I was admittedly a little worried about how Mina would handle moving halfway across the country.
I was worried; she is not
She is a super submissive dog who really likes a set routine, expectations, and she gets a lot of comfort in knowing who her people are, where her people are, and knowing her environment. She doesn’t like getting in the car, she’s anxious in new places, and she can be skeptical of people and things she doesn’t know. She’s a great dog, but I think having been dumped at the shelter twice has left some lingering trauma on her psyche.
Luckily she made that transition from shelter dog to barn dog much better than I had originally anticipated – you never really know with those city raised dogs how they’re going to take to all that. She listens pretty well though, has great recall, and isn’t the type to wander off. I think she really liked the idea of having a big space that was hers – hers to rule, hers to protect, etc. She knew that Texas farm from corner to corner, she patrolled it, and she thrived in that role and routine. So uprooting her from there, when she really hadn’t been settled in for very long (hard to remember I only got her last summer!) was a concern. I didn’t know how she’d take yet another drastic life change, a new farm, different people, etc.
clearing the hacking route of any rogue squirrels or cranes
Really though, she’s handled it exceptionally well. I think because she’d settled into her farm dog role so well there, she seamlessly adopted the exact same role here. It took her a few days to relax and realize this was her new space, then she was like “aye aye captain” and took her job and ran with it. Well ok, her perception of her job. Really she doesn’t have a job at all, but she takes the farm dog thing very seriously.
Mostly I think she sees herself as head of security. She figured out the farm boundaries very quickly, and the people who are allowed to come and go here regularly. Perimeter control: check. Personnel authorization: check. She herds the squirrels and the birds from the places she thinks they shouldn’t be. If anyone shows up that she feels shouldn’t be there (aka someone that isn’t here on a daily basis) she is front and center to find out what their reason is for coming onto her farm. One day I’m pretty sure she scared the living daylights out of the UPS guy because he dared to just BACK HIS TRUCK up to the barn without first acknowledging her existence and authority. She ran up to him barking like she isn’t actually the most submissive dog on the planet.
very busy securing this toy
When I’m riding she parks herself either at the entrance to the arena or in the parking area at the front of the barn and every few minutes she’ll get up and walk a lap to patrol. She keeps an eye on me and an eye on everything else that’s going on. If I go out on the road to hack she sits up at the barn parking area and waits for me to come back, which… is really nice. One of my biggest concerns about this farm is that it has regular 4 board fence, no no-climb, so she could easily just leave the property whenever she wants. She did that once, in the first few days we were here, but once she figured out the boundaries she has yet to step foot outside them again.
at her new vet’s office (the UF clinic at WEC) yesterday getting her new patient exam and some flea meds
It’s a little bit cute how seriously she takes her role and how convinced she is that this is HER farm and she’s here to protect it. Well ok it wasn’t cute the first couple days the barn manager’s kid was out of school and he came down to help mow… Mina was like INTRUDER ALERT, STRANGER DANGER, I DO NOT KNOW YOU, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED. Poor kid. She would definitely never bite someone (I think she’d rather die) but she does put on a very convincing show of barking until she decides someone is allowed to pass.
I’ve joked about finding a little Security badge for her to go on her collar so she looks more official. I mean, no one tell her that these squirrels are toying with her and she misses half the deliveries because she’s dead-ass asleep on the couch half the time. Those are minor details. Mostly I’m just happy that she’s happy and settled in here so well… it’s been a definite relief.
It’s been busy times around these parts over the past week! Mostly with the horses getting everything they could possibly need and my bank account getting more anemic by the day. So ya know… life as usual.
the pasture bale next to a 3-string bale
Rather than me driving to the feed store every couple weeks to get the $40 3-string bales of Orchard, we decided to hop on a load and get a big, more economical pasture bale delivered. I don’t know what I had pictured a pasture bale to look like in my head, but my god this thing is massive. I come from the land where it’s either a 2-string, a 3-string, or a round bale. Watching them unload this massive square bale was kinda fun. Almost as much fun as cutting it open and watching the giant flakes melt off of it. So far it’s worked out just fine to tear chunks from it to feed, and it’s a shitton of hay so we’ll see how long it lasts. If nothing else it’s saved me from having to haul and unload the 100lb bales by myself, so I like it for that reason alone.
Wednesday was dental day for all the horses.
I used Dr. Bess Darrow (she was just on the Equestrian Voices podcast and was REALLY interesting, especially her input on tack, if you want to give that a listen) who came highly recommended by my local friends, and she did not disappoint. First of all, her rig is amazing. It’s a trailer that’s been reconfigured to have everything she needs, and it’s legit the smartest thing I’ve ever seen. The horses get their sedation at the bottom of the ramp, load up as it’s setting in, get their teeth done, and then unload off a ramp in the front. There’s a fan in there and all of her equipment is right where she needs it, no setup required. Brilliant. Makes things quick and easy. I was a little worried about how the horses would feel about getting in the trailer by themselves and all that, but the timing with the sedation is pretty perfect, and all of them had no problem.
Dr. Bess was also one of those people that I could tell right away was my kind of people. She was super nice but also no bullshit, and you could tell she really loves the horses and is passionate about what she does. Also found out she only lives a couple miles away! She was really great, and definitely glad to add her to my team. Overall the horses got good reports…
Henry loves the afternoon rains here
We started with Henry, who is generally the “troublesome” one when it comes to teeth. He’s got a decent overjet, history of broken teeth, and has had a few different procedures over the years. She thought generally his mouth looked pretty good… we’ll have to watch one of his molars (the one that had a filling a couple years ago) but otherwise there was nothing out of the ordinary. He had a few sharp points and some ramps, got those taken care of, got his weiner cleaned up while he was drunk, and he got a Gold Star from Dr. Bess. She loved him, as all medical professionals seem to do.
The only notable thing is that in the middle of his exam she said “wow he has so much extra tissue under his tongue, you don’t see that a lot in thoroughbreds”. She pulled up this massive handful of extra skin from under his tongue and showed it to me. I started asking questions, because in all the years I’ve owned this horse and all the good dentists that have looked in his mouth, no one has ever told me about that. She said that sometimes horses that have that (which is usually warmbloods) can find bits uncomfortable because that extra skin can move around and get stuck in between the bit and teeth or the bit and the gums. It was like a massive moment of clarity, I looked her dead in the eye and was like “I ride him in a hackamore, I’ve never been able to make him 100% happy in a bit”. She said “thank you for listening to him, that’s probably why he doesn’t like bits”. Omg. OMG. Finally, some kind of possible explanation for why this horse is SO different in a bit vs bitless. This led us down a road of conversation about bitless and competition and all that stuff (she’s very pro-allowing horses to go bitless) and yeah… we have very similar opinions on all that.
Next up was Presto, who apparently is a very cheap drunk. She said he has a pretty nice mouth structure-wise, and again had nothing particularly out of the ordinary, just some sharp points (and also a very clean ween).
Presto got a big ol’ LIGHTWEIGHT note at the top of his chart because he was drunk as a skunk from a regular dose of sedation
Last but not least was Gemma, who got the comment “lovely mouth!”… it’s apparently very correct. She had a variety of sharp points and ramps, and the points way up in the very back were causing some small ulcerations in her mouth. We got that all taken care of and then she was good to go. Well behaved kiddos all around, and nothing major, so… good dental day!
The next day was Dr. Redman, for chiropractic and acupuncture. I really wanted him to come out for Presto, who seems to do best with regular chiropractic, but I figured I’d go ahead and have him look at Gemma too while he was here. I have no pictures from his visit because the whole time we were with Presto I was trying to keep him from knocking the poor guy off the bale (Presto seems to think that’s the game), and the whole time we were with Gemma I was trying to convince her that he was not in fact trying to rip her legs clean off her body (slight drama queen).
Presto, as usual, was a bit of a mess. Dr. Redman did a lot of adjustments from the neck to the SI, which Presto seemed to like. After that we did acupuncture, or more specifically aquapuncture, where he injected teeny amounts of B-12 into the acupuncture points. Presto was not so into that. Gemma was highly skeptical of the Dr in general (STRANGER DANGER) but overall cooperative. He said she was very easy to adjust, particularly in her neck… “really nice neck joints, fluid and very easy to adjust”… how’s that for a unique compliment? I was worried that we might have to scrape her off the ceiling if we did aquapuncture but we decided to just try it and see. I’ll be damned if she didn’t seem to quite enjoy that part of it. Go figure. Anyway, he said Gemma actually felt quite good and didn’t think she’d need to be done again anytime soon. Presto on the other hand is on a 4-week schedule for… probably forever. His little roach back just makes this kind of stuff more necessary for him, particularly right now when he’s been off work for so long and is so weak. I could immediately see a difference in Presto’s back after his session though. I really liked Dr. Redman – another good professional added to the team. That’s the great thing about being in this area.
The horses got a little break after that stuff, but otherwise we’ve just kind of been chugging right along. Dr. Redman recommended pretty much the same exercises for Presto that I was already doing, plus a couple more, so Presto basically lives in a maze of poles and cavaletti these days. The good news is that he’s actually trotting over them now rather than just jumping clear over them all. So. That’s an improvement.
All of the kiddos are feeling great, knock on wood, and I’m happy with the progress we’re making with building up our team. I mean, I still have to find a trainer… details… but at least the horses are feeling good!
While Quinlee definitely got some of that beefcake booty from her dad, there’s no doubt that she still looks a whole lot like her dam, Inca. Especially in the face.
Quinlee is pretty independent overall (which was originally much to Inca’s annoyance, but she gave up a long time ago) generally preferring to insert herself right in the middle of the herd, although every once in a while she does like to hang out with her mom. Coincidence that those times happen mostly when the human is outside with a camera? Probably not. We all know Quinlee’s affinity for having her photo taken. And the pics she deigns to take with her mother? They can be pretty cute.
Ok, sometimes.
“MOOOOM, I’m doing my best alien abduction pose for all my fans and you’re BLOCKING THE SHOT”
Inca says “omg this little brat, SOMEONE COME GET YOUR KID, IT’S KICKING ME… oh shit it’s my kid…”
“DON’T KICK ME, YOU LITTLE….”
Inca, bless her heart. Every single day she’s wondering who signed her up for this motherhood thing. She loves her kid and all, but… she also seems like she’s really looking forward to weaning time and getting some alone time back.
They do eventually get their ish together sometimes though and manage to sync up for some cute Mommy and Me pics. Mostly at speed, since that’s one thing they can both agree on: zoomies rule.
Zoooooooooom
WHEEEEE
Oh wait, hang on… quick snack break.
Ok, good to go again.
Admittedly they aren’t always the best at coordinating their flattering moments…
one noble, one derp
But sometimes they do manage to get it exactly right.
It was between breeches and sunshirts for this week’s battle royale, and the Patreon group voted for sunshirts, so… sunshirts it is!
And, to be fair, I only own sunshirts that I actually like. If I didn’t like them very much, I got rid of them either a long time ago or before I moved (for instance: the San Soleil and the Piper ones, among many others, did not make the cut). How much I like the ones I have now varies, but they wouldn’t still be in my collection if I hated them. That said, they certainly do not all rank equally in my eyes, and if we’re gonna do a battle royale then it’s time to get brutally honest and perhaps maybe overly critical. Fun! Also yes, these shirts were all paid for with my own money, none were given to me, I’m not receiving anything for these reviews, blah blah blah etc etc standard disclaimer.
Some of the collection, representing al of today’s contending brands. Top row L to R: It’s a Haggerty’s, Dada Sport, Dover, Ariat, Urban Strides. Bottom row L to R: 70 Degrees (performance), Free Ride, 70 Degrees (laser cut), Kastel, Esprit.
This brand made their name by doing custom sunshirts, and that’s exactly why I have one too – we got them made for the sBs inspection way back when Presto was a baby. We did them in sBs colors, which… is a big part of why I don’t wear it much. For as much as I love navy blue, it’s cousin bright-ass-royal-blue is not so much my jam. That’s not the shirt’s fault though. The fabric on these is decent… it feels really nice and silky to the touch but for some reason I don’t find it as cool or breathable as a lot of my others. I also think it runs long in both the arms and the body. They are definitely slim-fitting though, which I like (I wear a medium), and it’s fun that you can order basically anything you want.
Look, this thing is French and it looks like it. It’s a gorgeous dark navy, it has it’s quirky-yet-simple little logo on the body, a heavy duty gold metal zipper, and fun metal buttons at the cuff that let you know it’s high end. It fits like a glove, because FRENCH (I wear a Small). It’s bougie and it’s high end and you have to love it for those reasons alone. That said, the weight of the fabric is also scaled to what I have to assume is a French summer, and Florida… ain’t that. This one lives in my fall/winter collection instead.
I got these when they were on clearance for a smokin deal (I have two – blue and burgundy) and they’re quite nice. Not as ULTRA lightweight as some other brands, but definitely still light enough to wear here. The white collar does get dirty (or maybe I just have a particularly disgusting face) but I like the contrasting color stripe at the bust and down the side. Well, I do until I have to figure out what breeches to pair the shirts with and then I get a little stuck thinking there’s too much color going on or things don’t match, because I am the blandest person in the world when it comes to colors. The fit and fabric on these is nice though, and their new styles look equally interesting. I also love that Urban Strides puts little sayings on the arm (the ones I have say “do what you love”), I think it’s a cute little touch. I wear a medium in this brand.
My French blue Dover Coolblast shirt decorated with some after-market Spanish moss
Dover, Dover, Dover. You got these like 80% right. Let’s start with the positives. First, the fabric. It’s really similar to the old school Kastels that I liked so much. It’s light, it’s soft, it’s UPF 100, and it’s great for summer. They come in tons of colors (many admittedly ugly in my color-hating opinion) and patterns (if you’re into that sort of thing). When Dover does their BOGO sales, which they do on a fairly regular basis, the price is very right (the USEF discount stacks, too – last time I got two for $27 each). Let’s talk about the one thing I hate about these: the fit. First of all, their sizing scale… it’s very generous even for American sizing. I wear an XS, and could even go down to XXS – it’s STILL very roomy and boxy in the body. For reference, I am not an actually small woman, I’m 5’6″ with fairly broad shoulders – very average. With these shirts I always have a lot of fabric to tuck in and it doesn’t lay nicely like my better-fitting shirts do. Even the arms are baggy – I always find myself pushing the sleeves up on these (see above photo) when I usually can refrain from doing that with other sunshirts. If you like your shirts baggy and boxy then these are probably your jam, but for me they juuuust miss the mark with that fit.
To be fair they call this a base layer, not a sun shirt, but it does have SPF 50 and mesh under the arms so it could probably be seen as either. I like the color block design, although wish the white wasn’t in the dirtiest spots on my body. Ok I wish there wasn’t white at all really. It does look nice though with the contrast. For me (I swear the Small) I think it runs quite long in the body so there’s a lot to tuck in (I would hem it a good 3″ shorter), and fabric-wise: believe them when they call this a base layer. It’s definitely too thick for a summer sunshirt. That said it’s pretty cheap at $55 regular price and it looks really good with black pants especially. It lives in my fall-winter shirt collection.
So I have two different shirts from this brand, the French Stripe Performance Shirt in navy/white and the Laser Cut in gray. Both have really light and silky fabric (it’s right up there among my favorite fabrics) but they’re slightly different. The French Stripe is like your typical sunshirt design with the mesh under the arms. I love the design details of this one, it’s got a nice solid metal zipper, navy at the edge of the collar so it doesn’t show all your face dirt, it’s tagless, has 50+ SPF sun protection… great shirt, super comfortable. I do wish it was cut just sliiiiiightly slimmer in the body but it’s certainly not nearly as baggy as some. I accidentally washed this shirt with something that bled a lot of pink and it was one of the saddest laundry experiences of my life, but I’ve managed to get most of that out and it looks white again. Gold star for that.
The Laser Cut one does not have mesh under the arms but it has little triangle cutouts up the arms, shoulders, neck, and along the back for lots of ventilation. I love this shirt, love the unique styling, and love that the neck doesn’t have seams. It’s slightly less sun protection at 30 SPF. My only complaint about the gray color in particular is that when you sweat and then it dries, it leaves slight sweat marks. They come out when you wash it, but if you plan on running errands or something after the barn and you get particularly sweaty, I’d get it in a different color. Still though, love these shirts and absolutely will buy more (the laser cut comes in a light blue now and I wannit). I wear a small in this brand.
I can’t find the particular sunshirt I have on their website now, but it was just your basic black sunshirt with glitter mesh under the arms. Black plus glitter… y’all know how I feel about that combination. Looks-wise it’s absolutely stunning. The fit is pretty good, nicely form-fitted, and it’s a good length, not too long or too short. The fabric though is just too heavy for a true southern summer. This one also lives in my “fall/winter” sunshirt section – best when highs are under 80 degrees. Their newer shirts have mesh on the sides too so I’m kind of interested to try those for comparison, since I do like this brand’s fit (I wear a medium).
I have that navy and white polka dot one that literally everyone in America has by now I think. The price is right, it’s a cute enough shirt, its UPF 45… hard to go that wrong. I don’t LOVE the fabric, but it’s also cooler than I expected. It feels a little bit scratchy to the touch almost (compared to some of my super silky sunshirts anyway), but air flows through it well. It’s almost… slightly meshy? It feels about how you would expect for the price point, but it does the job, so. How’s that for a review? In reality I don’t wear this one a lot but I couldn’t tell you exactly why… I think because my brain sees polka dots and goes “LOUD PATTERN” even though it’s really not. I do wish it was a little more form fitted so it tucked in without having as much extra fabric around the middle, but it’s not bad. I wear a Small in Ariat.
Heavy Sigh. Look, Kastel was my absolute hands down favorite for YEARS. They had the best fabric for really hot summers – super lightweight and cooling when it got wet. Even with that stupid little blob of fabric under the zipper that never quite sits right (I cut it out of mine), I still dearly love my older Kastel shirts. I know some people didn’t like them because the cuff didn’t allow you to push the sleeves up (I try not to push mine up anyway lest I get more weird tan lines) and yeah the mesh was a little delicate, but… they felt so nice. The problem is that the newer ones just aren’t the same. The fabric is different, the colors and prints are… very much NOT my aesthetic… it’s just been a real disappointment from them lately. I haven’t bought any new ones in years and probably won’t. That said, my old ones are still some of my favorites, even if my Mediums are a little big on me now.
Ok that was maybe a little brutal. Bonus points if you made it this far. Drum roll please for the winner…
70 Degrees!
This one wasn’t easy. Price-point-wise, at least when they’re on sale, Dover is very appealing, but if we take that out of the equation then would I buy them? Probably not. Therefore they certainly can’t be the winner. Their fit just makes me annoyed every single time I put them on and they lack some of the nicer details. I do love my old Kastels, but I also can’t hand them the title when I don’t actually like the newer ones. 70 Degrees, though… they get so many of the pieces right: lovely fabric, good fit, unique styles, attention to detail, small (woman-owned, in the USA) business, etc etc. I’m really looking forward to seeing their brand grow and expand. The price point is very fair, I think, they’re certainly nicer than others in the same price category. I do always find myself reaching for those shirts the most, they just feel so nice to wear and they look good too. When I went through my phone looking for pics for this post, I was wearing a 70 Degrees shirt in most of them. I think that says it all. Deserving win!
Midday update: we sold out in an hour! Will let y’all know when we plan on opening up more spots!
It’s the day we (ok, maybe just I) have been waiting for – the official (soft) launch of Breed.Ride.Compete. to the public!
Well, ok… ish. I did buy the domain name and put up a basic website as a placeholder, but it doesn’t have details or any commerce ability yet. We’ve obviously already been providing data to live streams (the Kentucky shoutout was fun!), and we did offer the pdfs and excel spreadsheets of the Kentucky data on Etsy. That went… a lot better than I expected. We’ll be doing the same sort of data for Luhmuhlen, so keep an eye out for that.
BRC is about a lot more than just live stream data though, and I wanted to get started on one of the main offerings that I’m excited about, and probably the thing that’s been most requested: custom pedigree reports. Since we have limited capacity (and don’t want to bite off more than we can chew, so to speak) I thought it would be best to launch all of our offerings in stages and at set quantities. That means, to start out with, we’re only offering 5 custom pedigree reports for the month of June. Once we get a better idea of how time-consuming those end up being, we’ll either offer the same thing in July or open up more spots. What we don’t want to do is open it up completely as a free-for-all and not be able to put out the kind of product that I want. So – better to start small!
To celebrate the official (soft) launch, we’ll also be offering these first 5 at 20% off.
Let’t talk details.
Here’s what we require: For now we are limiting these to thoroughbreds and warmbloods only. If it’s a TB, we only require the registered name. If it’s a warmblood we need either a photo of the papers or a link to the pedigree (it’s possible that we can find the horse without this, but please contact me to check before you pay!)
Here’s what you get: a 3-5 page pdf report with details about your horses ancestors, information on what else they produced, what the bloodlines are known for, any siblings or other related horses of note, photos, etc. These reports are really geared towards riders and owners who aren’t very familiar with the breeding world, interested in knowing more about their horse, but don’t know how or where to do the research (or don’t want to spend hours spiraling into the abyss). If you have any follow-up questions related to any of the information in your report, we’ll be happy to discuss those with you too!
And the fine print: If for whatever reason we are unable to gather enough data to complete a satisfactory report, we will issue a refund. We will complete these on a first come, first served basis, with the expectation of having all 5 completed in the month of June.
Since we don’t have the commerce part of the website up yet, we’ll sell these 5 spots through our Etsy account here. Thanks for the support, we’re excited to kick things off!
Also keep an eye out on the BRC facebook and instagram pages, we’ll be doing some fun giveaways this summer (we hope you like swag)…
breedrideevent.com 