Category: Uncategorized

Thanks to some pretty incredible serendipity I get to cross off another horse bucket list item this year. We’re going to Bundeschampionate!

Yeah I know… wait what? How did this happen? This was not in the plan!

Let’s start at the beginning.

A few months ago, at the recommendation of a friend, I signed up for the free version of the email list Scott’s Cheap Flights. For those who don’t know about it, basically you just enter your email address on the site to join the list and then once a day you get the email blast about whatever cheap international flights they’ve found. It’s really just a “heads up” email, and it’s up to you to go do the legwork and find/book the flights. Usually they’re out of major cities like New York, LA, Boston, DC, etc. Ya know… major international flight hubs. But sometimes they have some from Houston or Dallas, both of which are only a few hours drive from Austin.

So every day I open the email and scan it and check out the destination and departure airports, and then usually delete it. They’re almost always great prices, typically under or around $500, but usually either to places I don’t want to go (no thanks Asia or South America or Mexico, I’m just not that into you) or they’re not from cities that I can easily/affordably get to.

Then one day last week the email was about Oktoberfest… flights to Germany in late September for under $500, with Houston as one of the departure cities. I thought that was kind of interesting, so I went off to Google Flights and started messing around. I decided to put in some dates around BuCha (end of August) and just see what the fares looked like. Not only were the flights still cheap – it was actually even CHEAPER to fly into Brussels instead of Germany. How cheap? $368 total.

I shit you not – $368 round trip from Houston to Brussels. That’s barely more than I paid to fly to Nashville last month.

Cue gears turning.

It took literally zero seconds to convince Michelle that we should go. Gotta love her for that, she’s off and running with spur of the moment “fantastic ideas” just as easily as I am.

And the best part – my birthday is in August. It was not at all difficult to sell this as a “Happy Birthday to Me” adventure. Tickets were purchased and the itinerary started taking shape within a few hours of the email from Scott’s Cheap Flights.

For those who don’t know, BuCha is the young horse championships of Germany… literally a big collection of all the best horses and ponies in that part of Europe. They have to qualify to be eligible to compete there, so it draws the cream of the crop for each sport. For a breeder it’s pretty much Disneyland. It takes place in Warendorf, the horse capital of Germany, home of their Olympic training center (where BuCha is held).

Michel 233, Will Faudree’s new ride (also a Mighty Magic) winning the 5yo eventing class in 2015

Of course, Warendorf is also quite small and a bit rural (the closest big city is Münster, which is 45 minutes away) so all the hotels, bnb’s, and airbnb’s in town were already booked for that weekend. I expanded my airbnb search a bit and found a guesthouse at a farm in Ostbevern owned by a lady named Helga (I shit you not for the second time in one post). She seemed nice and while the farm is kinda in the middle of nowhere, it’s only 10 minutes from BuCha, and cheap, so we booked it.

We had no problem with quickly filling our itinerary. Michelle has a fancy pony jumper breeder friend in Rouen, France that we’re gonna pop over and see first, with a stop on the way at Tal Milstein to see their stallions (thanks to them for the invite!). Then on the way back toward Germany we’re stopping at another of her friend’s places in Belgium before settling in at Helga’s farm for BuCha weekend. We’re definitely gonna hop up to Schockemoehle at some point and possibly over to Ludger Beerbaum’s as well to see stallions and babies since they’re both within 45 minutes. Plus we’ll obviously spend 2-3 days at BuCha itself for finals (which I’m told has great shopping).

It’s going to be a busy week but I AM SO EXCITED!!!

An entire weekend without horses is really really weird, btw. Not a bad thing every once in a while, but as a general lifestyle choice I dunno. Either way, I did actually have a really fun time this weekend despite the lack of ponies. And if you count Friday as a weekend day then it wasn’t totally ponyless, because I did finally go set my showjumping course back and up and made myself a nice little corner. Henry was unimpressed with me, as usual.

But on Saturday we headed out to Houston with some friends of ours as a late birthday trip for the SO. It was kind of fun because we had planned this without him knowing where we were going or what we were doing, so everything was a surprise. Saturday was mainly eating and drinking… we went to a bunch of breweries, but I hate beer so while I did manage a cocktail at lunch, I otherwise did a lot of sitting.

I did consider asking the group if they’d be interested in going over to Sam Houston Race Park to watch the Preakness but I already knew that one would fall flat so I didn’t even bother. Our Air bnb was a nice condo in Midtown, with a memory foam mattress and a rain shower head, so I was happy enough.

Plus we got pie from THE House of Pies. Granted, I think I earned it after sitting on highly uncomfortable picnic tables at breweries for like 8 hours. Highly recommend the french silk.

The real reason I chose Houston was revealed on Sunday when we drove out to the Space Center. If you’re into that kind of thing, it’s pretty cool.

It kinda worked out anyway, because it rained at home pretty much all weekend. I don’t think I would have been able to ride at all. Plus I’m pretty sure I scored major brownie points for a surprise birthday adventure, and we all know how important that is.

I did injure myself though, rolling my ankle on the stairs in the condo. Figures I was the only one not drinking yet the only one to fall down. Pretty sure I have a soft tissue injury happening, it’s not good.

But it’s not that swollen therefore it’ll still go in a boot and then a stirrup, so no big deal, right?

Hope everyone else had a fun weekend! This rain can go away any minute now so I can get back to riding.

YAY, it’s Rant Friday!

I’ve done my fair share of complaining about horse show photos in my day. Usually when they’re crappy, or super expensive, or take months to get. But you know what’s worse than all of those things? Not having any photos at all. And ya know how to make sure that’s exactly what ends up happening? Keep stealing photographer’s proofs.

Trust me, I’m as cheap as anyone. I don’t love dropping hundreds of dollars a year on show photos, and sometimes it just isn’t in the budget. I get that. But at the end of the day if you like the photo enough to screen cap it and save it – or WORSE, screen cap it and put it on your facebook/Instagram with the photographers watermark displayed loud and proud across it, you probably like it enough to pay for it. After all, that photographer bought the equipment, spent all day watching and shooting boring-ass round after boring-ass round (and probably wanted to blow his/her brains out by the end of the day), and then spent additional hours sorting through and editing all those photos. For your thieving ass!

Unless of course you don’t want the photographers to show up anymore and don’t ever want show photos… then by all means, keep stealing them. But don’t be surprised when I tattle on you after you post that stolen proof all over social media, because I will. And I did. That’s stealing, and it’s not cool. It’s rude, and it’s tacky, and it directly contributes to ruining things for everyone else (especially ME).

So either cough up the money (for real yo, it’s like $18 for a low res digital) or do what any other self-respecting poor person does and take a blurry screenshot from a shitty video. And to the nice photographers that keep showing up weekend after weekend to take pictures of my boring ass rounds… please keep doing it. I promise I’ll buy some.

Sadie was bred back to Mighty Magic on April 30 and all looked good. Same batch of frozen semen that Presto came from, she ovulated, the timing was right, etc. But when she was scanned on Monday, there was no pretty little black dot. She just didn’t take. Horses… that’s how they work. Disappointing, but it happens all the time. They’re fickle creatures.

And of course not only was she not in foal, but her cycle was such that she’d be ready to try again on Wednesday (yesterday). That was a mere two days from Monday. And there was no more Mighty Magic semen on site yet. Oops. Instead of doing the super frantic dance of trying to ship frozen semen overnight (omg logistical nightmare) the decision was made to try the remaining dose of Diarado that was left in the tank.

He’s kind of a badass and he’s produced a lot of hunters (and jumpers, and eventers), so Michelle thought it was worth a shot and I totally agree! Big Diarado fan right here, I think he and Sadie could make a pretty fantastic derby horse together. Plus he doesn’t have a red gene, which is always a bonus in my mind especially when you have a plain mare.

So we’ll see in a couple weeks if she’s pregnant this time. Hopefully so… she’s a much happier mare when she’s pregnant (and the people around her are much happier too)!

I know I’ve said this a few times already, but I continue to be completely blown away by all the support Presto and I have gotten both during his illness and afterwards. The fact that he had (has!) so many people rooting for him, people who have never even met me or him before… it’s meant more than words can ever properly convey. We decided that we’d really like to send something out to all of his supporters and give them a proper thank you.

I’m not sure how obvious it was while everything was going on but that was the hardest couple weeks of my life, ever. I tried to spare y’all the worst of the details and remain as positive as I could, but I still don’t have it in me to go back and read any of those posts so I’m not sure how successful I was. All I can say is that I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Every moment felt like it was laced with sheer terror, just hoping that against all odds he could hang in there for one more day, just one more day at a time.

Presto seems to be completely over it, physically and mentally, but I’m not sure that my mental and emotional scars will ever fade. I’m still a bit traumatized about the whole thing. The nightmares have pretty much stopped but I don’t think that nagging worry in the pit of my stomach will ever go away. I worry that we got too lucky. Like he overcame such staggeringly impossible odds that someday, somehow, we’ll have to pay up. I don’t think I will ever forget how I felt, kneeling there in the west Texas dirt, watching my very sick foal fight for his life and feeling completely and utterly helpless to save him. And although I never in a million years want to go through anything even remotely like that again, it was worth it in the end.

But what really helped me (both of us really, if you believe in the power of positive thinking, which I do) see it through to the other side was you guys. Everyone who called, emailed, texted, messaged, left a comment, chipped in toward his vet bill, sent him good thoughts, prayed for him (to the deity of your choice, naturally), checked in on him every day, or bought a shirt – it made all the difference in the world to us. I’m not sure I could have survived it without my fellow horse friends to lean on, and I don’t think he could have either.

Presto and I worked on a little something fun (and oh so top secret) this weekend and we want to send one to everyone who has supported us during all this. Unfortunately there is no way for me to go back through all the comments and messages and shirt orders to track people down individually and get names and information, BUT – if you would like a small token of thanks from me and Presto, please please please send me your name and address. You can contact me on facebook messenger, DM me on Instagram, or email me through the contact page here. We have lots of them lined up and ready to go, so please don’t hesitate to claim one! I’d really like to make sure that all of his supporters get a proper thank you, with something tangible, from both of us.