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Guess what? It’s still hot here. After however many days over 100 degrees (I think I stopped counting at 30) so far this year, it’s to the point where it seems like it’s just always been this hot, will always be this hot, and therefore there’s no point in even complaining about it anymore. Hopefully in another month or so it’ll finally start to cool off. Like, below 95 degrees, because no matter what the weatherman insists on saying, you can’t call it a “cold front” when the high is still 98.

When I made my latest Riding Warehouse order last week, as I was clicking through I happened to land on my Past Orders page, and leafing through them made me laugh a bit. I definitely tend to buy the same things over and over, especially during the warmer months. I guess you could call them Henry’s summer essentials.

Pyranha fly spray

Henry must be really tasty or something, because Pyranha is the only brand of fly spray that actually gives him any relief from the bugs for any extended period of time. I used to exclusively use the oil-based version in the yellow container, but this year I tried the water-based version and it worked just as well for him, without the oily residue that the yellow one can leave. Our fly season really is from like March until November, so I just buy this stuff by the gallon to make it more economical.

Himalayan salt block

Henry has one of these in his stall year-round, but he really really loves it in the summer. He stands there after dinner, eyes closed, in front of his fan, licking his salt block, almost like he’s in a weird zen state. I go through about one a month during the summer, but he always drinks well and sweats well, so I’m not complaining. With these I don’t feel the need to put him on any additional electrolytes during the hot months. I tend to buy these like 3-4 at a time so I have a constant supply.

Cashel fly mask

This is definitely an essential for Henry, although I haven’t had to order one in a while. By some miracle Henry is on summer number THREE with the same fly mask. It’s finally starting to look a little frayed around the eyes and the elastic on the strap has stretched out, so we’ll probably replace it next year. I’m pretty thrilled to have gotten three years out of a pretty cheap mask though (and they’re on sale right now – only $15!).

Zephyr’s Garden anti-fungal spray

Typically I get this stuff from Teddy’s Tack Trunk, and the bottle I just got a couple months ago is already on it’s last few drops. I use it every single day to keep all the various summer skin funks and itches away, and it works fabulously for Henry. This stuff and fly spray are probably the most used items in my tack trunk. I’m also interested in trying out the Leave it Bee spray from the same company, at least for his face (during allergy season he tends to rub his face a lot), but haven’t yet.  It has tea tree too, which seems to be the magic elixir for Henry.

German horse muffins

This is Henry’s main contribution to the list… he wouldn’t let me put up his “essentials” without including cookies. He loves these soft treats (like Stud Muffins or Uncle Jimmy’s), and I’m a fan of ones that I can easily tear into smaller chunks. At $22 for a 6lb bag, compared to $20 for a 3lb bucket of Uncle Jimmy’s, or $28 for a 6lb bag of Stud Muffins, these are the best value for this type of treat, and Henry LOVES them.

 

What are your favorite products to help you and your horse get through the summer?

 

I’m currently in the middle of a week-long barnsitting stint, and this time Henry got to come with me!

After XC schooling on Saturday we loaded up and immediately headed down to the farm. Henry seemed momentarily confused at being unloaded at a place that wasn’t home, but he took one look around and then dove straight for the grass. Priorities.

He was settling in just fine until the resident hussy retired broodmare Quinnie decided that he is the new hot young stud in town and boy does she want to make an Anglo-Trakehner with him. The nickering and hollering across the barn was intense, and has given Henny an overinflated ego. He became completely infatuated with her pretty much instantly. Still is. Real freaking annoying, but at least the screaming has died down a bit.

Other horses generally don’t like Henry very much, so I think he’s just beside himself that someone seems to love him. I tried to explain to him that this isn’t love, she’s really only after one thing, but he’s not listening to me. Kids, ya know? They gotta find out for themselves.

The other horses go out during the day and Henry goes out at night, so every time there’s a turnout swap, it’s accompanied with a fifteen minutes of screaming back and forth. I finally had to just close the door to the run off of his stall, because he would go stand out there in the hot sun ALL DAY LONG and stare off into the distance at her, causing himself to get super hot. Hey idiot, there’s a nice big fan inside for your heat-intolerant ass!

Drama queen antics aside, it’s been fun so far. I really really really love being able to look out the window and see my horse, or go sponge him off every couple hours during the heat of the day, or do basically whatever I want with him, whenever I want to do it. There’s a lot to be said for that.

It’s been a while since Henry and I have been out on cross country. The last time, in fact, was at our last show at the beginning of June. And before that was the derby in May. You have to go all the way back to April to find our last actual XC schooling. Whoops. Where does the time go?

Of course, doing much of anything with Henry in the summer is hard, given how badly he handles the heat. So on Saturday we were up bright and early (ok it was 4:30am, so technically it was dark and early) to head up to MCP to meet Trainer for an early morning school. We’re now less than a month away from our first recognized T, and given my schedule over the next month (i.e. crazy) this was my last opportunity.

Even at 8am it was still pretty hot and humid, so we kept everything pretty brief. It took me the first few jumps to remember the more forward XC ride (it always does… why so dumb?) but Henry was totally game none the less.

Honestly he’s kind of the ultimate professional these days. We schooled a double ditch combo, the Prelim down bank combo, the Prelim Weldon’s wall (which is an option at Training and I swore I’d never take it because the ditch is huge and terrifying. I tried to hide from Trainer when we were near that jump so she’d forget about me and wouldn’t make me jump it, but let me tell you how futile THAT was), then jumped the trakehner the Prelim way (the approach is a bit tougher from that direction, you end up on a slight angle), and a few random T fences. Henny never blinked at any of it. Definitely not challenged in the least.

I did notice though that when I’m concerned about a jump and trying really hard not to look down, I get “tappy” with my whip. Like it’s physically impossible for me to just be still, and if I don’t do something I’ll end up staring down at it and tipping forward. So there I go, tap-tap on the shoulder those last few strides, like some kind of nervous tic, to keep myself occupied.

Henry just kind of flicks an ear at me like “You know I’m jumping that no matter what, you idiot.”. If a horse could roll his eyes, he would. And he’s not wrong. But he chugs right along like a trooper, ignoring how dumb his mom is.

Apparently that habit is limited to jumps that worry me, because I only did it at the Weldon’s and the trakehner. In my defense, they’re both terrifying. If you’re asking me, anyway. Henry obviously disagrees… extra cookies for that boy (and yes, he did get plenty of cookies).

I’m glad that he’s feeling this easy and confident about things, headed into the fall season. Hopefully that means we’re ready. I’m excited to finally get back to the recognized shows and see how we stack up!

Oh and… there is video but I think the person’s camera was having some kind of zoom issue. Anyone know a way to help make the video less nauseating?? I recommend Dramamine before clicking play:

Guess who’s 5 months old?

Presto celebrated by getting his second official farrier-performed trim. You may remember that he was, um, less than cooperative for the first one, so when I was up there a few weeks ago we worked A LOT on farrier manners. Either the extra lessons worked or he just decided it wasn’t worth the fight, because he was very well behaved this time. The farrier also complimented the quality of Presto’s feet (now that they aren’t being aimed at his head).

In all honesty, Presto and Liam are pretty much ready to be weaned. They’re independent, they’ve been eating grain and hay for a while, and their moms are not all that concerned about them anymore. Under normal circumstances, now would be the time.

But we got inspection dates for the sBs (Belgian Sporthorse) tour, and they’re not coming through the US until the end of September. While it’s not really ideal to leave the colts on their dams for that long, it’s far less ideal to present them for inspection “off” their dams, for several reasons. So they might start getting separated a bit for feeding time (moms are starting to look a bit “drained” from these big babies sucking the life out of them, but if you overfeed, you risk physitis in the babies), with official weaning waiting until after the inspection.

I’m still looking into options for moving him closer to me, but that will probably get put on the back burner until winter. I remembered he has to be gelded before he can be pasture boarded (duh), but I’m not going to geld him a) right after the stress of weaning b) in warm gross fly season. We’ve had enough complications so far, I’m not interested in stacking the odds against us any more than necessary. So maybe in November/December he can lose his manhood, and then I can look into bringing him home a month or so after that.

His current favorite hobbies are trying to catch the little goldfish in his tank (who knew he was a fisherman?) and snacking/napping at the same time.

 

Very tough life this kid’s got these days.

Knowing when to move up a level is, I think, one of the trickiest questions for us as riders. I’ve talked about it on this blog before, when we were moving up from BN to N (geez that feels like a life time ago) but it’s a subject that you see come up quite often on blogs and message boards. It would be nice if there was a handy dandy be-all-end-all checklist that we could go by, but there really isn’t any hard and fast rule that is going to applicable across the board. Jim Wofford gave a good outline of his opinions here, but even then, there’s more to it than that.

And before anyone starts jumping to conclusions, NO I am not even thinking about moving up to Prelim. Like ever. That’s hilarious. Trainer can take my horse around that level but I’m gonna hard pass, thanks.

But even just to feel ready to show at a particular level, whether it’s a move up or not, there are certain things I want to be doing at home to feel like I’m well-prepared. For instance, I’m proooobably not gonna want to run Training if a 3’3″ stadium course looks at all big. Personally, I need that stuff to look small or I start riding in fetal position (ok, sometimes I ride in fetal position anyway). So for me, if I’m ready to go to the show, that means I’m comfortably jumping full courses a hole or two higher at home.

That seems to be pretty common across h/j-land… always school higher at home than the level at which you show. It makes sense to not expect to go to a show and be successful if you’re performing at the very tip top of your current ability. It doesn’t seem quite as common in eventing though. I often see people very meticulously set a course to 2’7″ or 2’11” or 3’3″, whatever the height may be that they’re showing, and very rarely jump anything higher except for a single fence here and there. I dunno how they do it. I would legit die or pee my pants when I got to the horse show. Probably both.

Same thing for XC – if I’m running Training, I want to at least have jumped some legit Prelim fences. If nothing else it’s a great confidence boost if I’m worried about a tricky jump on my course, to be able to say “Come on self, you’ve schooled bigger harder things than this, don’t be such a baby. Sit up and kick. Jesus.”. You’d be surprised how well that works for my psyche.

A similar idea can be applied to dressage, just without the death part. If I never school anything harder at home than the movements that are in my test, riding up centerline at a show would be exponentially more stressful and more difficult. And anyone who’s ever seen us do dressage knows that we’re challenged enough without any added stress or difficulty.  So we plug away at home with shoulder-in and haunches-in and leg yield and counter canter and 10m circles even though I wouldn’t, under any circumstances, enter a test that had all of that.

For me personally, being truly prepared (whether it be for a move up or just for a show) means that I’ve done enough work at home to where I get to the show and feel confident in our ability to perform the task at hand. I’ll never be mistake-free, but I at least want to always walk in the ring or start box feeling like we’re more than capable of making it around. For me, it’s such a mental game. If a fence looks intimidatingly big, I’m probably in trouble.*

*Unless it’s a BAT (big ass table)… I reserve the right to say that those ALWAYS look too big and never walk within 30′ of them on foot…

What does “prepared” look like for you? Do you jump higher and school harder movements at home?