the great things about sBs in the US is that they have full reciprocity with their books in Belgium. It’s not a completely separate registry like some of the other big North American based ones, so you end up getting a European passport as part of the horse’s registration paperwork. Pretty neat. The other great perk is that they use Belgian judges, which gets you consistency in the scoring and a solidly experienced eye.

Granted, they are a very jumper-oriented registry, and Presto is an eventer. I knew he wasn’t going to be the type they generally look for, conformation-wise, which is a big muscular well-developed type of horse… which is not generally what you see galloping around the upper levels of eventing. But I was obviously interested in their general impressions and thoughts on his movement… the opinions of experienced breeders and horsemen are always important.

Before I start recapping events, I have to give props to Michelle for how well she did with organizing and preparing for the inspection. The farm looked great and the judges had much praise for how professional the inspection was. She worked her butt off and it showed. Hopefully going forward we can draw even more people to sBs and her inspection.

We had 2 foals (Presto and Liam) and 7 mares to present, which made for a busy morning. There were plenty of helpers though, so we were able to shuffle everyone through pretty quickly. It was an unseasonably cool day, 65 and overcast, so the horses were plenty “lit”. Some a little bit TOO lit.

 

Presto was a compete shitturd to braid. Totally wanted to murder him more than once, but didn’t. Gold star for me. He really needs to be weaned so his self esteem isn’t quite so damn high. He held himself together fairly well(ish) for the in hand portion but mostly just galloped around screaming like a deranged donkey for the free movement portion. There were like 10 steps of meh trot in there, so at least we got SOMETHING.

 

As I expected, they thought he was a little underdeveloped as far as musculature and “bulk” goes. The fact that he’s 74% tb means he will never be particularly solid, and I don’t want him to be, so I’m cool with those remarks. He definitely isn’t the big powerful showjumper standard. He scored straight 7.5’s for the type and conformation section. For perspective, his dam (who I commonly refer to as Hippo or Elephant) got an 8.5 on type. Just slightly different criteria in the jumper vs eventer worlds as far as that goes.

They liked his movement more, giving him an 8 for his walk (it was not very relaxed at the time) and an 8.5 for both his trot and canter. Considering I didn’t think he showed as much quality in his movement as I’ve seen from him before, I was pleased with those scores. Pretty much everything was right in line with what I expected.

After we finished with the horse inspections, both foals got branded and microchipped. Presto had a brief “AM I ON FIRE?” moment with the smoke, but otherwise seemed pretty nonplussed by the branding and the big microchip needle. Sure… stand just fine for those things but dance the tango while I’m braiding you. That makes total sense.

Obviously these pics are just the ones I snapped off of the nice camera’s view screen, so once I get the good versions I’ll post pictures of all the horses. It was a fun (and kind of exhausting) day, but most importantly Presto now has all of his “real horse” stuff done. All that’s really left is to get his lifetime USEF registration! But first: WEANING.

This one was started by Olivia, and I think it’s fun to dream, so dream we shall! She said: “If money was absolutely no barrier and I could custom design every single itty bitty little thing, what would I want in my next horse?”

If you had asked me this question Pre-Henry, you would have gotten a very regimented “16.2h, bay Holsteiner with a star/snip and a couple of white socks, that can take a joke and jump a house”.

If there’s one thing that little bay ball of sass known as Henny has taught me, it’s that it truly is what’s on the inside that counts. These days I’m pretty open to anything 15.3-16.3 that is genuine to it’s core and really wants to do the job. But Olivia said Perfect Horse, so let’s play ball.

Really what I want is all the best things about Henry, but a better mover, easier to ride in dressage, more careful in stadium, and more scope. Oh right, also this perfect horse is bay or brown with just a little bit of white and never has a lame day in it’s life. HA. I still maintain that 16.3h is my preferred upper limit, since I really think the ideal size for a sporthorse is 16.1h or so. I want something that could pack my butt (and all of my bad decisions) around Prelim without turning a hair. Something that is careful in stadium but still super brave. Something that is FORWARD (because I freakin hate when you close your leg and a horse doesn’t react) and wants to take me to the jumps but isn’t a runaway.

Work ethic is probably one of the most important qualities to me in a horse. I had one that had to be “convinced” to go to work every day, and it was not enjoyable to me in the least. I absolutely must have a horse that enjoys the work and is always willing to TRY.

I also want good ground manners – cannot stand super rude horses – but I don’t mind something a little cheeky. Not outright naughty, but I like a horse with some character. Has to be a good traveler, naturally, and easy to catch (another pet peeve). It can’t be inclined to rear, it has to have a decent sense of self-preservation (I don’t want something that will try to jump even when it really really shouldn’t), and it has to have a safe jumping technique. I would want to get it when it was still kinda young and green too, because I’m one of those super masochistic people that likes developing a young horse.

Which kinda leads to this nugget.

I made sure to guarantee myself bay or brown by using a stallion without a red gene, but Presto certainly did his part in the markings department with his star, snip, and one front white sock. My favorite markings! If he’s anything like his parents, I’m hoping that he’ll have at least most of the qualities I’m looking for in my Perfect Horse. We’re a long way from seeing if he develops into that, but I think it’s gonna be pretty fun to find out.