Is it possible for someone’s entire aesthetic to be navy glitter? I might need an intervention, y’all. Or a glittervention, if you will.

I have acquired yet another navy glitter piece to add to my collection, this time in the form of a show shirt.

It’s hard to see the glitter in a picture so here’s a gif for good measure. It’s beautiful.

It’s also soft and lightweight and just a really nice show shirt in general, so no regrets. And in my defense, I didn’t set out looking for this shirt. I was simply (innocently? naively?) cruising through some of my favorite European sites looking at shirts. Window shopping really, just seeing what’s new and beautiful out there because I do love me an interesting show shirt. Equizone (always dangerous for me) is where I found her, in all of her glittery glory. Technically it was on sale, and pretty cheap for a show shirt.

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed by now, it’s that I will buy pretty much anything in navy glitter. I have built a fairly extensive collection, and I didn’t really accumulate it knowingly or on purpose, I’ve just gradually found things I liked and gotten them. Just so happens that what I like is definitely navy glitter. The shirt matches my sparkly navy socks pretty darn well.

Now the navy glitter collection also includes (but is not limited to, because I might be forgetting something)

• leggings
• gloves
• brushing boots
• open front boots
• socks
• show shirt
• helmet

I think all I’m really missing at this point is a glitter pad, and if they made them with sheepskin I would definitely own one already.

I don’t have any riding boots with navy glitter though. We should work on that. I’m also not sure if the sorta sparkly coat I ordered counts as navy glitter or not. Teeeeechnically they’re little tiny rhinestones. Navy sparkles, for sure, albeit not glitter. That coat hasn’t come in yet though so as of yet it’s not an official part of the collection.

I did get my new (glitterless) Motionlites, though! I sold my other three and promptly ordered two new ones in the smaller size. Many props to Royal Equestrian, a UK store I hadn’t ordered from before – I ordered last Wednesday and they arrived yesterday.

Hillary and I combined our order so we could split the shipping cost from Europe. I just got a navy motionlite and a green motionlite… I decided not to replace the brown one since I had already ordered the sparkly coat. That’s, um, probably enough coats. This size definitely fits a lot better though, for sure, and I pretty much broke even money-wise in the end, so all’s well that ends well?

Which, while we’re on the subject, both of my overseas purchases made it here faster than my Smartpak order. Yes, I caved during their last sale. Once every year or two I kind of forget how annoying my experiences with Smartpak have always been, and something on sale will get me. Sometimes it works out. Usually it doesn’t. This time it didn’t. I snagged a navy and white striped sunshirt, a new set of quilts (fronts and hinds), and some standing bandages. The standing bandages are Toklat, so they’re good. The quilts are Smartpak brand and they seem… cheap. But more significantly, they’re stained. Both pairs. All four of them. They came out of the package looking like this.

Naturally Smartpak’s live chat has been disabled, and I do not really want to deal with this by phone (considering pictures are important), so I sent them an email with photos attached. Their auto response said it could be up to 10 working days before they got to my email. Good lord, Smartpak. And so far, yep, a week later I haven’t gotten a response yet. Literally every single time I order from them they remind me of why I stopped ordering from them in the first place.

The sunshirt (Smartpak brand) is ok. I do like the stripes and the fabric is decent, but the fit is a little boxy and long. Not my favorite but I’ll wear it. So I guess of the 4 things I ordered one was good, two were failures, and one was a meh. And it took 10-13 days for things to arrive (because it didn’t all come together). When I placed my order the shirt was showing as in stock, but when I went back a couple days later my order history showed it was out of stock (even though it still showed as in stock on the item’s page). Just kind of a general hot mess type of experience. These stained wraps though… they’re something else. In a year or two when Smartpak pulls me in again with a sale, someone please remind me of this. Clearly I’m incapable of learning.

Oooo ya know what though, someone (that’s not Smartpak) needs to make navy glitter standing bandages! That’s what my collection is missing…

As you may have noticed, I finally got around to “rebranding” the site with it’s new name! Well, at least in that I got the new domain name, set up forwarding for the old one, put up a new banner at the top, and changed my socials. Considering how long I procrastinated about any of that (6 months, but who’s counting) it didn’t really take that long. I mean, I do have full intentions of actually updating the rest of the site too, which is woefully out of date, and maybe changing the layout a bit, but… those things are actual work and I ran out of give-a-shits by the time I got the banner figured out. But hey, new name anyway. The old domain will continue to forward for a while but update your bookmarks!

Why did I run out of give-a-shits? Well ya know… Millstreet was live streaming this past weekend. Priorities. Must always stop whatever I’m doing if there’s a chance to watch one of my favorite event horses.

Plus I found a new horse to add to my favorites list in Tim Price’s Spartaco (an Italian-bred, don’t see that very often) who went around the entire XC course with his tail straight up in the air and his ears pricked to the max. He was having the absolute time of his life and it was adorable. A bit green but his excitement was so pure.

It was a little bittersweet to watch Millstreet since that was supposed to be our next big destination event, now delayed thanks to covid. But hey, at least Millstreet is up and running again… hopefully next year spectators will be back. Ireland is calling to me in a major way and I must go.

Other than the blog rebranding, the biggest news around here is that it’s FINALLY stopped raining every day. I long ago lost my good humor about the radar always looking like this.

At this point we’ve been a whole 3 days without rain, which is the longest we’ve gone in… weeks. Texas is feast or famine, I swear. We did need the rain after an unusually dry winter, but once it started it just would not stop. We got like 6 months worth of rain in a matter of weeks. The rain gauges from last week alone were throwing out some pretty insane numbers.

The one benefit of this is that it’s kept our temperatures down in the upper 80’s/low 90’s, which is pretty mild for us for this time of year. Usually by June we’re hitting triple digits already. I mean granted the humidity is higher than usual too, but still… you don’t immediately liquify when you walk outside, nor does the sun feel like it’s scorching your actual soul. It’s not that terrible in the shade even in the middle of the afternoon. I’ll take this weather, thanks.

Naturally though this means everything here is very very very soggy. Normally we dry pretty quick but even our fields are still quite squishy. The forecast for the week looks fairly promising though, so I think the show this weekend might actually end up happening after all. Granted, I’ve hardly ridden in the past couple weeks thanks to the weather, and there’s a 0% chance that I’ll be able to jump a course at all this week, but… preparation is overrated, right? I’ve been able to flat Henry the past couple days (at least a little bit, in the center part of the field where it’s driest) and he feels good, so… meh. It’s fine. We’re just showing for fun anyway. I did decide to do my dressage test in my jump tack, we both seem more comfortable in it. Now I just need to like… look at the dressage test at some point probably.

Oh – one other thing did happen this weekend! I helped Willow Tree Warmbloods get set up with a TikTok account. If you want bonus baby horse content and videos, give them a follow. Obi is already a star, naturally.

I am convinced that what we currently understand of genetics is just the very tip of the iceburg. I mean, it’s easy to understand or measure heritability when it comes to certain traits, like coat color or conformation. What I’m dying to know is what part of the genetic code is responsible for the weirder, more “niche” attributes. Like, for instance… Henry’s tongue thing. I found photos with his sire doing the exact same weird thing. Or how Sadie and all of her foals all have the instinct to want to sit on things (water troughs, trees, other horse’s heads, they’re not picky, but they all come out of the womb wanting to tackle problems butt-first and smash it…). Like, someone please explain whatever genes are responsible for those kind of idiosyncrasies, because I’m 100% certain there’s a “weird tongue thing” gene and a “just smash it with your butt” gene. One day we’ll find them.

And part of the fun of watching the foals start to develop their little personalities is seeing what traits come through, especially compared to their dams or their siblings. Teddy, for example, has been interesting, because we definitely all remember Ollie from last year. He was not lacking in character, that’s for sure. At first Teddy seemed like maybe she wasn’t going to be Mischief on Hooves the way he was, but little things are starting to come out that make me go “Oh yeah, there’s Ollie.”

I mean, the most obvious thing is the sass level. But then again, she’s a pony, and I’m relatively certain that sass has been bred into them since the actual dawn of time. Is there a pony in the world that isn’t sassy? Probably not.

We’re starting to see a little bit of a comedian start to show, too. Teddy’s got some jokes. I mean, usually they’re at Stormie’s expense (I think Stormie’s already got a “days til weaning” countdown on the wall of her stall), but she’s definitely got them.

But there’s one thing in particular that Teddy’s started doing that made me go “oh my god, it’s freaking genetic”. Remember how Ollie made a game out of climbing over the top of round bales? You’ll never guess who else has adopted the exact same game.

Her technique is slightly different, so far she seems more inclined to attack it from a gallop rather than just climb straight up it, but the end result is the same. Thank goodness the round bale is so small for now, while she’s learning the game and figuring out the moves. I have a feeling that by the time a new round bale comes in she will have totally mastered it and we’ll be getting some truly impressive leaps, just like Ollie. This little filly is a powerhouse, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her scale a whole round bale.

None of the other foals show the same “gallop and leap into the round bale” proclivity, they prefer to nap in them more than anything else. It’s so bizarre the traits that siblings share sometimes, I swear.

When somebody finds the genetic markers for Round Bale Leaping, let me know.

Happy Friday!

Well, our 2021 foal crop is officially complete. Unfortunately last week when Michelle checked the mare that was carrying Lissa’s second ET, she found her to not be in foal. She must have aborted sometime early on, after all the initial pregnancy checks, and being a chonky little QH mare it wasn’t really obvious until the end of term. Definitely sucks to not get Percy a full sibling, but at the same time it’s been a long hard stressful foaling season and there’s some relief at finally being at the end of it. Plus, like, who can complain about the 5 little cuties we did get? The class of 2021 is pretty cute.

Pippa is spoken for and Teddy is a keeper, but the colts will be available for sale. There were a few big moments with this crop, particularly with the birth of WTW’s first embryo transfer foal (Patrick) as well as Michelle’s much coveted grulla sportpony filly – exactly what she ordered. We also had no red-based foals this year, only bay and black (although Patrick and Percy will go gray), and a couple daytime births: one at 3pm and one at 5pm. Comparing and contrasting the two full siblings, Obi and Patrick, has been pretty interesting. There are some similarities but also plenty of differences, not only in how they look but also in their personalities. Genetics are funny.

As for the Baby Bets contest, while in years past it’s been a really tight race right down to the wire, this year we had a very clear and decisive winner. Bethkira finished with a whopping 80 points, with the next closest competitors having 65. Much of her success is attributed to the fact that she very impressively (what kind of voodoo magic are you working with, girl?) guessed all 5 colors correctly, and 4 out of 5 genders. She also got Lark’s foaling date and Stormie’s foaling time, plus some of the markings. That was a much deserved win. Bethkira please shoot me a message or email so we can get you your $100 gift card!

We do also want to recognize a couple other really good efforts. Two runners up had 65 points each, Kelly Synnott and Sydney Salle. We’re in the process of setting up a WTW merch store with Two Socks Designs, and as soon as it’s open we’d like to comp you guys an item of your choice up to $30 value. Drop me a message with your email and once Two Socks is ready to open the shop we’ll get you guys hooked up with something. I think Kelly deserves a special shoutout too because she guessed the foaling date, color, gender, and leg markings of Teddy, along with the comment “all I want for my bday is Michelle to get her grulla filly out of Stormie!” – that’s exactly what happened, so the good juju paid off and was much appreciated.

Thanks to everyone who played along with the contest this year, and congrats to the winners! Whether you won or not we hope you’re enjoying the Foal Friday posts, and now WTW is hard at work creating our 2022 crop.

On Saturday afternoon my friend Stacy proposed that we meet at Dover and then go get Indian food. Which, if you’re after my heart, that’s the surefire way, it takes about 0% convincing to get me to go along with a plan like that. I didn’t need anything at Dover, but I’m always up to poke around and see what they’ve got. Plus, like… if they had some white breeches that I didn’t hate, I wasn’t opposed to adding a pair.

And then, a couple days before, I found myself lusting after a coat and shirt online.

They’re in the UK, naturally, because every damn thing I love is always from overseas. The brand’s size chart was a little wonky looking, and in centimeters, so I figured I’d do the responsible thing and actually measure myself instead of guessing at size. I measured… looked, and… huh. That measurement was a couple inches less than it used to be. So I measured two more times. Yup, that shit shrunk. This led me to go pull out all my Motionlite coats, which used to fit pretty well, and son of a bitch if they weren’t too big. Like… the bust and arms were saggy. I could fit an arm down the front of the coat. That’s not a cute look for riding clothes, y’all.

I mean, yes… since I got my spin bike in late February I’ve been riding it 6 days a week without fail since the day I got it because I love it. And I added weights 5x a week a couple months ago because turns out I really like that too when I’m in the privacy of my own home and not in a gym being leered at by creeps. I haven’t done it to lose weight though, I’m doing it because I took one look at Presto with a pro on him and was like “Damn bitch, you’re going to have to get a lot stronger if you think you’re going to stand a chance at riding that thing right”. And it’s true, I needed to – and still need to – get a lot stronger. He is a big horse that is A Lot to manage and I want to at least be physically up to the task by the time he comes home. I don’t even own a scale though (bad things happen when you give me metrics like that to obsess over, I learned that a long time ago), or even a full length mirror in the tiny house yet (who knows what I ever look like when I actually go out in public, I sure don’t have a clue). Plus like, 99% of the time whatever pants I have on are elasticized since I work from home these days. I did have to go buy new jeans a month ago and ended up with a size smaller than before so I knew there had been some changes in my size at least. Mostly I’m just excited that I can tell that I really do feel A LOT stronger, my core is noticeably improved, and my arms are starting to get some nice shape and tone. I totally failed to consider what these changes meant for my riding clothes though, particularly my show clothes.

Confession: I don’t put on real breeches that often, I usually wear my tights with the phone pocket when I’m riding at home. So after I tried on my coats I pulled out my whites and they were a bit sad-sacky too, although mostly in the waist. I always shrink from the top down (the boobs are the first to go, and that’s a-ok with me), I’ve got these big old child-bearing hips (that have never and shall never bear a child, thank you very much) and meaty thighs that always stay proportionately bigger than my top half. So now I find myself kind of in between sizes on breeches and all of mine are gapping majorly at the waist. I was hoping Dover might have some that either ran a little big or ran a little small and would fit my in-betweenness nicely, but no luck there. Mostly because out of the many racks of breeches there was only ONE model that I actually liked the feel of the fabric, but they were full seat with way too much silicone. I didn’t even try any on. We need to talk about fabric and how to use silicone appropriately, breech companies. It doesn’t need to look like you used 15 sticks of hot glue on the ass.

Since we were at Dover anyway, I found my way to the rack of Motionlites and tried on the size down from what mine are. I expected the smaller size to be too small still (because in-betweenness) but I’ll be damned if it didn’t fit way better. No more saggy arms or bust in the smaller size. DAMN. IT. My carefully curated collection of Motionlites – 3 to be exact – was undeniably too big. One of mine still had the tags on and another had been worn a grand total of once. I thought for a second that maybe I could just forget how much better the other size was compared to my current ones, but no… it was one of those things you can’t unfeel. Hence me coming home and listing all my coats for sale the next day. As soon as I sell the last one I will replace the navy and the hunter green ones with other size and we’ll call it a wash. All of this to say that if you see me with new coats and shit, or selling things, don’t be judgy… this is why.

I did order the pretty coat and shirt from the UK though, and since I sat kind of perfectly between sizes on their chart (OF COURSE I DO) I ended up just ordering two sizes of the coat and two sizes of the shirt. I’ll sell whichever ones don’t fit for what they cost me to buy it, and someone here will get the benefit of not having to pay UK shipping, and I’ll get the benefit of not having to make a decision and end up with the wrong size. Win-win?

I did buy one thing at Dover though, and that was a sun shirt. As much as I don’t like most of their house brand stuff, I do think their sunshirts are decent, and they had one in a gorgeous steel blue color that I loved. I wore it for my lesson on Monday and 10/10 would recommend, it’s my new favorite color sunshirt I think. Looks on point with navy.

I have a few other sunshirts I need to sell, as soon as I can wrap my brain around it. There was one boon in all of this unanticipated spur of the moment clothes-trying-on at least – my beloved yellow and navy Boy O Boy belt that hasn’t fit in like 3 years actually fits again! And looks smashing with the steel blue shirt/navy pants combo. So glad I kept it!

I need to get another sale post organized when I have the energy. Today is not that day.