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I was thinking last week about how different all three of my horses are.

They have some similarities, to be sure. They’re all blood horses, all are pretty forward-thinking, and all are sensitive. Some more than others. Certainly none of them are heavy, plodder, kick-ride types, though. Thank goodness because those are not my jam. That’s about where the similarities stop though, since all three of them are in different stages of training, working on different things, and need/want to be ridden in different ways. It’s been such a long time since I had this many horses to work on a regular basis, it’s been fun for me to have to be more adaptable. I get bored easily, but it’s pretty hard to be bored when you’re juggling three horses that are so different.

Henry is like slipping into your favorite slippers, he’s so familiar and feels like “home”. I know him better than I know myself, really, and we’re very tuned into each other. Especially when we’re jumping – I just think something and he does it. He’s the most trained, the most been-there-done-that, the most reliable, and probably the simplest of the bunch. Makes sense, he’s got 10 years on the other two. This makes him fun though, because he doesn’t require quite as much brain power as the others. I can hack him out on the buckle without a second thought, I can set up whatever weird jump exercises I can imagine, etc etc. Plus he really doesn’t care what kind of headspace you’re in – he’s the same horse every time. Granted, riding him is a constant effort of putting him together and trying to ride him more uphill. He’s simple, but he’s not necessarily easy due to his conformation. I mean, if you want to just sit up there in 2 point and float the reins at him he’s happy to roll peanuts all day long, but… we try to do things properly and keep him fit and strong and working correctly. That’s a bit of a job.

Presto is… a lot different. Both physically and mentally. First of all he’s a big narrow lanky horse. A big narrow lanky LONG horse. It’s very far from that little walnut size brain to his hind feet. Despite his size though, he’s quite light and maneuverable and balanced. Sometimes he’s almost a little TOO light though, and if you ride him with much hand (like… more than a teeny bit) he does not like it at all. He wants to be ridden 98% from your core and your seat and your leg. If you can do that, he carries himself quite nicely for such a big horse. If you can’t do that, or if you resort to your reins when you should have used your core or seat or leg, he will let you know immediately by rooting your ass out of the tack then flinging his poll at your nose. Subtle as always, Presto.

You have to be deliberate and make sure that your hands are just kind of there in one spot, while using your body and leg to actually ask for everything. When you get it right he gives you a lovely feeling, like… SO NICE. You’re just floating. Boy is he ever a core workout though. Like your abs will be throbbing by the time you’re done. His gaits are big and lofty and you have to have decent body strength in order to stay with him. You also have to be very mentally present. If you only show up with 50%, he’s probably going to take advantage of that. He’s still young and mentally immature, and… well, he’s Presto. He’s not exactly the most serious, studious, focused horse in the world. You have to be the leader and the boundary setter, and you have to insist that that’s your role, not his. If you do that, he’s great. I actually really love riding him, he’s constantly making me think and do better and have more finesse. He finds his job to be quite easy and will jump anything you put in his path although he’ll try to do it his way. He’s certainly not the one you would pick if you want a leisurely carefree hack around, though. He’s work and you have to be a step ahead of him, but he’s the kind of horse that will definitely make you a better, more educated rider.

Then there’s Gemma, the greenest of the bunch. I will admit though, as green as she is, she learns SO FAST that I think she’s really fun and rewarding to ride. I mean at this point she’s had about 2 months of post-track rides and she already goes around like this.

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She puts more weight in the contact than Presto does (but not as much as Henry) and seems to find comfort in it. She’s also really responsive to seat and leg aids. Sort of a mix between Presto and Henry I guess. I feel like a dressage rider would love her because she just gets the flatwork so quickly and finds it pretty easy. She’s at the point where you can start asking for more – more forward, more bend, more suppleness, more quality in her gaits. Her leg yield and shoulder-in are pretty darn decent. The transitions are still… abrupt (she may have missed her calling as a reiner) but they get better day by day. Gemma is physically a bit polar opposite of Presto – she’s a hand shorter and much more compact, so she’s pretty easy to sit and not hard to put together.

What I really like about her – and what I really like about thoroughbreds in general – is that she always shows up to work and she always tries. She’s sensitive, but not stupid or explosive. She does have a pretty strong sense of justice though, and if you ask for something too harshly (in her opinion) she isn’t shy about pinning those ears and making a nasty mare face. There will be no guessing how Gemma feels about anything ever. To hack out she’s pretty solid – she might look at something but she’s never belligerent or stupid. Gemma hacks down the road better than Presto does, honestly (Presto is always looking for reasons to be silly, which should surprise precisely no one). I still haven’t jumped her a lot but she does poles and cavalettis basically every ride, and she’s starting to understand how to use her body more, and where to put her feet. She’s pretty darn honest to the jumps, too. Sometimes has absolutely no idea what to do with her body and flings herself into the air like a deer (gymnastics will be the name of the game with her I think), but she definitely jumps whatever I point her at.

I think all together they make a pretty good mix. Each of them is a totally unique ride, working on different things and making me think in different ways. It keeps things interesting, that’s for sure. And if you’re gonna have two 5yo’s, having a Henry there to offset them is definitely the way to go.

Which one do you think you’d like to ride the most?

Poor little baby Quinlee aka Quesadilla aka Queso has also added the nickname “Cheese” to her growing repertoire of titles. Which, to be fair, Cheese suits her just fine. Exhibit A:

She thinks she’s a supermodel and loves to go around posing for pictures, ears perked and giving the camera her best little baby horse smolder. Cheese definitely isn’t lacking in the self-confidence department. I mean look at her.

If she was a person I think she’d be one of those Instagram models that spends all day taking 100 selfies to find just the right one to post.

She even manages to look like she’s posing as she (very deliberately, I suspect) runs back and forth past the camera. Hopefully this means that she’ll grow up to be one of those horses that always has great horse show pictures with a perfect expression and textbook form.

She’s such a ham. Ham and cheese? Oh no, the nicknames just keep coming.

I also want to congratulate Samantha P. of Maine on her purchase of Quinlee Quesadilla Queso Cheese! It’s always exciting when the foals find perfect homes and we think this one is a great match.

Happy Friday!

Welcome to a new series of review posts! I had a few people wanting me to bring back more product reviews, but truth be told they’re really my least favorite posts to write. So to make it a little more fun for me (and hopefully maybe for you too) I decided to put a little twist on it. Instead of just a single product, I’ll go over every product I have within said category, compare and contrast them with each other ruthlessly, and then pick a favorite. We’ll do that once a week until I, uh… run out of categories I guess. Hopefully this makes it a little more interesting than having to write or read a whole blog post about just one item.

So let’s kick it off with what I consider to be an important item, and one that I’m really weirdly picky about: gloves.

Ego7 Air Mesh Gloves

These are the newest addition to the collection so I might be able to comment a whole lot on longevity yet, but I still have plenty of thoughts. I bought these because I really wanted a mesh-back glove for the summer (in all honesty I went looking for the Roeckl Laila but 1. no one had them in my size at the time and 2. I was a little worried about those being durable enough for me, I am a bit rough and tumble). These Ego7 gloves are maybe a little more substantial than I was after with a true everyday summer glove… they come down farther on my wrist (some people might like that, I find it a little annoying), aren’t fully mesh on the back, and have a double reinforced rein area on the palm/fingers. It does make me think that they’ll last, they’re pretty rugged, but it’s not quite as light of a feeling as I was going for in the Florida summer. I will say that their touchscreen capability is probably the best of my particular bunch though. If you have long fingers I think they run small – I usually wear an 8, sometimes 8.5, but I had to size up to a 9 in these to get enough length in the fingers. I feel like these are a good summer show glove but maybe not the best summer everyday glove (at least not for people that live in super hot/humid places).

Sweet Iron Co Second Skin Gloves

I’ve talked about this Australian company and their gloves on here before – the skull ones have been my go-to cross country gloves. Lately though I’ve found myself gravitating to them more and more for every day. The palm material is similar-feeling to Roeckl and the top is a pretty thin stretch Lycra. They’re comfortable and slim-fitting, not bulky, and don’t feel too thick. I like that they have so much stretch to the material, they’re very easy to pull on and off and comfortable to wear. They work decently well on a phone screen and dry pretty well overnight, AND they don’t dry stiff/crunchy like some of the other Roeckl type materials do. To be totally honest though the real selling point of these for me is the skulls. I just love them, they bring me joy. I have these gloves in both the navy skulls and the black skulls, although they come in solid colors too. Aside from the aesthetics they are truly pretty solid gloves in their own right, but the skulls just give them that little extra bit of fun for me that elevates them. I also think their longevity is pretty impressive, I’ve been using my older pair on and off for like 4 years (I tend to rotate my gloves by season) and they’re just now starting to get worn in the fingers. I’ve tossed them in the wash a couple times and they seem to survive that just fine and come out looking clean again.

Woof Wear Event Gloves

These are quite possibly one of the biggest disappointments I’ve ever purchased. I was SO excited when I found them because they’re super lightweight, cut shorter at the wrist, the material on the back is really breathable and thin, and they were under $30. They feel GREAT to wear too, especially in the summer heat. However… boy did they shit the bed real quick. See all those black flakes on my wrist? That’s the edge material just flaking right off, and I’d only worn them maybe 5 times when that started happening. It’s a real bummer because gah I can’t even wear them without having little black flakes stuck all over my arms. Basically garbage. Womp womp. I guess the price really was too good to be true.

RSL Rider’s Touch Malibu Gloves

These are, to be honest, perhaps my most confusing gloves. If you think they look green, you’re not wrong. They look real olivey. However, they’re listed as being gray and navy. If you put them right next to something true green they do look more gray, but otherwise they just look like a strange green. I don’t hate it, I just wouldn’t necessarily choose it. The fit is also a little strange, it’s like they assume that if you have long fingers you also must have very thick fingers and a very large palm, because I certainly don’t have small hands yet have a ton of extra room in these. They come so far down my wrist that they cover my watch almost completely. If you like looser fitting gloves or have thicc fingers then maybe you’d like the fit of these, but it’s not my jam. They just feel really baggy. The quality seems fine though, and they’re not a bad price. The material on the back of the hand could be lighter weight too, if I’m being picky. All in all they’re just… fine. I almost never reach for these out of the pile but there’s nothing terrible about them either.

Epplejeck Shine Gloves

Look, did I buy these purely because they’re navy glitter? Of course I did. They were cheap and I won’t feel shame about that. Really I got them to wear at shows and I think I’ve only worn them once so far. Are they great? No. Can I complain too much for $15? Absolutely not. They wouldn’t be the gloves I’d buy and expect to wear every day for a year but they’re definitely fun and nicer than I was expecting for the price. They’re kind of a Roeckl-style dupe just with cheaper materials and perhaps lower quality execution, but they’ve got glitter, so…

Roeckl Lona gloves

Speaking of Roeckl’s, yep I have some of those too… I think everyone has some model of Roeckls. When it comes to fit I do think they’re the best of the lot. They have room where there should be room, and they’re fitted where they should be fitted. The material is fairly lightweight and they’re not too bulky. I do think the longevity is a bit meh considering the price (at least if you use rubber reins like I do) but they do have some decent color options that make them a bit more fun than just your standard black or navy. I don’t think this particular model is as breathable as I would prefer, and they take longer to dry than some of my others, plus they can be kinda stiff when they get super saturated (which is like daily for me) and then dry. They’re one of those that I’d buy repeatedly on sale but not for full price.

So – where would I rank them? Who wins this particular battle royale?

It’s a close one for me, but in the end it’s gotta be the skull gloves. They’re comfortable, they fit well, they’re about middle of the road price-wise, and they’re just really damn fun. I get comments on them all the time, and they make me happier than any gloves truly should. Most importantly though they’re functional (grippy and phone screen friendly), they’ve had pretty good longevity for me, and they seem capable of standing up to my lifestyle of rubber reins and machine washing. I find myself reaching for them every day and kind of have to force myself to chose other ones… that’s probably the most telling factor.

Hope you like this new little series! Let me know what item you’d like to see go head-to-head next week.

Happy… Tuesday? I feel like every week I’m like “wow where did the last week go, time flies” and then tada there we are again at the start of a new week. It felt like a productive one though, which is always good.

Last week I had to go pick something up at WEC, so I timed it over my lunch break. I’m not stupid, and I definitely won’t miss an opportunity for tacos and ice cream. I’ve certainly had worse lunch breaks from work, I can tell you that much. I guess there was a Paso Fino show or something going on, someone asked me if I rode Pasos. LOL. No ma’am, no ma’am I do not. There’s always something interesting going on there though, you can count on that.

On Friday I met someone from Instagram for lunch at Yum Yum (Don’t mind me, just eating my way across town. That’s what you’re supposed to do when you move somewhere new, right? It’s called assimilating.) which is this little food truck that’s only open for half the day and only accepts cash. It’s a local treasure and always busy, people always rave about it. I have yet to find the thing on the menu that makes me love it, but the things I’ve had so far have been good. I’m willing to keep trying things until I find my order. For, uh, science.

My favorite thing to do when I go places now is to try to find a different route home, even if it means driving farther. I’m trying to learn the area, #1, and I also am just nosy as hell and want to see what all is where. Sometimes I just turn down a road for the hell of it, to see where it goes. I discovered a whole new connecting road on the way home from Yum Yum with some bougie farms on it (that I drove slowly past like a creeper) so it was all in all a worthwhile expedition. I like exploring the “neighborhood”.

Lest you think all I do is eat, I’ve also been doing plenty of riding. The way I’m rotating the horses around means I’m usually only riding two a day, but it does mean I’m riding 7 days a week. I have zero complaints about this, considering there for a while over the winter I was only getting to ride one horse a few days a week. It’s challenging though because all 3 horses are so very different and want to be ridden very different ways. It keeps me on my toes and thinking.

I’m still figuring Presto out, especially. He expects to be ridden a particular way (he is pretty light and wants a lot of finesse/correct timing from your seat and core… lower your expectations bro, you’ve got an amateur now), and sometimes it feels a little bit like trial and error trying to learn where his buttons are. Not being able to have had that transition period between having him in full training and me taking over the ride has been a bit frustrating, because sometimes I know there’s just something about the way I’m asking him to do something that he doesn’t understand or doesn’t like, and it would be simple to solve if only I knew what he was expecting. Luckily he’s patient, and he’s pretty obvious, so when I do figure it out he’s like “there ya go human, you did it!”. Nothing quite like getting educated by a 5yo.

They’re all getting their teeth done next week, and then after that I’ll get serious about finding someone around here to take lessons with. I feel overwhelmed with options, and I don’t know anyone super well nor have I seen them teach, so… I’ve been a bit hesitant to be honest. There are so many good trainers here, but trying to guess which one will be right for me and my horses is a really hard one. I need to just start testing the waters and see how it goes. Thinking about heading over to one of the schooling shows and creeping around the warmup ring… I feel like that tells you a lot about a trainer. We’ll see though. It hasn’t been super high up on my priority list yet, but it’s working its way up.

On Saturday night I got to experience some super fun pop-up Florida thunderstorms. The forecast said literally 2% chance of rain and there was not a damn thing on the radar when all the sudden a wall of water just appeared from the sky across the street and swept across to us. It stormed like hell for a couple hours, with tons of lightning and wind. That was probably the worst storm we’ve had here yet, so now I have severe trust issues with both the forecast and the radar. It’s made me very hesitant about leaving the horses out at night, at least until their shelters get built (waiting on some backordered metal). I always worry so much about lightning.

I did get one project done (or, well, semi-done) this weekend: I painted the inside of the little farmhouse. It was very tan. Tan tan tan tan tan. It made the floor look very orangey and the whole inside just looked kinda dingy to me. Granted, I freakin hate tan so I might be biased.

I went and got a nice warm gray instead, and it’s amazing to me how much it completely changed the look of the interior. I started on Saturday just painting around the trim, removing the tv wall mount and spackling the holes it left, removing old picture hooks, etc. I wasn’t sure how the gray would look with the floor since it did look so orangey before, or the countertop since it looked so brown, but Rejan (who I shall now refer to as paint guru) was certain that it would work, and she’s got a way better eye for this than I do. As soon as I started painting around the trim in the kitchen I was like oh yeah for sure, this is way better.

She was 100% right, it changed how everything looked. Now you can see how much gray the counters have in them, and it waaaaaay toned down the floors. I think it looks a lot cleaner in general too, and no longer dingy. Also, whoever decided that walls need texture, what the hell man. I had to roll this shit twice to get it all in there. You know what’s not that fun? Painting twice. The outcome was worth it though.

I still have to do the two bedrooms but my arms were killing me after this, so that’ll have to be an ongoing project. I also can’t wait to replace all those boob lights… there are 7 of them in the kitchen/living room area alone, you could nurse a litter of kittens on that ceiling.

As a reward for painting I went to my favorite little Italian ice place and tried the mango. It’s so good. Considering I live kind of in the middle of nowhere I have not been disappointed with the food game around here.

Things are ticking right along here really. It feels like there’s never a shortage of things to do, but we’re having fun with it. I am anyway. And Presto definitely is… he always is. I do love having him back, he certainly knows how to spice up day to day life with his shenanigans.

Hope everyone else had a good long weekend!

There are some technical issues getting new pics uploaded, so instead today I’ve a video of Quinlee being… well… Quinlee. It’s made even better by Michelle’s narration.

Happy Friday everyone, and happy Memorial Day weekend. I won’t have time to put together a list of sales but Riding Warehouse has up to 40% off, if you’re looking to burn some cash. 😉