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The first HT of 2023 is officially in the books, and it was Presto’s first recognized Training!

I entered Training Horse at this show because it ran on Friday/Saturday vs Training Rider which ran Saturday/Sunday. Hillary was showing Lex at this one too and her division ran Saturday/Sunday, so in order to avoid the raging dragon that is PrestoWithFriends, I was like screw it, I’ll just try to avoid that situation altogether and enter the division for Fri/Sat. My dressage wasn’t until almost 3pm on Friday, which worked out great for me. I packed the trailer and cleaned my tack in the morning, then braided Presto around lunch time, loaded him up, and off we went.

I’ll be the first to admit that my brain really wasn’t “with it” at this show. There was a lot going on last week, I was carrying a lot of anxiety about completely unrelated things, and by the time the show came around I was tired, stressed out, and unfocused – something I wasn’t able to shake off all weekend.

Despite that, Presto was pretty good for dressage. I didn’t realize that during these giant winter shows Rocking Horse sets up additional grass rings… when we were here in December all the dressage was on surface. And of course naturally our test was in one of the grass rings. If I’d known that in advance, I would have put studs in him. The ground was fine so it wasn’t a problem per se, but he definitely is less hesitant to swing through his back, especially in canter, when we’re in a little grass ring. Lesson learned – grass rings are possible here so check which ring we’re in well in advance so I have time to put studs in if necessary.

It wasn’t our best effort but there weren’t any major bobbles. It was mostly just the continued feeling that I couldn’t quite get him to relax and swing through his lower back as well as he’s capable of, which affected every movement. Our scores were mostly 7’s with a smattering of 7.5 and 6.5, for an overall score of 30. I’ll be honest I was slightly disappointed with that because we’ve been working a lot on the lengthenings at home and they’ve really improved but I wasn’t really able to show them the way I wanted to, and I feel like this horse is always capable of scoring in the 20’s if I ride him well. On the other hand, it feels real stupid to be disappointed with a 30 lol. I definitely was not disappointed in him – he was a good boy and he stayed with me, so I can’t fault him at all. I mean… he’s not even quite 6 years old yet and he’s out here at a massive show being competitive with the pros on their young horses.

Showjumping was on Saturday morning. If I thought that I was unfocused and off my game on Friday, it was even worse on Saturday. By that point I hadn’t slept much for two nights in a row, I kept having nightmares or mega anxiety dreams (you know the ones where you wake up with your heart rate through the roof?) and I really wasn’t able to get control over it. My anxiety level was just at a constant high. It really had very little to nothing to do with the horse show, it was because of everything else that had been going on, but where I’m normally at like a 2 and a horse show raises it to a 3, I was running at an 8 and the horse show was raising it to a 9. It was making it very hard to use my brain and make good decisions in the heat of the moment and I was never really able to overcome it.

The SJ course was eerily similar to the one from the last show, just a few minor tweaks.

To all of Presto’s credit, I think he would jump around Training with an actual monkey on him and not be flustered by it. Which is good, because that’s pretty much exactly the ride he got.

I know I was sitting up there and holding the reins, but I’m not sure that I made a single decision. Or if I did, it was a panic mode decision, not a focused and helpful one. It was like me of 5-6 years ago had resurfaced and was yeehawing all over the place. It wasn’t cute. I think I just blacked the whole thing out, because I really don’t remember any specifics now, just an overall feeling of major disorganization.

Presto did his best but I let him get long and flat pretty much the entire way around. It was one of those rounds where it all just kind of happened to me and I didn’t do much to actively participate in my own fate. Which I hate. I used to default to that mode all the time and I’ve done so much work on myself and my mental game to overcome that… to revert back to it on that day really annoyed the crap out of me. Oh yeah, ALSO – my martingale broke. Like PING up into his face right before the one stride, and we ticked the rail there. Super proud of Presto for literally giving no shits about what I did (or really – didn’t do) but I was not so pleased with myself. Like what the hell man. What was that? I can do so much better than that.

To Steph’s immense credit she was very positive and constructive in her feedback but I was like wow. That was a thing I just did. Bless Presto’s heart though, he was like “COOL – NOW WE DO RUNNY JUMPIES?”. Completely unbothered.

One thing I did accomplish was to be able to go “ok that was not my best work at all” and stuff it in a box so that I could move on to the next thing. I was determined to be more present and give him a better ride for XC, which was only half an hour later…

It’s been a busy week around here! Rocking Horse is this weekend, so we’ve been doing the usual show prep and making sure everything feels good to go. The farm’s first foal was born this week (one of the TB racehorse boarders, not a WTW foal), and I’ve been doing breeding consultations and working on some exciting stuff for my Patreon peeps. And of course, riding Noodle and Nunez.

I tell you what, if you need to feel loved by an animal, this pony would be the one to buy. He does these soft little nickers at me when I feed him, and if he sees me coming he neighs and runs up to the gate. Is it food motivated? Probably. Is it still freaking adorable? Absolutely. I’ll take his love in whatever form I can get it, because I mean look at that face.

Going back and forth from him to Presto isn’t quite as awkward as I had imagined. I mean… it’s weird for sure, don’t get me wrong. Mostly because of neck length more than anything else. With Presto there is A LOT of real estate in front of you, so that’s the weirdest thing to get used to. Otherwise I feel like my leg sits on him pretty well though, and I don’t have a problem putting my leg on or anything like that.

On the docket for Presto this week was a jump lesson on Tuesday and a fix a test with Debbie Adams on Wednesday. We had talked the past couple weeks about playing with a new bit for him for jumping, and we had tried a 2 ring with definitely no success. Next on our list of things to try was a slow twist, but when I got there on Tuesday Steph was like “This is going to sound crazy, but just try this myler combo bit. I have a hunch.”. I know for a fact that I looked at that bit, looked at her like she was smoking some kind of very potent meth and crack combination, but somehow forced my mouth to say “Ok”. Presto is so opinionated that he thought a 2 ring was a medieval torture device and you want me to try this thing on him?

I would never have picked that to try, not in a million years. But I’ll admit that I don’t really have a lot of experience playing with bitting, so if someone I trust says “lets just see what he thinks” then ok, let’s try.

When I warmed him up I really still wasn’t sold. I don’t think he quite knew what to make of it yet. But he had no real objections (and he is never shy about expressing his opinion) so we went ahead and popped over a few jumps. Those went well, so we did a small course.

And hell if it wasn’t great. Like… what. What the fuck.

Steph said she had a hunch that he might prefer nose and poll pressure to tongue/bar pressure and I think she’s correct. Which, thinking back, I actually thought that about him way back in the beginning when I first started him under saddle, so this isn’t a new thought, just one I hadn’t really connected. I do have to be very conscious of giving with my hands in this bit, but his balance stayed more uphill, each half-halt was just a one stride say-it-and-be-done, and I was able to ride him more forward because it wasn’t such a long discussion about keeping the balance.

That’s the ride he really likes, and it just made everything smoother and easier.

Him liking this bit blew my mind completely. Naturally I had to go home and research it to figure out exactly how it works and why he might like it so much. This article helped it make sense. As did this one.

The fact that there’s a “stop” on the main ring means that there’s a limit to how much leverage it has, and there’s nose pressure first and foremost. Which I think it why he likes it. I pretty much never even get to the point of enacting the actual mouthpiece. It’s sort of hackamore-esque but less nose pressure and better steering. You learn something new every day man.

We’re going to use it this weekend, bringing a backup bridle with his other bit just in case the second time isn’t as successful as the first.

Yesterday we did the fix a test, which was at Alyssa Phillips’ farm about 15 minutes away.

He had a real halfway meltdown in warmup because a horse and carriage passed by on the other side of the tree line. Which… fair. That’s fair. I thought his heart was gonna shoot right out of his butthole, it was pounding so hard. He also thought the mirrors lining the arena were definitely the keepers of demons. It took about 15 minutes of very insistent “no sir, you have work to do, pay attention to me” to put the hamster back on it’s wheel. What I do appreciate though is that 1) he didn’t completely explode 2) the hamster was indeed capable of going back on it’s wheel.

He went in with more tension than he usually carries, but he was also being more expressive in his gaits. That tension can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending. The key at this point is learning how to channel it for good.

The fun part was that Debbie loved him. Like loved him. Asked his pedigree, thought he was super nice, really talented, thought he for sure looked the part of an upper level horse (Jennie Brannigan had gone a couple horses ahead of me and she commented on him in warmup too)… which, like… it’s never a bad feeling when people like your horse. She was complimentary of how I rode him too, which was also nice to hear. We ran through the test once, she gave me some suggestions, and we ran through it again with her talking me through bits of it. She gave me some good suggestions, just little things that I think do make a difference. Her overall advice was to not get so caught up in riding the test perfectly, but to ride the horse in the way that’s best for him, shows his quality, and teaches him how to be correct. She said that’ll be more helpful in developing him properly, and this is the type of horse you should always ride with the future in mind. That was helpful feedback!

We capped off the day yesterday with taking Henry and his current rider over to Steph’s for a jump lesson. He was every bit as delighted with himself as you would imagine.

He earns new members of his fan club wherever he goes. It makes me so happy to see him out there having a good time and teaching things to new riders. He’s so good at it.

Now we’re in show prep mode, with dressage tomorrow afternoon. Fingers crossed the weather cooperates (I’d prefer not to freeze to death please and thank you).

Sometimes I have to kind of chuckle at the complete 180 my life has done in the past year. It used to be that every day was the same, my schedule from one week to the next was largely just a repeat of the week before, and routine was the name of the game. Now… good luck having a clue keeping up with wtf is going on from one day to the next. Which isn’t a complaint, to be clear. I have been a long-time devotee to routine, but I’m finding that having several different things going on kind of helps to always keep everything fresh. Last week I worked a bit for the tack shop, a bit for Eventing Nation, a bit for Ride iQ, and a bit for BRC. I also found myself sat on 3 very different horses doing very different things.

On Wednesday we popped over to do a couple jumper rounds at Fredericks Equestrian. Ocala is starting to come full swing into season where basically every week there are a couple jumper shows and probably at least one fix-a-test as well as a horse trial to choose from. It doesn’t suck. This past week there were jumper rounds at Fredericks on Tuesday and Wednesday and then another venue also had jumper rounds and then there was a recognized HT happening (in addition to the h/j shows at WEC and HITS and the dressage show at WEC). This week I’ve already seen 3 different fix-a-tests and two different jumper rounds shows, something literally every single day of the week to choose from and it’s all cheap. Plus there’s a recognized HT this weekend and a schooling HT next Wednesday. As someone who came from an area where this kind of stuff is few and far between, it’s still continuing to amaze me just how much opportunity there is to ride and train and improve here. It’s like drinking from a firehose filled with rainbows.

Anyway, last week was jumper rounds, and the plan was to do one or two 1m rounds with Presto. We got there, warmed up, and jumped around the 1m, which was uneventful and looked quite small. I expressed that thought to Steph when I came out and she was like “why don’t you just wait til the next height and do a Prelim round?”. Me, in the moment “Okay!”. Me, 10 minutes later “Wait…”.

But I was committed at that point, so we sat there through the rest of the Training height and then the jump crew went in and put everything up. And I swear to god it went from looking teeny to looking giant. If I hadn’t watched them measuring everything I’d have thought they were fucking with me. They also put lots more fillers in, including the liverpool trays. It went from hehehehecute to BUFF. I was watching them put the oxers up and looked at Steph and went “Well now it looks MASSIVE” and she looked at the jumps and went “Meh, this is how big you jump at home.”. FINE. YOU’RE NOT WRONG. OK. THIS IS FINE THEN.

We went back in and jumped around the 1.10m, and Presto, bless his little heart to the moon and back, did not even blink. I made a few creative decisions (ok bad, they were bad) but he was just like “weird choice mom but ok” and did what I asked. He’s still not really even having to try much at this height and he is delightfully unbothered and unfazed even when I’m wrong. All the cookies for the child who is a complete dingaling 98% of the time but manages to be a total fantastic dude when it counts.

On Friday I hopped on Henry, since the person who’s been riding him was out of town for the weekend. I mostly just did whatever the hell he wanted to do, because he’s the king. I scratched his belly for an absurdly long time, and then got on and took him for a hack. I just gave him a loopy rein and let him choose his own adventure. We hacked down to the longhorns down the street, cantered down the shoulder for a ways, and then wandered a full lap of the farm. It’s always good to be back on Henry.

He might get to go to a show next week, too! I gotta get my Henry’s Mom deluxe #1 fan outfit prepped and ready to go. His birthday is also only a few weeks away, and he’s 16 this year. Definitely have to throw him a good Sweet Sixteen.

Also Nunez’s little teeny girth (y’all its like the length of my forearm) arrived on Friday, so I hopped on him for the first time on Saturday. I had ridden Presto right before so uh… yeah… going from 17.1 to 14h is just as weird as I expected. But what I didn’t really anticipate is that Nunez is actually not particularly wide in the rib cage, so I didn’t feel like I was sitting on some sort of low-riding sofa. I found him pretty comfortable actually, and it was easy to get my leg on him.

He’s a smart pony, and definitely feels athletic. He’s quite green still but willing, and tried hard to figure out what I was asking. I think he’ll be really fun to bring along. Definitely a super mover too, he covers a lot of ground for a little guy. I also didn’t look as big on him as I feared I would. All good marks for his first ride here, and he hacked around the farm afterward like a champ.

This week I’ll be riding Presto and Nunez, and Rocking Horse is this weekend for Presto so we’ve got a few things on our plate (jump lesson and fix-a-test) this week ahead of that. Busy busy times! But in the best way.

Anyone who has been keeping an eye on my Insta stories may have noticed a particularly adorable new addition.

This adorable little nugget is none other than Nunez WTW, from the foal class of 2019. He just moved to Florida from Texas, where he was in training for part of last year. He’s started under saddle w/t/c and has jumped a few things here and there. Now he’s come to Florida for me to work with and figure out what he wants to be, so that he can be sold into the appropriate home. Hunter pony? Dressage pony? Event pony? I dunno… we’ll all find out together.

For those who don’t remember, he’s by the imported GRP stallion Nuno, out of sportpony mare Stormie. I sticked him this week and he’s a bit over 14h right now, so I think he’ll definitely stay pony size, but should be a good-size large. I did have to order him a girth though, because, uh… my smallest one for my monoflap is a 22. It’ll sorta kinda hold the saddle on but definitely isn’t small enough to be safe to ride him in. His new one should be here on Friday, and then I’ll get on him. This week I’ve been bringing him into the barn to groom him, and I’ve lunged him a few times to start working on voice commands. He’s got basics well-established, but now it’s time to start refining and focusing things a bit.

The most challenging (and hilarious) part will be the fact that I’ll be going back and forth from 17.1h to 14h.

I predict that I will probably come off the pony at least once. Not due to any fault of his, but I mean… I’m used to having 75′ of neck in front of me. Better sit up I guess.

Either way it should be amusing for all of us. Welcome to Florida, Nunez!

Yes hi hello, I’m still alive. The first two weeks of the year were completely insane between working the 9-5 retail gig and everything else I have on my plate. Luckily I was smart enough to only commit myself to two weeks of that, because my brain needs a break. Granted, it’s not going to get one, I still have a lot to do, but at least I have more time now in which to do it.

How about some updates?

First and foremost; Gemma. Everybody’s been asking about Gemma. She’s been enjoying getting very fat and extra sassy ahead of breeding season. She had her official 6th birthday last week (January 11th) and got her front shoes pulled, so she’s completely barefoot now. I expected her to be a lot more footsore than she is, honestly. She was walking a little gingerly for a few days, but that’s about it so far.

Yesterday she got moved out to one of the mare pastures. I wasn’t sure if she’d like being in a herd environment and less coddled since she really likes her attention and her private snacks. Luckily she’s pretty low drama so the integration was easy, and she’s already made some friends. When she sees me she comes up to the fence for cookies and face rubs but seems calm and content, so… so far so good.

As for the Noodle Doodle, he’s still chugging along. I took him last week for a jump lesson, trying out a new bit. I feel like the beval is just not quite enough sometimes, so we tried a 2-ring with 2 reins but he thought that was too much. We ended up taking off the bottom rein entirely but still I preferred how he felt in the beval. Back to the drawing board on that one. He’s been pretty good though (well ok, he did lose his brain for like 2 days when some of the seasonal boarders moved in and he couldn’t comprehend the fact that there were now horses in places they hadn’t been before) and we’re headed to Fredericks Equestrian tomorrow for a jumper class or two. Somehow Rocking Horse is only like a week and a half away now. Time flies. Send help.

As for Henry, he remains the Greatest Animal That Ever Lived. We have someone staying here on the farm in her camper for a few months, and she just sold her horse. I offered up Henry for her to ride, which is really a win-win… he needs to be ridden more than I have time for, and she needed a fun and reliable mount. She’s been riding him for a few weeks now and naturally loves him (because who wouldn’t). This past weekend she took him out XC schooling for the first time and I was basically the proudest horse mom in all of Ocala.

I wore the shirt I have that’s just covered in his XC face (because lets be honest, that’s even better than a foam finger) and recorded everything and said “he is the cutest, I love him” like 752 times.

She said it was the most fun XC school she’s ever had. Nothing pleases me more than seeing the love of my life helping other riders find their inner badass, especially when they’ve had struggles with previous horses. He did so much for me, and watching him give that feeling to other people is just the biggest Proud Mom moment ever. Add another lifetime member to his fan club. Henry is still the king.