Category: Uncategorized

Y’all know how much I like ponying. Presto was ponied anywhere and everywhere I could possibly take him for basically 3 years of his life, which I think was definitely helpful. He got to see and experience all kinds of things. There are lots of benefits besides just exercising two horses at once… you can also let a young one see things for the first time with a horse friend and without the stress or perhaps lack of confidence that they might have if they’re facing it on their own with a rider. If they want to be a bit naughty or spooky it’s also a lot easier (and less risky) to keep the exuberance under wraps while you’ve got them on a lead rope, you’re near their head, and you have the advantage of leverage. And the extra selling point of OTTB’s? They already are quite experienced with ponying – they come with that skill pre-installed.

So I decided last Friday that since Gemma had settled in well at the barn and with the other horses, we may as well take her on a little tour of the whole property. At that point she’d really only seen the barn and courtyard area, but she always wants to look at things so I thought she might enjoy a change of scenery. The weather was a bit chillier and windier than I may have preferred, but she’s very polite so I figured… meh why not. I put Henry in the crossties and got him ready, then grabbed Gemma and tied her next to him (she’s still learning about crossties) while I put on my helmet and Henry’s bridle. Then I hopped on Henry, untied Gemma, and away we went. Ponying is old hat to both of them so they knew the drill, the only minor issue was Henry’s attitude.

He’s pretty much all bark and no bite, but Gemma is fairly submissive, so when he would make his nasty faces she would immediately back away. Which then sent Henry on a power trip. His ego is… something. Once we left the courtyard and started exploring she stopped paying as much attention to him, because there were way better and cooler things to look at.

One of the things I really like about Gemma is how curious she is. She doesn’t have that brash bravado that Presto has, where he sees something, marches right up to it, and tries to smash it with his feet, but she definitely wants to see and understand things. She looks, then she touches it with her nose and sniffs it to figure it out. It’s a much quieter, less destructive type of curiosity, but I would definitely still classify her as a brave type of horse. She might want to pause for a second to think about it, but she always ultimately wants to go forward toward the “scary” thing. I hope that translates under saddle too.

We made a lap each way of the front field, stopping near the neighbors fence line so we could watch and listen to their rickety old metal shed flapping in the wind. Henry spooked at it pretty hard, and his spooking spooked her, but she was less upset about the noise than he was.

Then we walked around and into the dressage arena (pausing to sniff the dressage letters and the arena wall, of course) and then through the jump field. I had a couple poles set out so we walked over those too, which was no biggie. She was looking around and very interested in everything, but not upset or worried. We made another lap of the front field and then went back to the barn, completing her first successful farm exploration session. Once she’s cleared to return to under saddle work I think she’ll have a really good time hacking.

I was relieved that we didn’t encounter the rogue cow — omg wait I forgot to tell y’all the story of the rogue cow. Hold up. Screeching halt for one sec.

So a couple weeks ago I was up in the barn doing stalls and at one point I could have sworn I saw a cow way out in the back pasture. We don’t have cows, but the neighbors do, so I was like uh oh is the fence down? By the time I finished what I was doing and walked down there, there wasn’t a cow in sight. I walked the entire fenceline just to make sure there wasn’t a breach and couldn’t find anything at all. We have no-climb back there, so it’s not like it’s an easy fence to get past. I was like well ok I am pretty tired, maybe I just… hallucinated the cow. Maybe it was a deer. The incident became a joke about me being in such a weird headspace that I was hallucinating cows. Fast forward to a few days ago and I’m in the jump field setting jumps for Hillary when low and behold AGAIN I see a cow in the back pasture. I look at Hillary, I look at the cow, and I whisper “do you see the cow?”. She turns and looks and confirms that yes indeed she sees the cow too. Great, I’m not hallucinating. Off we go through the fields to the back pasture, come around the corner of the hacking trail and boom – BIG ASS WHITE COW just standing there alone in the back pasture like he owns the place. We got about 30′ away from him, Mina having now spotted him and started barking, and he very casually looks at us, turns around, and jumps back over the fence like it’s nothing. I was like HOLY SHIT. HOLY SHIT. Ok #1 that is a pretty scopy cow, but #2 HOLY SHIT that cow just jumped right over the fence! Upon further examination of the ground in that area he’s clearly been doing that a lot. I’m so glad Hillary was there to witness or no one ever would have believed me but yeah… we have a rogue, very scopy, tres athletic, fence-jumping neighbor cow.

ANYWAY – luckily we didn’t encounter the cow that day I was ponying Gemma. I don’t know what she would have made of that.

Is there any point in saying “last week was busy” anymore? Let us just assume that all weeks are busy until proven otherwise. Right now at least I am listening to the glorious sound of RAIN on my roof (and ok, some thunder rattling the house) for the first time in forever. The horses are stuck inside for the day, which is more work for me, but boy does the ground and the grass ever need the moisture. I am certainly far less excited about the freezing temps and frozen precip that they’re projecting for later this week though. I swear to god ERCOT, if you do me dirty again we’re gonna throw hands. They’re projecting almost the same energy usage as last year’s event, but… please no. No more Little House on the Prairie experiences for me thanks. I cannot.

In better news, Gemma got a major pen upgrade. She’s supposed to be on small paddock/quiet turnout or stall rest, and since we didn’t know her temperament when we got her, we went with a pretty small pen, about the size of a double stall. She’s proven herself to be quite sensible though and I wanted her to have a bit more room to walk around and get her blood/gut moving, so we moved all the round pen panels (what a fun task THAT is) out to the front pasture to give her a corner out there that’s more the size of a true small paddock.

Still too small for her to build up any speed or get running, but enough for her to move around a bit more easily, and about 4-5x bigger than the pen before. That corner is also basically the only place left on the property at this point with green grass, and I’m pretty sure she barely lifted her head once yesterday. Far more interested in stuffing her face than anything else. That front pasture has a 3 slot shed in it, so we set her pen up to include one of the slots, and then Henry and Quinnie have the rest of that pasture and the other two slots. So she can still see them at all times, and everyone has access to shelter if need be (although they don’t get to go out there today because lightning is a big no thanks for me).

Moving horses to new turnouts is always fun (insert human sarcasm) and the low 30’s temps yesterday morning made it even better. When they’re turned out in the middle pasture I just let Henry and Quinnie out of their stalls and they walk out themselves, and then I would lead Gemma to her pen. But to get to the front pasture we have to go around the house, which requires leading them a ways away. And with 3 horses if you take them individually you end up leaving someone alone somewhere at some point, which is pure chaos fuel, so I opted to just lead them all out together.

Quinnie, on the right, pranced and snorted the entire way out. Henry, in the middle, kept trying to weave around one or the other mares and bite them on the butt. Gemma, on my left, kept looking around to try to find what the hell Quinnie was snorting about while also trying to stay far enough away to dodge Henry’s teeth. Once I got them all in the pasture and turned around and shut the gate, I let Quinnie go first. She cantered a few circles but then settled down to eat. I waited a minute and then let Henry go. Which was… something. He ran, he leaped, he snorted like a wild Arabian stallion in a Disney movie, he bucked, he farted. For a 15yo horse that gets ridden a lot it was pretty impressive.

I was still holding Gemma, waiting for Henry to settle so I could walk her past them and over to her paddock. To her immense credit, she didn’t even flinch the whole time Henry performed his various theatrics. She just stood there grazing, quietly watching him act a fool. Smart girl. Once Henry and Quinnie settled down I took Gemma over and let her go. She wandered one slow lap of her perimeter, then immediately started stuffing her face. Not even so much as a snort. Best behaved horse of the day award goes to the 5yo fresh of the track mare that’s been on rest for a month.

Since Henry was so batshit he got to go for a long gallop with Hillary yesterday, which I think he needed. He came back much less full of himself, at least. And Hillary’s pics came in from the schooling jumper rounds the previous weekend… how friggin CUTE are these two?

She’s always hard on herself and critical, I think we all are, but in all actuality she’s figuring him out so quickly, and he seems to really enjoy having a new person to manipulate, er, torment, er, teach things to. I think it’s working out well for all of us. It makes me very happy to see my best boy teaching someone else, she’s getting to do some bigger stuff and stay sharp while Lex is away at training, and Henry has got her so very thoroughly wrapped around his little hoof at this point that his cookie quota has basically quadrupled. Plus he gets to lash someone else in the eyeball with his tail along with all the various other “cool tricks” in his repertoire. Perks all around. Hopefully they’ll get to leave the start box together at some point soon, if the weather ever cooperates.

Let’s see, what else has happened in the past week… oh yeah, Grace update! When we last left off I had taken her up to the breeding specialist’s clinic early because I had a hunch that she was getting ready to start cycling. My hunch was correct – she indeed was starting her transitional cycle, and they were able to collect 15 oocytes from her for ICSI (there’s a video explaining ICSI here if you’re unfamiliar with the process, or here’s an article with the basics). 15 is quite a good number, higher than average, and of those they had 10 that were viable enough to inject with the sperm… average is 5-7. Getting in there on the transitional cycle often yields a higher amount like that, so the timing was superb. Now we wait to see how many grow into viable embryos! They average about 30% typically, so we’ll see. Would be great if we could get 3 to transplant into recipients and have a better shot at getting actual live foal(s).

And who was the lucky suitor to provide said swimmers?

Ireland-based stallion Jackaroo, who is 96% TB and full brother to very successful 5* horses Mandiba and High Kingdom. His pedigree is impeccable for eventing, and putting the Master Imp xx/Chair Lift xx lines on a Q/Cavalier Royale/Clover Hill mare is an extremely proven and very Irish nick. Jackaroo himself doesn’t have a lot of foals on the ground yet, but the ones he does have look promising as youngsters. I think this could potentially be a very good match. Fingers crossed for a baby or three!

On the subject of mares, I also added a new design to the Barn Dog store this weekend. Couldn’t resist. I’m quite enjoying being a mare owner again finally, in case you couldn’t tell. I mean I feel like in spirit Henry definitely counts as a mare, but, ya know. Not officially.

And last but not least, my top 10 songs of January, because I always seem to find common ground with someone over music. Did the Loveless cover of Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever just come out a week ago? Yes. Was it still my most listened to song of the month because I’ve had it on repeat since it came out? Also yes.

Hope everyone had a good weekend! Happy Monday?

Busy morning today, but I wanted to pop in real quick just to say thanks for all the messages and comments from yesterday’s Presto post. As usual he’s got a lot of people in his corner, and that counts for a lot. His Osteon arrived yesterday and his “team” in Midland is figuring out what his schedule will be for his therapies, so it’s very relieving to finally have some answers, a positive prognosis, and be moving forward with a plan. Very appreciative of how many people care about him and are invested in his success/future/life in general. It’s definitely lessened the weight on my shoulders. He’s lucky he’s cute.

A few people yesterday also asked for some Presto/Willow Tree Warmbloods swag. At this point I feel like Presto really is a WTW ambassador of sorts, so in my mind Presto swag and WTW swag are one in the same. He is the first WTW horse to hit the show ring after all, and part of the oldest crop. He reps his program (and thus his people) all the time wherever he goes, from his name to his saddle pad to his scrim sheet to his ring bag, and naturally my life revolves around WTW as well since I’ll soon be a resident of WTW East. So for those that were interested, I added some WTW stuff to the Barn Dog Apparel store… womens tees, unisex tees, long sleeves, hoodies, stickers, and a wine tumbler (if I was a drinker I would def be needing that wine tumbler right about now). Just scroll to the bottom of the storefront on the main page… I tried to give lots of color options too.

For everyone who asked about the BEMER I’m happy to put you in touch with Hillary, who is a distributor, just shoot me a PM. I’ve been meaning to do a BEMER post since we’ve been using it regularly on the horses at home… maybe next week! Also trying my best to finally get that “Where are they now” Foal Friday update post ready for y’all next week. I swear I haven’t forgotten, just… things. Things and stuff. I have a pretty exciting Grace update too! It feels like I can breathe a little bit again now at least… and perhaps not stuff all my emotions into Little Debbies (or not as many/as often, anyway…).

Happy Friday!

A lot of you (like a lot) have been asking me for a Presto update for a while, and the truth is that he’s been a bit… complicated, and I was waiting until I had some kind of actual resolution before I threw all this word vomit out into the void. Plus I just legit could not handle talking about it while there was still so much uncertainty. In the meantime I’ve been emotionally spiraling pretty freaking hard (did I binge eat like 5 boxes of Little Debbie’s in a week and impulse purchase an OTTB to cope with my variety of emotions? Perhaps. Despair tastes like swiss cake rolls, just FYI.) and if I was rude to anyone who asked about him, I’m sorry, please understand that mentally I’ve been in a very bad dark place about this whole thing for like a month. It’s a lot better now that we know what’s going on and it’s not what I had feared, but y’all know how this stuff goes with horse people. I was replaying the worst case scenario over and over in my mind for weeks.

Anyway, this is gonna be a long one so buckle up. When we last left off with our giant intrepid baby hero (ish) he had a very minor suspensory strain that needed a couple months rest. He was sound, the leg was cold and tight, the prognosis was excellent, we did some shockwave to help things along, and everyone was feeling pretty good about things. His final scan appointment was made to check on things one more time before he got the all clear to return to work, and he showed up to that appointment dead-ass lame… ON THE OTHER LEG. The original injury looked fantastic and was clearly not the issue, but now we had to figure out wtf was going on in the other leg. In all this time he has never been lame, so this was a confusing curveball to say the least.

Flexions and hooftesters didn’t show a whole lot. He was a bit reactive to the hooftesters (well, that kind of borderline where you’re like was that a reaction or has he just lost his patience) so the vet was like well his feet seem a bit sore, lets give him a couple weeks, get some films of his feet, get him reshod, pack his feet, etc. We did the films, which looked pristine, talked to the farrier, and we gave him a couple more weeks.

He went back and was still quite lame on that left front. He was no longer reacting to hooftesters, so we did some scans, took some more films of other parts of the leg, and tried some blocking. Again the scans were clear, his xrays looked great (at this point I have xrays of like both front legs in their entirety and they’re beautiful, which is kind of a surprise in and of itself given his size and his history, so there’s that?), and the only thing that really showed up on the blocking is that when he did the coffin bone the lameness definitely improved. It didn’t go away entirely, but it improved. My options were: inject the coffin bone, give him 10 days, and recheck, or – send him straight to MRI for definitive diagnostics. MRI is obviously hella freaking expensive. I asked the vet how optimistic he felt about the coffin injection being the solution and he was 50/50 on it. I asked if he would want to do the coffin injection either way, and he said yes. So I opted to inject the coffin bone and gave him another week.

Presto went back for his next checkup and showed a slight improvement, but not much. Definitely still lame on the LF. At this point it was clear that an MRI was inevitable if we wanted a definitive answer, but the vet needed to try to pinpoint exactly what parts to order the MRI for. This meant we needed to do more blocking. Again he started at the bottom, but this time Presto got LAMER as the blocks went along. It was very weird, and something the vet said he’s only seen happen a time or two before. He took some films of the elbow just to make sure we weren’t missing a cyst or something wild (I told you I now have films of the legs in their entirety), and at that point we had to call off anything else for the day because now his entire leg was blocked and we still had no clue. Another appointment was made for a week later where we’d start over and try the blocks again.

This time he did respond normally to the blocking, and showed some improvement to blocking at the foot and ankle. The vet ordered the MRI for basically everything below the knee on the LF just to be sure, and the appointment was made for a week later. At this juncture we were all thinking that he likely had a soft tissue injury in the foot (probably DDFT or collateral ligament) which is a big deal and potentially career-altering or even career-ending. I’ve had a not-great experience with a collateral ligament injury in the past, and I was replaying that whole thing over and over in my head on repeat. I was already trying to prepare myself for the fact that his eventing career could well and truly be over before it really even began, and I had to make some kind of peace with it. Plus all of this was costing me a stupid amount of money, which is stressful in and of itself. All of that is why I spiraled pretty hard and did NOT like being asked about Presto in general by anyone outside of my inner circle that already knew all the details. I was trying to cope with the loss of a dream that I feared was coming, and everyone asking for Presto updates on social media was just kind of twisting the knife in deeper (not anyone’s fault, totally understand why people were asking, just explaining why I mostly did not respond or may have been testy about it, depending on the day. Sorry for that. This is the downside to being so public.).

So he went last week for the MRI. Which, cue some panic about the anesthesia and all the risks associated with that, plus the cost, plus the absolute cinderblock of dread that had been sitting in my stomach for weeks at what the images might show us. He got dropped off on Thursday for his MRI on Friday, so I knew I wouldn’t hear anything until Monday. I spent most of the weekend just trying not to think about it to be honest.

On Monday I heard from Megan (poor Megan has had to coordinate all this and take him to all of his 9000 vet appointments plus deal with me and Presto and all of our emotions) that the vet had called her and given her an initial diagnosis, but he had some follow-up questions for the radiologist and was waiting to call me to give me the full rundown until those got answered. So what was the initial diagnosis? A bone bruise to P2… an unusual place for a bone bruise and something the vet had never seen before. NATURALLY. Because Presto. But my initial reaction was immense relief, because at least it wasn’t “tear of xyz soft tissue”, which is what we all had feared.

I finally heard from the vet on Tuesday afternoon, and we had a good discussion. The short version of it is that Presto does indeed have a bone bruise on P2, which is very uncommon (I swear to god if one more vet uses the term “medical mystery” in relation to this horse I am going to freaking lose it). Usually bone bruises occur in P3 (not uncommon in jumpers, eventers, or any horses that take a lot of repeated impact to the ground, especially hard surfaces) or P1 (common in racehorses due to the repeated heavy impact on that area of the leg while galloping). P2 doesn’t take impact from the ground the way that those bones do, so it’s most likely that this one is from an impact or repeated impacts with an actual object directly to the area. We’ll circle back to that. He said that the prognosis was very good for full return to work with no lasting effects, and that the treatment recommendation was 90 additional days of rest, one injection of Osphos, and Osteon for the duration.

I had an immediate “ugh no” feeling at the Osphos recommendation, and questioned the vet about it. He said he understood my concerns but that he had never seen any issues using Osphos within his practice on horses age 4 and up. It can absolutely be a great drug and extremely beneficial (it’s intended to be a navicular treatment but is often used for other bone-related things), but there is a lot of debate surrounding how old a horse should be before they can safely receive it or what things it should be used for. There’s an article here if you want to read some of it for yourself or if you haven’t seen it before. But basically some of the concern is that with young horses it can interrupt the body’s ability to lay down proper bone, and cause damage to still-developing bone at the microscopic level. Obviously this can lead to structural weaknesses later down the line.

Y’all, I struggled with this one. I struggled a lot. The official recommendation is age 4, some vets prefer age 5, others prefer age 6. Presto is a couple months shy of 5. On one hand, it’s just one injection and most of the issues they’ve seen have come from repeated use in 2 and 3yo racehorses. On the other hand, Presto is a very very large, very much still growing young horse, and the thought of potentially causing damage to the bones that are still developing (which are important ones like spine and neck) is just… I can’t do it. It would probably be fine but my gut says no and I’m opting to go with my gut. Even if the risk is very minimal, I don’t think I can sleep at night thinking about it. I’d have nightmares of bones with holes in them.

I talked to several of my friends that I deeply respect, and got opinions on Osphos usage in this case from several other vets. The vets were split pretty much down the middle on whether or not they would use Osphos for this. A couple said absolutely unhesitatingly yes, a couple said absolutely positively not. I think that alone gave me my answer. It’s just too much risk for me to feel comfortable with, and not enough potential benefit. Would the bone bruise heal faster with Osphos? Probably, yes. But at the end of the day I’d rather give him more time off, even if it ends up being significantly more time, and not take the risk. He’s young, there’s no rush.

After talking it over more, in the end we landed on 30 days of Equioxx, Osteon for the duration, plus Magnawave and Theraplate. He’ll get 90 days rest in a small paddock, at which point we’ll do another lameness exam and see where we’re at. He might be good to go by then, or he might need longer. Bone bruises take a while to heal, so it’s hard to say for sure how long it’ll be. The excellent and extremely relieving news is that it should heal just fine.

Now, let’s circle back to how exactly we think this happened. If you know Presto at all, you know that his left front foot is his “chaos” foot, in that it’s the one he prefers to use to create all manner of chaos. He likes to put it on things, in things, and whack stuff with it when he’s bored. He’ll stand on fences with his left foot, he’ll put it in buckets and troughs, he’ll whack stall doors or trailer walls with it if he’s bored or feels like he’s being ignored. So it’s very likely that, in the course of resting for his RF suspensory, he found enough trouble with his other foot to where he actually managed to hurt himself for real. This is not hard for me to imagine at all, I have watched him stand there at horse shows and repeatedly whack that exact spot on his foot into his buckets for no other reason than the fact that chaos is his jam. He’s sneaky about it too… if you yell at him he’ll just wait until you leave and resume his mission. Pain does not seem to deter him.

After talking to a few people about it, I’ve decided to send him up to Michelle’s for his rest time. She has perfectly sized small paddocks there, neighbors right next to him all the time, there’s plenty to look at and to keep him company, and it’s pretty darn hard for him to whack his foot on her fences. Plus she has friends with Magnawave and Theraplate nearby, so it’ll be easy for him to have quick and more frequent access to those therapies. And obviously Michelle knows him really well, so I trust her to look after him. And instead of sending Gemma up to Michelle’s, Gemma can just stay here where she’s already settled in well. Change of plan, but I think it works better and makes sense.

While this whole situation has been stressful enough to take a few years off my life, and expensive enough to legit make me curl up in a ball in the corner (heeeey, anyone want to buy some shirts or a BEMER? Ha. Ha. Hahabutreallytho.) I’m extremely relieved to finally have an answer and have it not be nearly as bad as I had feared. In my head I had resigned myself to Presto only being a dressage horse and while I tried to make peace with that, I’ll admit it was a very hard sell to myself. Please no. Kid wants to run and do jompies, and so do I. With any luck he’ll be back in full swing by summer, assuming we can keep him from committing further chaos-inflicted damage to himself. Fingers crossed.

This past weekend was originally meant to be a jumper schooling show at Scissortail for Hillary & Henry and myself & Grace. But then I ended up taking Grace to the breeding farm a bit early (glad I did, last count she had about 20 follicles for them to pull for ICSI attempts!) and then that wicked cold front blew in, prompting them to cancel the show since it was supposed to be 20 degrees and windy on show morning when all the lower level kiddos would have gone. In lieu of the show, the facility was kind enough to replace it with some afternoon jumper schooling rounds and Open XC schooling, free of charge, and the photographer that was going to shoot the show offered free black background photo sessions (you just pay for whatever pictures you want edited).

Really awesome of them to offer that – support your local show facilities! – and honestly it kinda worked out better for us anyway. Hillary and Henry could just go in the afternoon, they’d set the jumps to whatever height she wanted, and she could be in and out quickly. And then I got to thinking… hmmm… it’s really tempting to get some photos done of Gemma. She’s still got weight to gain and all that, but having a few nice shots of her from the beginning would be fun. I asked Hillary if it was crazy to want to take Gemma for photos, and while I’m not really sure if this is a pro or con to our friendship, she was totally down with my idea, listing several other totally valid reasons why it made sense.

So on Saturday afternoon we loaded up Henry and Gemma, and off we went on her first little adventure as a “sporthorse”. She loaded in the trailer great (almost too great, she’ll run your ass over if you walk up there too slow) and make the 25 minute trip like a champion. She ate her hay and was quiet and polite even when Henry made some grumpy faces at her. They were pretty cute.

When we got there we left them on the trailer for a few minutes while we went to check in at the office, and then came back and unloaded Gemma first, then Henry. This facility sits kind of at the top of a hill and there is LOTS to see – arenas, cross country, barns, horses, trailers, a busy highway… a lot of horses are a bit overwhelmed at first. Gemma definitely was a bit wide-eyed (weirdest racetrack she’d ever seen) so we just walked around near the trailer and let her get an eyeful of things. As long as she was polite she was welcome to look, or to walk around. She thought a couple times about doing a little yeehaw but with a reminder she kept her feet on the ground and was respectable about it.

The first order of business was the photo shoot. I figured if we were going to get a few of Gemma then we may as well get a few of Henry too, and it made sense to do the photos before he was ridden. We found Meaghan, the photographer, and hoofed it up to the covered arena to get the pictures. Gemma was really good at posing and seems to look cute from every angle (so photogenic), and the photographer got A LOT of really good ones. It was very hard to narrow it down from her proofs, but she made us a very very affordable package deal so we got several of her and a couple of Henry. I can’t wait to see what the final edited photos look like… I think this is my favorite proof.

You guys will definitely be seeing all of them when they’re done.

The photo shoot seemed to help settle Gemma a bit, and she was less wide-eyed when we went back out to the trailer. Hillary tacked up Henry and got on him, and we ventured with them towards the warmup and the jumping ring, which is where Gemma ended up spending most of her time. We stood near the warmup (and even in the warmup a bit while I set jumps for Hillary and Gemma did her best to knock them right back down with her nose), we stood near the ingate, and at the edge of the XC field beyond. If she wanted to graze I happily let her, but if she started to get antsy or upset then we just walked for a minute until she settled and wanted to graze again.

She was on edge a few times, and standing still for long periods wasn’t possible, but she never lost her marbles or wound up or got naughty at all. Considering she’s a 5yo TB that’s been on stall rest or in a tiny pen for the past 3 weeks and at her first “show-like” experience, I was quite pleased with her. Gemma definitely wants to be a good girl, and I think that’s 90% of the equation at the end of the day. Hillary did a couple classes while I videoed (with mixed results) and then she tossed on a vest and went out on the XC just to gallop a few jumps and jump down the bank. Gemma got a little more anxious when he left but never neighed or got hysterical or anything. If she can keep her feet moving she seems capable of coping, and I’m more than happy to let her do that as long as she does it politely.

Once Hillary was done we went back to the trailers while she untacked, and now that Gemma had had some processing time and seemed more settled, I tied her at the trailer with Henry. She was content to eat cookies (we went through a fairly staggering amount of cookies in a 2 hour trip between the two horses, it’s a little obscene) and some hay and stand there quietly with Henry. Can’t really ask for anything more than that.

We loaded them up and headed back home (again she loaded and rode home great) and just like that, Gemma’s first outing is officially in the books. I think we’ll try to get her out to as many things like this as we can, it’s definitely good for her to start learning what shows and stuff are all about before there’s any pressure put on the situation by riding expectations. We have all the time in the world, so we may as well make the most of it.

Gold star for the baby red mare (and Henny too of course… always Henny)!