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Hope everyone had a happy Halloween! It’s my favorite holiday,,, candy plus “dark”-themed things plus costumes… how could it not be my favorite. This year we were invited to a horsey gymkhana day, with costumes, and that was an opportunity I just couldn’t turn down. Let my inner 10yo horse kid out for a day? Sign me up.

My original idea for our costume was to dress Henry up as a unicorn and me as a rainbow. But then while scrolling through rainbow bodysuits I stumbled across a llama onesie and I was like omg that’s it – I can be a llama and Henry can be the drama (not a stretch) so together, tada, drama llama! I was able to find the onesie on Poshmark for pretty cheap, snagged some rainbow hair tinsel for Henry, and bought a little button where you could record whatever you wanted on it. I recorded it to play the “is it me, am I the drama? I don’t think I’m the drama. Maybe I am..” soundbite. Which, if you have TikTok you will definitely recognize – it’s one of my favorite viral sounds and very suited to Henry. He also had a drama llama sticker on the other side of his saddle pad, Julie painted his butt to say “Am I…” on one side and “the drama” on the other, and his bonnet had a drama llama sticker on it too. Plus he wore his glitter boots.

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I didn’t want to put so much on him that it interfered with his ability to be a gymkhana pony, because priorities, but it seemed to be enough for people to get it. The button was a hit, at least with those in the TikTok demographic. You can hear it if you scroll to the video in my Insta post. The llama onesie was hot AF but hilarious, so… worth it. Definitely a little slippery to ride in, but very convenient that the hood fit over my helmet easily.

Once we were all ready we got on and headed to the covered, took some pics, laughed at each other (there’s something particularly great to me about seeing adults have some childish fun with their horses) and then got down to the serious business of games. There was some pole bending, which Henry was actually quite good at. He caught onto the idea of weaving around the poles pretty quickly and was firing off lead changes at each one. We also did some kind of cup-moving race, and a relay and… something else that I already forgot. Henry was down for anything that required speed, and if it didn’t require speed, he thought it should. Maybe he missed his calling. After I did a few games I got off and Hillary got on, and I was like you gotta try the pole-bending though.

Henry was like YEAH I GOT THIS. SO FAST. He’s always pretty proud of himself and this was no exception.

A friend of mine had a polo mallet as part of her costume and asked if I wanted to try smacking a ball around. Sure, why not? I removed my hot AF llama suit for that, and made sure Henry was ok with me swinging a mallet around him. He’s fairly whip-shy so I wasn’t sure how he’d feel about it, but he didn’t mind. I whacked the ball around a little bit (with… um, mixed success) but I dunno that polo is for me. I broke my right elbow in a cross country accident years ago and something about the swing and the weight of the mallet made that old break ache. I handed the mallet back and we headed back toward the trailers to untack. The trailers were right next to the jump field, so I was like hey Julie, want to jump Henry?

We were there, jumps were set, Henry was warmed up, Julie hasn’t been able to do a lot of jumping lately… why not hop around on King Henry. He was a little bit lit up because of all of his pole bending domination and the fact that now he saw JUMPS, but he was polite anyway. Julie got on and cantered him over some jumps and it was just really freakin cute. Then I was like hey Hillary, you wanna jump some stuff too? We already had a pony ride thing going on and Henry seemed to be quite enjoying himself. I handed over my boots, she hopped aboard, and off she went to jump some things too.

Good on my friends for always being up for a little horsey fun time. And of course Henry is the bestest boy in the world and seemed to enjoy taking everyone for a spin. It’s really cool to have a horse like this that you trust, that you know will be safe for people to ride and is fairly straightforward. This kind of stuff is his jam. He did keep searching the surrounding area for cross country (sorry buddy, not this time) but seemed pleased enough to get a few jumps in anyway.

We hung out and chatted and ate candy for a little while before making the trek back home. Another fun weekend with my best dude, and we even came home with candy… better than ribbons, if you ask me.

We’re slowly but surely wrapping up our 2021 Glamour Shots series! Weaning time is just around the corner, which will mean no more Foal Fridays for a while… I know, I’m sad just thinking about it too. Let’s enjoy it while it lasts.

This week we’ve got Pippa, who was the first foal of the season and she definitely started us off with a bang. Originally she had been claimed pretty much immediately by an upper level rider/repeat customer, but as Pippa has matured Michelle got the gut feeling that this one was something special and really wanted to keep her in the breeding program.

An agreement was reached and we’re happy to say that Pippa will instead be retained by WTW for future breeding. She will also have some kind of sport career, but Michelle thought Pippa was just too nice to leave the program entirely. Always gotta go with your gut on these things!

Pippa is 81% blood, has a sire that ran 5* and then was a young rider mount, and while her dam’s oldest foal is only a yearling he also is looking very promising, so we feel like she’s definitely outproducing herself. All of those things combined make Pippa an exciting addition to the breeding program in the future. Not to mention that she’s bold, smart, people-oriented, and very level-headed. Can’t let this one go!

Y’all will be seeing lots more of this girl in the future.

Happy Friday!

They’re actually making me drive into the office today to give a presentation (the horror) so I’ve gotta make it a quick one (for me) without as much of the usual fluff and lead-up. My apologies. Although I doubt anyone really misses having to read through all of my drivel just to get to anything good.

Back in March when the US Event Horse Futurity started, I also launched my own little competition. I really love the idea and purpose behind the Futurity and want to support the program in any way I can, so I exercised what little flex I have and incentivized you guys to interact with Presto’s Futurity posts. And as usual, you guys showed up, not only making Presto’s posts by far the most active, but bringing in a lot of new eyes and page likes to the Futurity program as a whole. Thank you to every single one of you for that!

Anyway, my own little competition was dubbed the Presto’s Favorite Things Contest, with a prize package full of all of Presto’s, well… favorite things. Or his most-used things, anyway. I ended up with a lot more names in my proverbial hat (ok, my spreadsheet, it was a spreadsheet) than I expected, but at the end of the day the winner is: Barbara Culbertson! She was definitely in it to win it, sharing and commenting on everything and earning herself tons of entries. Congratulations Barbara, I’ll be contacting you later today on facebook to get your shipping details.

I also have some leftover WTW swag that I’d like to send to some runners-up – I’ll get those organized, drawn, and contact y’all within the next few days. Again, thank you so much to all of you for participating and for supporting Presto on his journey this year, and of course voting for him to win Fan Favorite. I hope y’all got even a sliver of the same enjoyment out of his vlogs and updates as I did. What a wild ride it’s been, eh?

I hope all of you will follow along with the Futurity next year too, I hear that WTW will have another entrant!

I love it when Michelle brings her camera to things, she always gets some great shots! Maryland was no exception, she got some really nice ones from YEH4, YEH5, and the 5* showjumping. I was charged with editing and uploading and sharing (sbe’s the talent, I’m the admin), which took me a while to actually get to, but I finally did. They’re all uploaded on the WTW facebook page as well, feel free to share with the rider/owners!

YEH5 Championships

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YEH4 Championships

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5* Showjumping

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I’ve been crunched for time when it comes to these spreadsheets (hence the lack of me finishing the Maryland one… sorry…) but I did have to prioritize what is possibly my most favorite international event of the year – Mondial du Lion at Le Lion d’Angers in France. It’s the World Championships for young event horses, with a 2* class for 6 year olds and a 3* class for 7 year olds. This is where stars are born, where we get a glimpse of the next big superstars. This event has historically been the springboard for so many top level horses on their way to the top, I find it ridiculously fun to watch them all and try to figure out who’s going to be the next Sam, Rocana, Vassily, or Quimbo. Sometimes it’s the winner, but just as often it’s the mid or lower placed horse who just got a little overwhelmed in dressage, a little tired on showjumping day, or just wasn’t quite ready to chase the time yet on XC. Odds are though, future superstars are definitely present here regardless of finish. Don’t forget that 42% of this year’s Olympic event horses competed at MdL earlier in their career… a pretty impressive statistic for one event. With so many spectators and atmosphere, it’s often the first time these youngsters are experiencing what it’s like to compete on the world stage.

So um, yeah… I kind of love MdL. It’s exciting to get a glimpse of the future.

This year’s horses I admit surprised me a bit. The field of 7yo’s have the lowest blood percentage I think I’ve ever calculated in a higher level event – 46.6%. In 2020 the 7yo average for MdL was 52%, in 2019 it was 50%, and in 2018 it was 51%. For reference, for 4*’s in Europe somewhere between 51-53% is the norm, and usually a bit higher for 5*. In the US we tend to trend more like 55-58% given how many full TB’s we have here. 46% is quite low… yes it’s “just” a 3*, but given that these are the horses that are being aimed for future 4* and 5*, the lower than usual blood percentage is interesting. Sixteen horses in the field had a blood percentage under 40% – that’s quite a lot. I do have to wonder with the emergence and popularity of the ERM series in Europe (assuming it comes back post covid-restrictions, anyway) if we won’t start seeing more lower blood horses purchased and developed specifically for that 4*S format. Time will tell I guess. The 6yo field was a little bit on the low side too at 49%, but that’s not quite as far off normal like the 7yo’s are. Last year the 6yo’s were 50% and 2019 was 51%.

The blood percentage abnormality got me digging around a little bit and playing with different parameters… would it change much if we looked at the top dressage scores, or the double clear XC rounds, or the clear SJ rounds? A little, yes. Does it actually tell us anything? I dunno. That’s up for interpretation I suppose. Here’s how it shook out:

7yo

• range lowest to highest 18% to 79%
• field average blood percentage 46.6%
• top 10 finishers blood percentage 49%
• blood percentage of horses that finished on their dressage score 50%
• blood percentage of horses with double clear XC 49%
• blood percentage of horses with clear SJ 44%
• blood percentage of horses with XC jump penalties 50%
• blood percentage with no XC time penalties 50%
• blood percentage of top 10 dressage scores 49%

And the same breakdown of the 6yo class:

6yo

• range lowest to highest 30% to 76%
• field average blood percentage 49%
• top 10 finishers blood percentage 50%
• blood percentage of horses that finished on their dressage score 47%
• blood percentage of horses with double clear XC 47%
• blood percentage of horses with clear SJ 48%
• blood percentage of horses with XC jump penalties 49%
• blood percentage with no XC time penalties 49%
• blood percentage of top 10 dressage scores 50%

In both cases the blood percentage of the top 10 finishers was a bit higher than the field average, but on the other hand the blood percentage of horses with XC jump penalties was the same or higher. Interesting.

Anyway, we could dissect the blood percentage question a thousand different ways (and argue about how much it really matters or not) but let’s move along.

Looking at stallion representation, there’s no doubt that OBOS Quality 004 absolutely owned the 7yo class. He was the sire of SIX horses in that field, and the grandsire of one other. Funnily enough, for as much representation as he had with the 7yo’s, he only showed up in one 6yo, as the damsire. For what it’s worth, all of the OBOS Quality 004 representatives finished the event, ranging from 5th place all the way to 46th place. Every single one of them also had a full TB within 3 generations on the damside, although still overall they had a generally low blood percentage (41% average)… OBOS Quality 004 himself, by the Selle Francais stallion Quick Star and out of some very old school Hanoverian lines, only has 28% blood.

A few other stallions showed up multiple times in the 7yo field – Black Jack was the sire of 2 horses, Kannan was the sire of two horses, Canturo was the sire of 2 and grandsire of 1, and we saw Casall 3 times – twice via his son Connor. On the dam’s side of the pedigree we saw Cavalier Royale 3 times, Master Imp xx 3 times, and Hand in Glove xx twice.

In the 6yo class there was a bit less commonality but still some repeats – we saw 2 offspring of the Gem Twist clone Gemini xx, 2 by the stallion Up to Date, and Diarado was the sire of one and grandsire of another via his son Dinken. We also see Cassini twice as the sire’s sire and once as the damsire. This field also shared some bloodlines with the 7yo’s, logging more Connor representation via his son Connect (can I just take a moment to selfishly enjoy all the Connor that’s starting to show up, because I’ve been fairly obsessed with him and his son Connect for a while now and it’s nice to get some validation), 3 more instances of Casall, another with Hand in Glove xx, and another with Imperius xx (the sire of Master Imp xx). Former MdL competitor and upper level superstar stallion Upsilon also had one offspring in the 6yo and one in the 7yo.

We do see a few dressage stallions popping up here and there – Ferro, UB40, Don Index, and Eliott MC. It’s definitely not common, with the overwhelming majority being from mainly showjumping bloodlines.

While the field did not have any full thoroughbred participants, there were a handful with one full blood parent. In the 7yo’s there were 4 with a full TB parent – one dam, three sire – and one with a full french AA sire. In the 6yo’s there were 5 horses with a full TB parent, all the sire. A couple of these showed up multiple times across both fields: the aforementioned clone Gemini xx, as well as the TB stallion Duke of Hearts xx.

As usual, I want to take a minute to dig into the dams of these horses, since we all know the dams are honestly the more important aspect. In the 7yo field we have 3 dams who competed to 3*/4* level eventing and 5 that showjumped to 1.30m level or higher. In the 6yo field we have 1 dam that competed 3*, 1 that showed 4th level dressage, and 8 (EIGHT!) dams that showjumped 1.30m or higher themselves. In addition to these nice sportmares you also have some great career broodmares that didn’t have a show career themselves but have been fantastic producers – 22 dams in the 6yo field have also produced other international level eventers or showjumpers (or in one case, a GP level dressage horse), and 24 dams in the 7yo field have produced other international level eventers or showjumpers – up to 4*L eventers and 1.65m showjumpers. That’s just a bit under half of the field. Blessed are the broodmares, indeed.

If you got to watch any of the MdL coverage, did any of the horses stand out to you? Who do you think are the next big stars?