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But with me in the irons this time. I haven’t jumped Henry XC since Holly Hill at the end of April, so I wanted to get out and gallop a few fences since I figured it was probably my last chance before Coconino. Bobby wanted to do the same, and since Trainer was away at a show we decided to just haul over to MeadowCreek together for an informal little mini-school. Spoiler, it was hot as balls. Humid too, because why not be as miserable as possible.

We unloaded, got on the boys, did some trot sets, then Bobby went off to do some gallop sets while I hopped over a few warmup fences. After that we headed over to the big field that has the most Training fences in one area, because I wanted to jump the first half of the Training course.

I came out of the box and tried to really let Henry flow forward, since I have the tendency to micro-manage the hell out of him and pull. I perhaps took that idea a little too far at fence 2, where I saw a flyer 6 strides out. Luckily Henry saw it too and moved up, took a hell of a leap, and made it work. Pony has plenty of hops. Bless him.

Fences 3, 4, and 5 are all pretty basic. A little bit narrow faced but nothing big or scary. Fence 6 is the giant ass cliff drop that I swore I wasn’t gonna be the first to jump him off of, but he was going so well that I just did it. And he was super. Like.. he even jumped down it like a semi-normal horse instead of his signature crackhead leap. Maybe he’s figuring it out?

Then we went around and jumped 7ab, the half coffin, which he’s schooled before. Ain’t no thang. I went back through fences 5 and 6 a few times… I was trying to get him to land from the little house and TROT off the drop, but after the first time he was cocky and having none of it. Pretty sure he was saying “Moooom, only babies trot off the drops, you’re embarrassing me!”. We compromised with the teeniest canter ever.

It was disgustingly hot by that point, and the boys had been great, so we called it quits. Henny was forward and happy and super game, so I’m good with that! He feels so confident right now, I can’t wait for his move-up this weekend. Training is starting to not look big anymore, we’re getting more comfortable carrying more speed, and he seems to have no problem with the more technical questions. He’s hunting the jumps and taking me to them. Still glad that Trainer is going to be the one in the irons for his first couple of Trainings, but I’m also feeling more and more confident about it for myself. It’s starting to feel more like a “we can do this!” instead of a “we can do this?”.

And of course, no XC post is complete without Henny ears! I have something fun in the works for those helmet cam ears, hopefully y’all will see at Coconino…

 

It’s finally that time – the girls have fetal sexing appointments today! Sadie and her BFF (seriously, they’re obsessed with each other) Lissa were both bred on the same day, so they’re both currently 63 days in foal. They’re both going in for one last ultrasound checkup, and to see if we can get a good guess at the gender of their foals. Naturally, this seems like the perfect opportunity for a contest!

The window for fetal sexing in early gestation is pretty small, somewhere between day 55 and day 75 of the pregnancy, with the ideal window being from 59-68 days. Around day 55 is when all the “bits” are moving into place to determine if its male or female, and after day 75 the fluid of the pregnancy pushes the uterus over the rim of the pelvis, making it difficult to reach via ultrasound until it gets a good bit larger. Since there’s not a wide range of time to check while the mare is still early in the pregnancy, fetal sexing isn’t off-the-charts accurate. Sometimes it’s just really tough to tell, and sometimes the mare or baby don’t cooperate for the ultrasound and the fetal sexing is inconclusive. So it isn’t really a guarantee, more of a “best educated guess”. If you want to read more about it, knock yourself out.

Enough about the sciencey stuff – whether or not the results of the sexing end up being accurate, we won’t know til next March. Let’s have a little fun with it in the short term via a contest!

I’m gonna make this a really easy one. All you have to do is submit a guess for each mare as to what you think the vet’s fetal sexing verdict will be (either filly or colt, or if you’re feeling cheeky – “baby is stubborn like it’s mother and refused to cooperate: inconclusive”, because that could happen too). One guess for Sadie, one guess for Lissa. The people who get both of them correct will be pooled together and I’ll randomly select a winner from that group. If no one gets them both right, I’ll randomly select a winner from those who guessed Sadie’s correctly. Because that baby is mine and it’s my contest, so there.

The more fun part – what do you win? I’ve teamed up with KJ Creations to offer a cute “baby themed” gift basket, stacked full of a ton of awesome stuff both for human and equine.

“Momma Mare” pamper pack

• Buck U bug spray
• Coat Frosting – NEW product
• Mane Tame
• Blue Moon Alibi bug lotion – NEW product
• Tack Cleaner
• Hoof Love bangle and ring

“Foaling Season” pamper pack

• Sugar Scrub
• Facial Scrub
• Facial Mask
• When in Doubt Roll on
• Organic Soap
• Organic Lip Balm

So. Much. Stuff.

I’m gonna make this a quick contest so that I don’t have to keep the news a secret for very long. You’ve got two days to channel your inner fortune teller – entries close at 11:59 PM CST tomorrow, June 14! Leave your guesses in a comment below, and make sure that you leave either a link back to your blog or an email address so I can reach you. Winner (and gender reveals) announced Wednesday June 15!

As I unpacked my most recent box from Riding Warehouse, I found myself holding Henny’s boring little white Flair strips in my hands, lamenting the fact that they don’t come in navy. Or rainbow. Or unicorn. They do have hot pink and aqua but ew no. Then it hit me… it’s not really a plain white Flair strip, it’s a blank canvas!

I mean… if he’s gonna wear a nasal strip at summer horse shows to help him breathe, he may as well own the hell out of it, right? Just picture it:

This is happening. The wheels are already in motion for a Flair DIY and no one can stop me.

It wouldn’t be the first fancy Flair strip in existence.

Henny is the biggest weirdo I know, he definitely deserves more than the standard plain white Flair strip on his nose.

Side note: hey Flair, how much bribery and sweet talk would it take to get a custom thing going for me? Because HENNY.

I think we can blame this one on my derriere’s love for French saddles combined with my wallet’s general state of emptiness. It all started back in 2011 when I desperately wanted to get my hands on a CWD but, with two horses to pay for, had a tiny budget. I combed the internet for the exact configuration I was looking for and, miraculously, one popped up on a French classified site. Many awkward half French/half English emails and $1050 later, I had my unicorn saddle and a new internet obsession.

Once you get a taste of victory it’s hard to stop. No surprise, French saddles are just a lot cheaper in Europe. My Devoucoux Makila came from Germany; also a really good deal. Now that I’m super obsessed with getting a Loreak I find myself wandering around French classifieds at least twice a week. Not that I have the funds to actually buy one right now, but ya know… details. Despite taking French for 2 years, I really don’t speak much of it. I know numbers, colors, days of the week, basic food items and, now, literally every single tack related word you can imagine. If you need a sangle, collier de chasse, or some guêtres, I’m all over it.

I can read enough to decipher the classified ads, but I’m not so great at forming coherent emails. I got a fluent friend to help me out, and now I have a generic inquiry email saved, just in case I need to ask about a saddle. I also have a wanted ad drafted, for when I’m ready to actively seek out that Loreak. I’m not crazy or anything. I prefer the word “prepared”. And hey, my obsession served me well in Paris last year… I could read all the tags on everything at the tack shop.

I’ve spent enough time on Le Bon Coin (sorta like their craigslist) to where the search bar already knows what I want before I get more than one letter typed. Attractive Saddle is set to email me any time one comes up that meets my criteria. Otherwise I filter through all of my main sites and do general searches… Selle Expert, Equirodi, Selles Occasions, Notabene, Du Cheval, and a few others. I go hit up a French horse message board every once a while and page through their classified forum. I may or may not be a member of a couple difference French used saddle facebook groups (side note: super annoying facebook sellers are universal).

The real question is why do I do this? Some people like to window shop for horses, I like to window shop for saddles. I can’t help it. Just seeing them gets me daydreaming. You never know… the day might come where I finally find my unicorn Loreak or, my secondary pipe dream, a monoflap version of my CWD. Gotta keep on believing.

I was really excited to write this post about how it finally stopped raining. How everything is still pretty wet and muddy and gross, but the arena is dry enough, the horses are back to turnout, and we can technically get back to a regular riding schedule that doesn’t exclusively feature trotting down the shoulder of the road. How we’re 6″ of rain over the average for the year so far and I’m quite done, thanks. Until I got to the barn yesterday and SOMEONE had pulled a shoe. Womp womp.

Luckily I randomly decided to buy an Easyboot several months ago when Riding Warehouse had them on sale. I’ve never been able to get any other boot to stay on him for more than 5 minutes and I wasn’t hopeful that this one would either, but last night we did a fairly intense dressage ride and it didn’t even budge. Score one point for the Easyboot Trail! If the farrier doesn’t make it out today I’ll slap the boot back on and jump him tonight.

In more exciting news, Trainer is moving a little bit closer to us. Hopefully soon she’ll be able to drive out to our place for lessons on at least a semi-regular basis. That could really be earth shattering for me… hauling 2 hours to meet her somewhere just doesn’t happen often between my schedule, her schedule, and the weather. Being able to take jump lessons more than once every couple months would be such a luxury at this point, especially if it didn’t require hauling out somewhere and paying an additional grounds fee. Maybe I could actually get my shit together? Hey, miracles happen. 

Tomorrow we’re hauling out for a lesson with Dressage Trainer, the first one in quite a while (oops). Hopefully it’s not too big of a mess. I’m just so happy to have some nice weather again! I would be even happier if Henry had all 4 shoes.