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Henry had his chiropractic/acupuncture appointment last week. He’s had chiro a couple times before, but he’s never had acupuncture so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. And, well… although it might have been the first time, it definitely won’t be the last.

The practitioner we used was a new one for us – she’s a vet that specializes in acupuncture. I’ve not had any personal experience with acupuncture before at all, either human or equine, so I had no real opinion about it either way beforehand, just a healthy dose of skepticism. I was not convinced that a few specifically placed tiny needles could really make much difference, but ultimately I figured “hey, why the hell not?”… worst case scenario I burn some money. And if there’s one thing that I’ve gotten really good at after 17 years of owning horses, it’s this:

She started out by asking me some questions about Henry, his history, his personality, and then watched him walk up and back in the barn aisle. She immediately noticed that the right hind wasn’t moving as freely as the left hind and one hip was higher than the other. First order of business: chiropractic adjustment.

She started at his poll and worked her way back, finding several spots that needed adjustment. When she did the right side of his neck I swear his eyes just about rolled back in his head and he immediately relaxed a bit. The real “trouble” spot, though, was basically everything near and/or connected to his SI area. Which kind of explains a lot.

She also noticed that he was very very tight in his psoas, so she released those (and showed me how to do it so I can maintain it), explaining that the psoas was basically like the human hip flexor. Everything was starting to add up when you compared what she was finding with what I had been feeling. How he felt “stuck” in the right lead canter, and had trouble crossing behind in the lateral work, and seemed to want to hold his neck slighty bent to the right.

Then we moved on to the acupuncture. I wasn’t sure how Henry would react (he is a HUGE wuss about, uh, everything) but he didn’t seem to notice as she stuck a couple needles at his poll, a couple more in his chest, his neck, his legs, and then basically made a giant pincushion of his SI area. The only one he reacted to was the right fetlock, which she said connected to the spot where he was so “out” in his neck. Something about meridians maybe? I dunno, here, learn things:

Then, to up the ante of the treatment a bit, we shocked the shit out of him! Just kidding, no we DID NOT do that, it just kinda looks like it. Electroacupuncture really just uses a very very mild pulsating current that helps further stimulate the acupuncture points… like regular acupuncture on steroids. It looked cool, anyway, and Henry offered no objections while she worked.

After that was done she gave me some exercises to do with him to help keep that SI area loosened up, wrote down her findings, and we made another appointment. Due to just how tight and “jacked up” (my own very scientific term) he was, she warned me that it wouldn’t be fixed overnight. Ultimately he might end up needing the SI injected, but hopefully with a few more sessions, if he responds well, we could get him ironed out and avoid that.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much difference. I figured maybe he’d feel a little looser and his stride would open up a bit, but the chiro he’s had in the past has only made minimal difference, and what kind of magic can a few needles really do? Um, well, he felt freaking amazing the next day. Huge walk, very straight, very happy to go forward, steadier in the contact, and the right lead canter no longer felt stuck at all. WTF KIND OF VOODOO IS THIS???

We’ll see how long it lasts. Unfortunately it poured buckets all weekend long so his turnout time and my riding time were minimal… not ideal for keeping him loose. His next appointment is next week. I’m really hoping that some regular treatments can get everything ironed back out to where it should be. Either way though – I think we’re on to something here!

 

 

 

Poor Sadie… two babies by two different dudes and here we are planning #3 by yet another. She’s like a walking episode of Jerry Springer. Such is the life of a broodmare.

This will be her first foal where the sire possibilities are truly wide open. Her first one was by Mezcalero, using up a breeding when a different mare that was booked to him failed to become pregnant. Then of course 2016’s breeding was my choice, and I went for the high blood % eventer baby daddy. But next year is the first year where she’ll be bred with the express purpose of selling the foal, looking to produce something for the hunter/hunter derby ring.

Sadie, of course, was originally bred to be a hunter. She’s by Westporte, who was a successful hunter and now a successful sire in his own right. He really stamps his foals with good movement and amateur-friendly temperaments. I’ve loved him since the first time I laid eyes on him in 2005 and to this day he remains a sentimental favorite.

Of course, I’m not involved in hunterland anymore but I still keep an eye on it, from a breeding perspective. Which stallions are consistently producing hunters, which ones are imported and continue to compete as stallions, how do the offspring look, etc. I want a good mover, a consistently good jumper that uses it’s whole body well, one that seems rideable, and of course – he has to be beautiful. To be honest, a lot of them just don’t wow me. And of course, many of the best ones end up gelded, because it’s a heck of a lot easier to show a gelding. Trying to breed for the hunter ring is hard, considering that very few of the really good ones were actually purpose bred for the sport. But there is one in particular that I’ve keep a close watch on all season: Cosmeo.

He competed as a jumper before being brought over to the US (2016 was his first year of showing here so he’s still learning the ropes) and he’s got a great Holsteiner pedigree. He’s strong in areas where Sadie is a bit weaker, and conversely I think Sadie’s best qualities will compliment him in other areas. This one could potentially be a really good match. Plus, let’s be honest, chrome doesn’t hurt when you’re trying to sell hunter babies. We’ll see who Michelle ultimately goes with, but I think he’s the front runner. Hunter crowd – what do you think?

I think the other two mares are still up in the air. If choosing the right hunter stallion is hard, choosing the right jumper stallion is impossible, especially when you want to use frozen from a European based stallion. There are so many good ones! She keeps asking for my input but I think I’m even more crippled by indecision on these. Just for fun (because it’s Thursday, and everyone needs more fun in their life on a Thursday) who would you pick for these girls?

Lasilissa

Interlaken

I won’t say my favorites yet. Mostly because I’ve got several for each mare…

Emma kind of unintentionally started this unofficial blog hop last week when she posted about her new horse’s pedigree. The comments were great, and led to lots of good discussion… so many thoroughbred fans out there. She encouraged other people to post about their thoroughbred’s pedigree too, so here I am. Such a people pleaser (everyone who knows me is probably laughing hysterically at that).

I’ve owned and ridden my fair share of TB’s, plus I am a breeding nerd, so this one is right up my alley. Over the years I’ve developed some opinions (shocking) on which lines I really like, which ones I don’t, and just how much it matters in the big picture. Short version – I don’t put a ton of stake in it, but sometimes it can give you an idea of the horse, what it might be good at, and what it might be like. When I’m looking at TBs, especially ones that are fresh off the track or still on the track, I absolutely DO look at and consider the pedigree. While it usually won’t be enough to turn me away completely if I really like the horse but not the pedigree, it can definitely make me go from 90% interested to 50% interested if I see some lines that I don’t like, or 50% interested to 90% interested if I see some lines that I really do like. That’s kind of what happened with Henry. I liked him on video and I loved him on paper.

Digging into his pedigree – first of all, his JC name is Hesalmostsweet and while he is registered, he never actually raced, just trained. I had him DNA verified to confirm his identity for TIP since he was not tattooed and I didn’t get papers. He is, indeed, Hesalmostsweet, and I have the fancy official JC letter to prove it. (So everyone who keeps insisting he’s QH or Appendix – STOP IT, he just has a big butt! That means you, BOBBY!)

Henry did not exactly come from a blueblood Kentucky background. He was born at a small private farm in Arkansas, by a stallion named Skeet, who stood at stud for a whopping $500. Skeet himself was a decent racehorse, winning some minor stakes races on the dirt and turf. However, he has very few registered offspring, and dropped off the map in 2008. I can’t find what happened to him after that nor have I been able to track down any of the handful of his registered offspring. As it was, I had to seriously scour the internet to find any pictures of him.

The apple didn’t fall far from the tree on that one. Aside from color, Henry and Skeet pretty identical, right on down to the weird faces and tongue.

Skeet’s sire was Dove Hunt

who has produced at least one upper level eventer that I can find, 2* horse and NAYJC competitor Case Closed:

Dove Hunt’s sire is the famous Danzig, also known as a big part of the reason I was so interested in Henry. I’ve had very positive experiences with Danzig line horses in the past… I’ve found them to be honest, good learners, and very correct jumpers. Henry has definitely lived up to that. I always stop and take a closer look when I see Danzig in a pedigree.

Danzig can also be found in a similar spot in the pedigree (top sire line) of eventing stallions Sea Accounts and Sea Lion

as well as one of my favorite eventers ever: Ziggy

just to name a few.

Moving on to the dam’s side of Henry’s pedigree, things get a lot harder to dig up. His dam, Lona Thump, raced but didn’t do very well, and then produced a few offspring that never did anything. Her sire, Royal N Trouble, at one time stood at Broken Word Farm in Arkansas. Which, if you google it, comes up with a bunch of stories like this: http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/172992/arkansas-trainer-charged-with-animal-cruelty 

So, uh… big yikes. Unfortunately I can’t find much info on what ever became of Royal N Trouble.

Royal N Trouble’s sire was Royal and Regal, who you can spy in this particular little video that some of you may have seen a time or two before:

At one point he was 3rd, but faded to ultimately finish 8th.

Other names that stood out to me in Henry’s pedigree were Wavering Monarch, The Minstrel, Key to the Mint, or if you go even further – T.V. Lark, Sir Gaylord, Graustark, Sea Bird, Buckpasser, etc. There’s nothing flashy in his pedigree, racehorse-wise. No big name Kentucky sires and nothing particularly fashionable, which to me is kind of a plus. It’s not always good things that come along with those big names. Henry’s is basically just a solid, sporty TB pedigree, without any of the glitz and glamour.

And really… that’s pretty much what Henny is, too.

The great thing about not having any obligations during Thanksgiving break was that I had 4.5 days off of work and pretty much nowhere that I had to be. The SO had to work on Friday and Saturday, so the only day that I didn’t go to the barn was Thanksgiving day itself… because, being anti-social, I made my own “turkey trot” 10k through a few neighborhoods (the real Turkey Trot in Austin had more than 20k people, so that’s a NO), then spent 3 hours cooking, then ate so much that I could not move. Thanksgiving success. Otherwise though, I got a lot of riding time in.

We did some actual work – like our first full-intensity dressage school (he thought that was stupid) and our first full course of jumps (he thought that was amazing) since Henry’s return from rehab. But we also spent lots of time just ambling around and exploring the property’s 120 acres. I hadn’t really gotten around to doing that yet.

We ambled around the front part of the property, while Henry snorted at… I dunno, whatever Henry felt warranted a good snort. This included, but was not limited to – the trash can, the flag, a round bale, some particularly suspicious-looking grass, and THE COWS.

I finally convinced him to walk up and say hi to one of the baby moo-demons (he’s been over near them but wouldn’t get within 20 feet of the fence, because BIG BRAVE EVENT HORSE) which went really well until it licked him. Good news, Henry can jump 15 feet completely sideways in a single bound. So athletic.

We also wandered over to say hi to Dudley the mini-donk a few times, who Henry is no longer afraid of, but now he’s a little obsessed. He stares intently at Dudley and nickers at him in a fairly creepy way.

We also discovered a WHOLE ‘NOTHER FIELD! If you walk to the very back corner of our usual field, there’s a gap in the fence. The field next to it is planted with… something… I dunno, not a farmer… and then there’s another planted field next to that, but eventually if you keep going you emerge here:

It’s a smaller field, but still big, and flatter than the other field. I’m thinking I might set up my jumps over in this field and then use the other hilly field for conditioning rides. Omg, so many fields. The footing is just as good in this one too, except for a few random stray rocks that I need to go pick up. We kept walking and found a shortcut to this “new” field from behind the arena, so it’s not such a long walk all the way around. Who even knew that was there? We also found a stock tank that we will never ever get anywhere near, because it looks like an awesome snake habitat, therefore hellsno.

Henry still felt great even after a harder dressage ride and jumping day, so I continue to knock on wood that all will remain well. He has an acupuncture/chiro appointment on Thursday, and then maaaaaaaaaaaaaybe we’ll be ready to go back into lessons by mid-Dec?

 

Post-Black Friday weekend feels like we’re in the aftermath of some kind of major weather event, where everyone is starting to poke their heads back out to assess the damage and see if it’s safe.

I am not crazy enough to go to an actual store during that time (ew, people, yuck) but I do question my sanity every time I put that Black Friday sales list together. It’s ridiculous, and really time consuming. But the fun thing is, there are tons of really good sales from a lot of great retailers. I usually manage to get almost all of my Christmas shopping done plus nab a few little things for myself that I’ve been wanting. This year was no exception, although I was left feeling like I wished I had more money to go around so I could support all of my favorites instead of just a few. Alas, Henny is expensive.

I had already taken care of some of my Xmas shopping before Black Friday, via Hamer and Clay. It’s become tradition at this point, I always have to order something from her. Or 5 somethings, but who’s counting…

And then of course Riding Warehouse got my business within an hour of their sale going live, because I am powerless to resist them even on the strongest of days. Got a few Xmas presents though, and stocked up on some essentials for Henry plus nabbed his usual Xmas day bran mash. I had a few other things in my cart for ME that I ultimately forced myself to remove, so that was sad, but maybe I get a few points for willpower?

OKAY FINE I ADMIT IT, I did grab this for myself because it’s vest season and I love RW and I wanted it and it was my reward for “putting back” an $80 saddle pad and $150 breeches. Fair trade?

Then I hit up One Horse for a few more Xmas presents (and maybe threw a $10 tank in the cart for myself, wooopsy how’d that get in there?) and a couple other places that I can’t mention because I feel like the people who will be receiving those purchases will know it’s for them and I refuse to give them that satisfaction.

Otherwise the rest of my purchases were not horse-related (Amazon, Spreadshirt, Redbubble, and Old Navy – although ON had thermals for $5 so I had to grab a few for riding) and therefore boring. But the good news is, 90% of my Xmas shopping is done now, and somehow I escaped it all without buying too many things for myself. Okay, I admit, that part was disappointing. Normally I buy myself really great Xmas presents.

What about y’all? What sales did you succumb to… or did you make it through BF weekend unscathed, despite my best efforts?