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Does this face look familiar?

It both should and shouldn’t. You’ve never met this horse before. I’ve never posted any pictures of her here. But if you’re thinking she looks a hell of a lot like Presto, you would be extremely correct. The resemblance is uncanny, especially when looking at their faces from the front.

So who is this adorable little creature, you may be asking? Uh, well… hi hello yes, this is our new filly. Say hello to Simsalabim, a 2yo filly by Saketini xx out of Mary Lou S (Mighty Magic x Ramiro’s Son II).

Losing Gemma sucked. A lot. Especially because we really bought her to use for breeding, and we had started shopping for stallions to breed her to. Hillary’s horse is 7 this year, and Presto is 6, so like… if we’re thinking about breeding the next generation, so to speak, now is the time to put that wheel in motion. Our dreams for that died along with Gemma. We sort of discussed starting to keep our eyes peeled for another OTTB mare at some point, certainly not feeling like we were in any sort of rush. We wanted it to be the right one, whenever and wherever we found her.

And then a local friend of mine reached out to me on facebook after she heard about Gemma. The woman has bred a few foals in the past few years but has decided that the whole breeding thing isn’t for her (smart lady!) and sold her broodmare a few months ago.

The first filly she had, now a 2yo, is by a TB eventing stallion and out of a Mighty Magic (Presto’s sire) mare. Indeed, the whole reason this woman and I even know each other is because of her MM mare. Because, you know… me and MM offspring, I am a stalker. Anyway, the filly had a pasture injury that will preclude her from a serious sport career, and since the woman is no longer breeding, she didn’t really have a use for the filly. That’s when she reached out to me. She knows I like and understand the MM brain, and her seasonal boarders (a 5* rider and her wife – who does our horses’ bodywork) also vouched for us being a potentially great home.

We went last week to see her and it was a bit of love of first sight for both me and Hillary. I am of course obsessed with her breeding, and she looks remarkably like Presto so ya know – done deal for me. She’s also an incredibly nice filly in her own right though, and really exciting as a broodmare prospect. Her damline has produced some really cool top level horses – everything from a 1.55m showjumper to a 4* eventer to a 4th level dressage horse. (I’ll have to do a Family Tree post for her at some point) Of course she’s just coming 2, so it would be next year before we looked at breeding her, which gives us time to play with her, learn about her, and maybe lightly start her under saddle to give us a better idea of what she’s like. Perfect.

It wasn’t my intention to really look for anything again for a while, and we figured it would be another OTTB, but for a horse like this to just fall into our laps seems like a sign from the universe. All the best ones kind of find their way to you, don’t they? To top it all off, she only lived 10 minutes up the road. I dunno how much more perfect it can get.

We went to pick her up on Saturday and she walked right in the trailer like a pro, rode down to our farm, unloaded, took one look around, and started eating grass. We brought her into the barn to brush her and chop her mane off and she immediately stuck one of the crossties in her mouth. Yes yes, you will fit in here just fine. She’s now settled into the filly pasture like a champ, and is really a smart girl. I love her.

Her barn name is Simi but we don’t totally love that so we’ve been kicking around other options… haven’t landed on anything 100% yet. She’s already gotten the unfortunate nickname of Sis from me and Bunny from Hillary so we’re gonna have to decide fast so I can quit referring to her as NotSemiOrSisorBunnyMaybeFayOrSomething.

Her pedigree:
https://horsetelex.com/horses/pedigree/2388038/simsalabim

I’m so excited to have such a nice freakin mare in the barn and really can’t thank the people involved enough for the opportunity. ❤ Welcome home, kiddo.

When it comes to foals, I think week 2 is prime time as far as entertainment value. In their first week they’re still wobbly and sleep constantly, but by week 2 they’ve found their feet a little bit, are more curious, and have a little more stamina. They start discovering their world a little bit more and explore things without being quite so glued to their dam. It’s when you start to really see what their personality is like, as they become comfortable in the world.

This little fuzzmonster is no exception.

RiRi is… something else. Her name is very appropriate. She is sassy and confident and very curious, and pretty bold. She also likes to explore things by putting them in her mouth, which is perhaps more or less endearing depending on how you feel about that. There is not an inch of me or her pasture or her stall that her mouth has not touched.

Not even the waterer is safe from her.

When she isn’t trying to eat or lick things, she’s either running or sleeping. She loves both of those things in equal measure.

As far as her gaits go, we’ve seen a decent bit of her walk by now…

A tiny bit of trot…

And a whole heck of a lot of gallop.

All gallop all the time. You can tell she’s got a lot of TB in her.

And sass, we’ve also seen lots of sass. There’s plenty of that in her, too.

Aside from all the cute foal stuff, she’s also shown us a glimpse of what a stunning mare she’ll be some day, too.

You’re a stunner, RiRi. And a bit of a weirdo, but all the best ones are.

I think the thing I like least about show season is that a lot of the time it feels like you’re just maintaining things between shows, or prepping particularly for the show, and you kind of lose that “let’s play around with new concepts and see what we can learn here” aspect. I love that aspect. The learning and growth process is my very favorite part, and for me horse shows are just a thing we do along the way.

BUT – horse shows serve to show us the areas where we still have improvements to make and things to work on. After Ocala I came away with two main bits of feedback: 1) after that fabulous mis-read of the jump in the water, we def needed to school that question, 2) I felt like our dressage had stagnated a bit and the lengthenings needed more work.

So to address the first part, last Friday we headed over to Sweet Dixie to school since they had jumps in both of their waters. And, yup… really glad we did that because I was right, he genuinely did not understand the question. This horse is such a cross country savant that I think sometimes we maybe take it for granted that he is, after all, just about to turn 6 (and missed a good chunk of time between 4 and 5, to boot). It took quite a few passes through the first water before he really got it and was jumping it confidently. By the second water he’d figured it out though, and nailed that one straight away on the first try.

While we were out there we schooled a few other things too, including a couple Prelim questions.

The ditch being on an angle in this coffin was tripping me out.

Overall it was a good positive learning day, and Hillary brought Henry along (peep his ears in the GIFs) so he could have a fun outing and jump a few things too. Presto is getting less nappy about leaving the group when he has “friends” along with him, so I’m glad that there’s improvement on that aspect as well. Schooling some bigger/harder questions is fun too, because it’s nice to feel him actually start trying and thinking a bit. He’s not been challenged by much so far.

To address part 2 of the Ocala feedback, we had a dressage lesson yesterday. I especially wanted to go over the dressage test for this weekend at Rocking Horse since I haven’t ridden it yet – we’ve done Test A three times now, but this’ll be our first attempt at Test B. In some ways I like it more than A, but it’s definitely more complicated, with some 15m circles directly after changes of direction, more canter lengthening, and two trot lengthenings instead of one. The transitions within the gaits are going to be important on this one, as well as showing enough difference, being aware of where you are in the ring, and really being able to have enough bend in the corners and the ability to change it quickly and seamlessly. I think this test plays a bit more to Presto’s strengths… if I ride it well. If I don’t, it could be a real hot mess. Mostly I really need to remember to keep my reins shorter and hands more forward, it makes all the difference in keeping his front end up.

For our lesson we played with different parts of the test and then ran through it once. At the end we worked more on his medium gaits and lengthenings, which we haven’t played with as much lately. You can definitely tell that he’s getting stronger, and as he gets stronger he gets less wide behind.

I do feel like I have a hard time working on the lengthenings at home because he doesn’t feel as secure on grass. He’s a big young horse, it makes sense. We might look into making some modifications to his shoeing to give him a bit more traction. When he’s on actual surface he’s so much more willing to go forward and sit and swing, and I don’t really blame him.

Tomorrow we’re headed over to Will Coleman’s for some jumper rounds, and then Rocking Horse is Friday and Saturday!

It’s here!!! The first official Foal Friday of 2023, and it’s only February. We’ve got a long foaling season this year which is bad for anyone who has to foal out mares, but great for stretching out our new baby content.

Anyway – first up for the year we’ve got a super cute little fireball of a bay filly, born last Thursday night. She’s an embryo transfer, by the Thoroughbred stallion Sea Lion out of Irish Sporthorse mare Kilpatrick Grace, and carried by Goldie. This is also an “R” year for names for her registry.

She aspirated a little bit of amniotic fluid during birth, so her first 30 minutes were a little bit scary as we worked to help her get all that out, but she’s a fiesty little thing and perked up really quickly. She was on her feet and trying to nurse within an hour.

She also named herself within that time too, because any time you touched her butt she hopped the teeniest little bucks. Kinda looked like she was twerking though, not gonna lie. She’d do like 10 of them in rapid succession. Before the night was over she’d already been dubbed RiRi, after Rihanna. Turns out she’s got exactly the personality to match, too.

She’s also out here Servin Lewks like she owns the place.

So far we know a few things about her for sure.

She’s sassy.

She loves to gallop.

And she’s snuggly when she feels like it (approximately 0.05% of the time, because see previously aforementioned things that she loves most).

It’s fun these first few weeks to see their personalities come out and watch them unfold and fill out a little bit. She looks like a super nice filly and she’s got a great gallop. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a newborn foal do as many clean lead changes as this one does… they’re constant. Normally they spend a lot of time cross-cantering because 4 legs are hard to master, but not for RiRi!

We’ve started this year off with a bang for sure – Happy Foal Friday!

We should have a few weeks of solo RiRi content before the next one is born. I’m sure she’ll enjoy the spotlight.

If you missed the dressage and showjumping recap from yesterday, you can find it here if you must. Alright, on to the good part.

First and foremost, my new favorite cross country picture ever. You’ll prob see this one a lot so ya know… sorry not sorry. Look how flippin cute that lil horse horse, doing big boy things.

Ok, now that we’ve got that most important part out of the way, on to business. First and foremost, the course.

What I love about the shows at the Florida Horse Park is that the courses are always so different. This was my 3rd time showing there and everything was moved around to an entirely different place, new start box location and everything, so it felt entirely new. I dig it. All the shows here are good about that. It’s also becoming clear that this is never a particularly soft venue. There were 6 combinations on course, with the first one coming at fence 4. The first water was at 6 and came out swinging with a jump a few strides before it, a jump IN the water, and then a bending line to a jump up a small mound out of the water. There was also a full coffin with a big ditch set down into a depression and the last element on an angle. Nothing looks particularly big at the level anymore but the technical aspects give us plenty to do.

I wasn’t super worried about anything, but there were two places I knew I’d probably have to work a bit: the first water and the coffin. Mostly because these were brand new questions to him, he’d never seen anything quite like them. Presto had quite literally never jumped a jump IN the water before, and he’s never seen a spooky, real legit coffin like that.

In warmup he was still a bit feral to start out with. I got down there just a few minutes after showjumping and had several horses in front of me waiting to start, so I let him just walk for a bit before picking up the canter. I opened and closed his step a few times, pointed him at a jump, and he wanted to be speedy and rude. I jumped another one and he strongly considered galloping off into the sunset, so I halted him and had him quietly canter around to the next one. That seemed to re-establish his manners, and we jumped one on an angle and then a skinny before heading to the box. The starter counted us down and away we went.

He popped happily over 1 and galloped on when I asked him to open up a bit. Then he saw all the people and cameras and vehicles on top of the mound and stuck his head up in the air like a giraffe. BUT – he kept going and jumped fence 2 (right next to all the scary shit) just fine. Then it was over fence 3 nicely out of stride and just like that we were at our first combo, the wagon to skinnyish house thing.

This one had kind of a short, blind approach to it… you turned right and it was behind the combined driving stuff/a mound and you’d likely be on the left lead coming into it given everything you’d just done. So it was mostly important to jump in and get their eye on the B element as quickly as possible. Presto was great here, even though the distance walked and rode a bit tight.

From there it was over a rolltop in the treeline…

And off to the first water. I was most concerned about this one, of anything on course. First we had a jump coming in, which was small and fine, not a big deal, but we know that he loves to jump over the edge of the water as if that too is a jump. I wasn’t sure he’d get his eye on the actual jump in the water so soon after, especially since he’s never seen that question.

And, well…. it’s like I was psychic. He jumped the first jump fine, hopped into the edge of the water, and… did not even register that there might be something else in the water for him to do. I swear I think he put his eye up on the mound instead and then got to the base of the house in the water like WHAT???

Bless him, he legit flopped over it. Honestly it was impressive how he yanked his feet up at the last second and managed to get us over in one piece. They talk about good event horses having a fifth leg and this horse certainly does. It was a green mistake on his part (one I don’t think he’ll make again) but to his credit, he also bailed us out of it.

Granted, he just about rocketed me right off the side of him in the process. I lost both my stirrups and had to yank myself back to the middle with the neck strap of my martingale. I also found out later that he pulled his left hind shoe off.

What I like most about that picture is that he’s already got his ears up looking for the next jump anyway. Did we almost just eat shit? Yes. Am I legit coming off the side? Also yes. Yet there he is, galloping on to the next one already like he’s totally unfazed by that.

I managed to pull myself back to the center and find our way to the jump out, which I hopped over with no stirrups. There was absolutely nothing textbook about it but we got it done, and Presto cantered happily away as if nothing had ever gone wrong.

From there we had the big log oxer to put ourselves back together, and then just like that we were already at the next tough combo, the coffin. I rode around the turn to it very pleased with myself for my execution of the instructions we had discussed during the course walk… I stayed out a bit to give us enough space before the turn, he came right back into a lovely coffin canter, I had him really straight between hand and leg… and I looked up at the A and realized my dumb ass had lined us up with the Modified jump in, not the Training. FML.

So 4 strides out I course corrected to the left, jumped the A of the Training line definitely not straight, but kicked out over the ditch and then the brush in what ended up kind of being a bending line, making that question even harder. Presto was really good there, gave zero fucks. Can’t believe I almost TE’d myself like a total idiot.

Then we had the bench, which he jumped fantastic, and then yet another combo (this shit was kind of rapid-fire) with the spooky mulch ramp, 4 strides to the skinny wedge. That was easy peasy. He’s getting good at starting to look for skinnies in combinations – much improved in the past couple shows.

After that we had a little bit of a gallop stretch so I opened him back up again and he jumped the next table nicely out of stride. Then we were to – you guessed it – another combination. The hanging log down into the crater, through the bottom of it, and back up the edge to a corner on the top. He was super game here and jumped through that line great.

We kept galloping to the steeplechase and he jumped it nicely out of stride too. Presto has really gotten that part down pat in the last couple shows, he’s jumping a lot better without needing help to keep his shoulders up to the base.

After that it was back around to the second water, which just had a jump a couple strides before and then a jump a couple strides after. He clearly learned his lesson at the first water because he entered the water here MUCH more carefully, looking at what was in front of him and where he was putting his feet. Not backed off, but very aware. Smart kid.

@breed.ride.event

Is it just me or are the comments always the best part of videos #equestrian #eventer #eventing #ocalaflorida #horses

♬ original sound – breed.ride.event

Then we just had a table and the log ramp, which were both great, and we were done!

We finished with time to spare (18 seconds under OT) which speaks to how much better he’s jumping out of stride, and gave us our first double clear at the level. Second recognized Training is in the books!

It definitely wasn’t a picture perfect round, but I do think it was a really educational one. Aside from genuinely not understanding the water, he was super “game on” and bold and smart about everything. We were able to find a schooling venue that has a jump in the water right now, so we’re gonna take him later this week to school that and make sure he’s got it. A lot of his education at this point is just about learning to focus and pay attention, and he’s getting better about that every time out. He definitely needs to keep seeing the harder and more technical questions at this level, but he feels really confident and happy out there… even when it goes a bit sideways. Every time out he feels a bit more educated than the last.

Overall we finished 7th in the division, just adding the rail to his dressage score. Another purple ribbon for the collection.

Next up we’ve got Rocking Horse again in 2 weeks. I feel like Presto is at a point right now where we need to keep going to shows and doing the thing and building on what he’s learned to get him confirmed at the level and keep the momentum going. Tis the season in Ocala.