I used to do these little “what I learned” posts after every horse trial, but uh… I haven’t done a horse trial in almost 2 years so… yeah those posts tapered off. And while I still technically still didn’t do one myself, I was just there to watch my horse go, I still came away feeling like I learned a few things.

First and foremost, I need myself a damn Cricket. Hillary got this mini golf cart that is FREAKING ADORABLE, fits in a spot in the horse trailer, and is a total lifesaver at weekend shows like that one where everything is approximately 45 miles apart. I am legit obsessed with it and now I need one in either black or blue so that I can then put rainbow glitter over top and have the most badass lil golf cart known to mankind. Plus there was one particular incident where Hillary and I were going down the big hill between the RV parking and the stabling and the brakes went out, and Hillary was yelling “I HAVE NO BRAKES” in terror while frantically pumping her foot on the pedal, and I’m over there laughing maniacally and having a grand time. There are two kinds of people in this world, y’all, and clearly I’m the kind that’s just a wee bit off. The best part was when she finally had to turn the key to stop it and the Cricket skidded dramatically to a halt like some kind of Tokyo Drift shit in miniature. Anyway, 10/10 would recommend. I may or may not have told the SO about the Cricket for so long that I’m pretty sure he’s at least mostly convinced that we need one, even if it’s just to get me to shut the hell up. Hey, annoying the shit out of someone until they give in is totally a valid strategy to get what you want.

Speaking of Hillary, I also learned that there are few things more fun than watching friends figure out new horse. She’s got such a nice little horse in Lex, but boy is he very different from everything she’s ever had before. He’s quite an adjustment and there’s a big learning curve, but she’s been working hard at it, and it all really came together beautifully for her that weekend. It was so freaking fun to watch things click into place. She was riding better than I’ve ever seen, and on a horse that really has the potential to do everything she could possibly want. I am excited for her. Plus like, all I do is give Lex cookies and tell him how cute he is without demanding anything in return so he likes me more now. I have stolen the hony. Mine.

I also have to be honest, despite being away from the eventing horse show scene for almost 2 years, over that time I’ve struggled to feel like I really missed it. I think partly it was burnout… I have this tendency to go balls to the wall about things and burn myself out eventually, it’s a pattern I’ve repeated over and over throughout my life yet still can’t seem to break the cycle. But also it was partly because for so long we were working on getting Henry up the levels, always moving the bar higher, seeing what we could do, finding something else to reach for, etc etc. And then we found the upper limit of what was possible for him, and I ended up feeling a little aimless at that point. Honestly though, I really needed a break. I was mentally a bit tired and a bit over it. And then covid happened and gave me a really good excuse to take some time away and just enjoy horses again without any stipulations or expectations. Still though… as shows started happening again I just wasn’t feeling the FOMO the way I expected. And then I went to Texas Rose and over the course of the weekend I remembered why I really do love the sport, and the people, and why it’s worth the effort. I finally feel some of the fire returning, and I’m actually looking forward to getting back out there again now, whenever that may work out for me.

Another thing that really stuck out to me, and I’ve said this before on this blog I think, is how much I deeply enjoy being an owner. Like, no joke, I got just as much enjoyment out of watching Megan ride my horse than I would have if I’d been riding him myself (and uh, sometimes more, when he decided to be extra green – you’ll see tomorrow). Watching good riders ride your horse is freakin fun. Especially one you bred and are really invested in. If I had the kind of money it takes, I wouldn’t even hesitate for one second to get or breed a nice horse for a good pro just so I could go to shows and watch them ride it. New life goal for when I hit the lotto (note to self: start playing the lotto).

And last but not least, this was the first “public” thing I’ve done in over a year that didn’t require or really even necessitate masks. It was all outdoors and the showgrounds are huge, thus it was very easy to maintain plenty of distance from anyone who wasn’t in your friend group (yay for us already being vaccinated!) so we didn’t have to wear one. It was friggin weird that first day, y’all. WEIRD. It’s amazing how fast we acclimate to things, because I kept reaching for my mask or looking at someone’s naked face like AAAHHHH WHY CAN I SEE SO MUCH OF YOU (I definitely feel this way when I see people in the grocery store with no mask – thankfully they’re few and far between). But I have to admit, it was also really nice. The whole weekend almost felt like normal life again, as if 2020 had never really happened. I know I spent parts of last year wondering if life would ever feel normal again, and in a lot of ways it won’t (you definitely notice when someone from outside of your “pod” gets within 6′ of you and have that immediate instinct to move away), but getting a taste of it at the show definitely bolstered my spirits about the whole thing a little bit. I’m definitely still on the mask-wagon for anything indoors or crowded or where social distancing can’t be maintained, but it was nice to have a weekend outdoors without it while spending time doing something fun again. This is a long way from being over but I feel like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel at least. I’m glad that so many people (at least the ones that I know) are opting for the vaccine, and I hope that everyone who can have it is able to get it!

As promised last week, we’ve got a new WTW foal to introduce to you! This guy had a rough entrance into the world and had to spend his first few days at the clinic, but he’s home now and progressing really well, so I think we’re far enough along to share his ordeal.

This little dude was carried by Ginger, a surrogate mare, and the colt is by Utrillo out of Lissa. Being a loaner surrogate mare, Ginger was a bit of an unknown to us as far as what her normal pre-foaling patterns would be. She had milk for several days so she was being watched very closely, and then on Tuesday she was pacing, pacing, pacing up a storm. Clearly she was close and seemed a bit more distressed than what might be considered normal. Mid-afternoon she looked ready, her tail went up… and nothing. No water breaking. It seemed to be taking too long… something was off.

Michelle gloved up and stuck an arm in and felt a rough texture. This was the sign of an emergency. In a normal birth, the foal presents in a smooth whitish colored sac. But in about 1-2% of births the placenta separates prematurely and results in what’s called a red bag delivery. I’ll let the internet explain since they already wrote it up way better than I could:

Dr. Dorton explains that the premature separation of the placenta from the uterus creates a dire situation because it eliminates the foal’s source of oxygen. “Normally, the mare goes into labor, the placenta tears at the cervical star (where it opens into the birth canal), the amnion (the white sack that contains the foal) starts to protrude out of the mare, and the delivery proceeds normally,” Dr. Dorton says. “The foal comes out; then, in the next few minutes to few hours, the placenta releases from the uterus and is delivered.”

“In a red bag delivery, the placenta separates from the uterus quickly, before the foal is delivered. The first indication of labor is the red, velvet appearing placenta, the ‘red bag,’ which is presented first. This is a signal to the foaling personnel that the delivery is not proceeding as normal, and intervention is needed, since the foal is now without a source of oxygen supplied by the attachment of the placenta to the uterus.”

Basically once you know you have a red bag, you have to cut or rip the placenta and get that foal out ASAP. The longer it takes to get them out, the longer they’re without oxygen, and they can easily die or sustain neurological damage. Now, to add insult to injury, Percy wasn’t just a red bag, he was a red bag PLUS a dystocia – he was positioned upside down. The normal position for a foal in the birth canal is this:

Percy was positioned like this:

Typically upside down isn’t too terrible (not as bad as some other wrong presentations, anyway) and if you give the mare some time, usually she will get up and down a couple times or maybe roll a bit and succeed in repositioning the foal on her own. The problem with the whole “wait it out” thing, obviously, was the red bag. That meant he had to come out ASAP, they couldn’t afford to wait for Ginger to reposition him on her own. This is where it’s so important to have experienced foaling attendants that know what they’re doing… things can go really bad really quickly.

Step 1 was to cut open the placenta. That done, they were able to get Ginger up and walk her around for a second, which helped moved the foal just enough for them to start to manually turn him. It took two people, turning him and pulling at the same time Ginger was pushing, to get him out as fast as possible. If not for their quick thinking and quick actions, there’s no doubt Percy wouldn’t have survived.

The good news is that he was breathing on his own and hadn’t seemed to aspirate much fluid, so he was fairly stable all things considered. The bad news is that he was slightly dysmature (“undercooked”-looking if you will, for a newborn). No time was wasted in hooking up the trailer, loading Ginger up and carrying him in, and hauling them to the clinic. He was there within an hour and half of birth.

Luckily he was fairly active and had a good suck reflex right from the very start – he definitely wanted to nurse. Often if they’ve been compromised from oxygen deprivation they just seem dull and uninterested in nursing, which is obviously really bad. Their quick thinking and getting him out in time prevented that, thank goodness. But being dysmature meant his legs were a bit floppy and unstable, thus he had a hard time balancing on his own to nurse and needed to be bottle fed for the first day or so to make sure he got enough. The clinic also got some plasma into him ASAP, along with some meds and fluids and antibiotics (another potential complication for red bag foals is pneumonia if they aspirate too much fluid, luckily he seemed fine in that regard), and ran some bloodwork.

He responded very quickly to treatment. After a couple days he was steady enough on his feet to nurse on his own, no more bottle assistance required, and he quickly started showing the normal foal spunkiness. His bloodwork improved by the day, he continued getting meds, and within a few days the IV catheter was able to come out. Other than looking a little underdeveloped, you would never know that anything had ever gone awry.

It will probably take him a few weeks to catch up to what would be “normal” looking for a newborn, but other than that he’s doing well. His lax limbs are already starting to tighten up and straighten, and he’s put on some weight. He’s getting a little bit of “PT” and has to stay on a more restricted turnout schedule for while until his legs get a bit stronger. He’s plenty spunky though, and makes good use of the space he has. He’ll be segregated from the other foals for a little while until he’s filled out more, but knock on wood so far he appears to be no worse for wear. Heck of a birth story though, and probably took a few years off Michelle’s life! This is the really scary part about breeding that always freaks me out a bit. It’s terrifying when things go sideways.

It took a few days to come up with a name for him but there’s really nothing better for him in a P naming year than Perseverance WTW, aka Percy. At not even a week old this kiddo has already been through the ringer and overcome a lot of challenges. Hopefully he’ll always keep that same tenacity.

Guess who made the transition into the big kid pasture?

Pippa and Patrick’s little friendship has now expanded by one, with Obi joining the group this week. And he was pretty excited to meet new friends.

Naturally, the first one to notice his presence was Pippa, and she made a beeline for him. Chanel was a little protective of Obi at first, as all mares are, not letting him wander away from her (this is the part that Peyton failed so miserably at, she never had any say over Pippa or where she wandered and she still doesn’t) and Chanel wasn’t particularly interested in letting Pippa get too close either.

Pippa isn’t one to be deterred easily though, so first she tried stalking…

And when that didn’t work she decided to go the mayhem route and start galloping and bucking around the pasture, trying to lure Obi to leave his mom and join in.

While it didn’t immediately work on Obi, it did work on Patrick, who came boinging over like Tigger to join the party.

What Chanel failed to consider is just how annoying Obi is. See, where Pippa loves to gallop and Patticakes loves to bounce, Obi loves to CHOMP. He’s a baby shark. If it can go in his mouth, it will, and he’s very enthusiastic about it.

Eventually Obi exceeded the limits of her patience and she let him go make friends, just so she could have some peace.

Pippa quickly got tired of him when all he wanted to do was bite her. She’s not so into that. You know who is, though? His brother Patrick. These two colts were fast friends.

The biting even morphed into mutual grooming sometimes (briefly) before returning to biting. It’s pretty cute to see the two full siblings hanging out together and making friends. They’re different in a lot of ways, but similar in others.

All in all it was a pretty seamless introduction and Obi seems happy to have some friends to play with.

By this time next week we might have FOUR babies out in the pasture together. Pony girl Teddy continues to do really well and is looking darn cute, I have to say. She’s definitely grulla and is filling out nicely.

I think she’ll be an interesting addition to the dynamic. So far she doesn’t seem as mischievous as Ollie (could the world even handle a filly version of him?) but she’s very sweet and playful.

We did have a new WTW kiddo this week with Ginger finally having her foal, but he had a rough start and there’s a bit of an ongoing saga now, so he’ll get his own post next week to explain. He seems to be doing well at the moment, knock on wood, but continued good thoughts for Percy.

Happy Friday everyone!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay, the best phase! I was hoping that if I dragged the show recap out long enough I’d have the pro video by the time we got to this part, but yeah that was probably overly hopeful. Granted, now that I’m posting this I’ll probably get it like this afternoon. Whatever.

Presto had XC on Sunday around noon, and the morning seemed to take approximately 79 hours to pass. You know you’ve reached a whole new collective level of boredom when everyone is sitting around listening to Cardi B (supplied by me – it’s surprisingly good XC pump up music). When Megan went to put Presto’s bridle on she basically had to kneel on the ground to do it, he was so asleep. He swore he was exhausted. That’s a lie, he’s never been exhausted in his entire life. I didn’t trust it, and I was right, because as soon as he made the walk down to XC warmup, crested the hill, and came out into the big field, he perked right the heck up. The edge of the course at Texas Rose runs right along a major interstate, which I was a little concerned about, but he didn’t seem to give a crap about that. He did look a little excited though, especially the first time she cantered the little house in warmup and his body was up somewhere near the top of the freakin flags. It was one of those “YOU HAVE FUN WITH THAT, SEE YA LATER” moments where you’re 110% glad it’s the pro riding and not you, and I took my leave to head over to the bleachers at the second water where I would be able to see most of the course.

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Course pics from Lorri Hart in the XC Course Walks group

I haven’t really looked at a BN course in a long time, and this one was interesting. First of all I’m pretty sure BN grew, because a couple of those tables were bigger or at least wider than I remember. Also I’ve never seen a BN course with two black flag options so that was something. The start box and the first two fences were pointing directly at the interstate, then you turned left along the fenceline, went over a little bridge, jumped a little house, went over another bridge in the treeline, then popped out into the big main XC field where pretty much everything is. Presto cruised over the first 3 just fine and was cantering along really nicely, so Megan relaxed a bit and just let him be. Then he popped out into the big field and didn’t get very far up the hill before he just slammed on the brakes and spun like a top. He was nowhere near a jump, and we aren’t quite sure exactly what he spooked at, but he disappeared out from under her in the blink of an eye. BIG spook. My only guess is that he finally got his eyes on the big field and everything in it (jump judges, umbrellas, videographers, vans, cars, golf carts, photographers, people, dogs, bleachers, EMTs, etc) and it shocked him for a second. I mean, in all fairness he’s been XC schooling a grand total of twice, and there’s never been anything out there but the jumps. It was a lot of new stuff to take in.

Poor Megan, bless her, was clinging to the side of his neck like a spider monkey. All credit to her, I’d have been on the ground for sure. Presto trotted a few steps with her on his neck and then stopped dead, which allowed her to clamber and climb and shimmy her way back into the saddle. It took a little while, but he stood quietly while she did it, and thank god she’s athletic and nimble. It was a truly great save. Naturally I was not yet videoing when all this occurred since it was still quite far away from where I was standing, so I’m majorly hoping the videographer got it. You can BET I’ll be posting that. Anyway, once her butt was back in the tack (to the chorus of many cheers from all of us in the bleachers) they picked the canter back up and resumed their course like nothing ever happened, heading easily over the table at 4 and around to the hanging log at 5.

Their first black flag option was at 6, where they came up a decent little hill and could either choose a teeny log or the bank up. It was kind of weird to me to have an option here for BN, that bank has always been on the BN course and it’s a totally appropriate BN question that has never been an issue, but whatever. She chose the bank, and it was definitely uneventful.

Then they passed by the first water, which wasn’t flagged for BN but she rode through anyway as a “free” opportunity to get his feet wet.

Then another little log thing a little ways past the water. He gave that one extra clearance.

After that they cantered along the camber of the hill and then swung a left to the brush, which was the tallest fence on course. Especially if you’re Presto and don’t understand how to brush through the brush yet. No touchy, he says. If the photographer didn’t get a pic of this one I will legit cry.

From there they came to the second option on course, which was IMO kind of bizarre. They could either jump the teeny little intro log jump, or a weird half ditch thing. The ditch only had the front of it defined with a log, was dug out behind the log, and the hole filled with shavings. It looked bizarre to me. Why not just a real (shallow) ditch? Or at least define the back of the hole with another log? I wasn’t sure how horses would read it, and judging by all the skid marks and disturbed ground from the first BN divisions that had gone the day before, I’m not sure it was well-received. Megan didn’t like the question without a back rail to define the ditch, so she opted for the little intro jump. It made the approach to the next fence a little more meandering, but better than confusing a green horse with a weird ditch.

Then she made the S-turn back around to what we ended up calling the fire pit – an A frame hanging log thing with a literal fire ring of bricks under it that were filled with mulch. It was an interesting way to make a ground line. None of the horses seemed to care though, Presto included.

Then they headed from the back of the field and turned toward the far fence line. There’s a lot going on over there – a big lake, lots of people, tons of upper level jumps, a field of horses, etc. I could see Presto’s tail (aka his freak flag) getting higher and higher as he approached that side. He was getting a little wild.

Megan sat her butt in the tack and brought him back to trot (where he did his best purebred arabian giraffe impression), and they hopped over his little baby “corner”

weaved through the upper level stuff, and headed to the brightest damn table I’ve ever seen. I didn’t know neon blue was a color until I saw that thing, and the contrast was painted hot pink. It looked like they went to the Oops paint aisle at Lowes and bought whatever was on sale. Presto got a little rude/rank to that one in that he just wanted to blast right over it without really listening to her (they were in the open field now and he reeeeaaaally wanted to yeehaw) but clearly horses don’t give a flying f about neon.

You could see that his little hamster was starting to fall off it’s wheel here… not from the jumps (I think he barely looked at any of those, they were mere distractions) but from everything else he was seeing. Baby brain overload. When they made the turn after the table to come to the big water he got an eyeful of bleachers, people, water, the videographer station van, along with a mess of jumps, and he shot sideways.

As soon as he got close enough to register that it was water and he was supposed to go in it, his brain clicked back on and he went forward immediately, hopped in, cantered through, and carried on his way like no big deal. And it seemed to give him enough of a reality check to make him more rideable again. He was considerably more polite cantering away from the water than he’d been leading up to it.

From there they just had two more Oops paint jumps, the lime green and blue one

and then the last fence was the world’s teeniest little lavender rolltop, which I didn’t get because I was too busy running to the finish. Seriously, it was the smallest jump on the entire course. Barely a speed bump by that point. Not interesting.

He finished the course with no jumping faults but a handful of time due to the Big Spin and subsequent spider-monkeying back into the tack, and the various bits of gawking. I just wanted him to go around and have a positive experience – which he did – so I didn’t give one shit about the time faults. He’s shown us that he’s brave and finds the actual XC part of things quite easy, although his greenness definitely did show in other ways. Totally fair and to be expected, he saw a whole lot of new stuff that day. Overall I was pretty impressed with how he handled it. I liked that even when he had baby moments, he was able to quickly move on and keep going. That was A LOT to see and A LOT to do, and he did it! Megan did a wonderful job not just to stay with him but to keep him focused and keep him moving forward. I know without a doubt that having her riding him now is absolutely the right decision for him. You can see him learning and blossoming so much in such a short period of time.

And with that completion, we officially have ourselves a bonafide event horse! It was pretty fun to pull up his name on the USEA website and see a record, not gonna lie. There’s really nothing you can complain about with that debut effort, especially at a big recognized show at a venue like this. Kid is a rock star. Kid also got a buttload of oatmeal creme pies (which he was into) and smooches (which he wasn’t).

Presto is getting a bit of a break this week and then it’ll be back to work to build on this effort and get ready for the next one!

Yesterday we covered the dressage part of Presto’s first event, now let’s move on to something more fun: showjumping!

I realized when he was warming up that… I haven’t ever actually seen Presto jump a whole course before. I know he did a couple jumper rounds when he was in Ocala but I only got a short clip of that, so I really had no idea what he looked like over a full course of jumps. In the XC video from a month ago he was really still just figuring out his feet a lot, trotting most of the fences and trying to learn which parts go where and when. So I really had no idea what he’s got in the tank or what he jumps like or any of that. When Megan started jumping him in warmup I was like “Oh. Oooohhhhhh. Damn is that mine? Okay yeah this’ll do.”

He’s got hops in there, this kid. When he strings a bunch of jumps together you can definitely tell how green he is, he’s still learning to keep his shape to the base and adjust on the backside (sometimes he succeeds in those things, other times he does not) but considering he’s really just started cantering courses… it’s fun to see what exists in there naturally. These little ones are definitely very easy for him, even when he overjumps.

Once again he was pretty well behaved in warmup, although he definitely was more perked up than he’d been for dressage. Jompies are fun I guess. He’s not wrong. When it was finally his turn to go, he marched down to the ring, right into the in gate, picked up the canter, and off he went. Once again, I don’t think you would have known it was his first show. Did he look green? For sure. Definitely. But he also looked bold and confident, never batting an eye at any of the decor, the photographer, any jump fill, all the stuff outside the ring, etc. If anything he was maybe a little too bold sometimes.

Megan said that originally she had planned on trotting some of the course but he was going along so happily that she decided to just go with it. I joked that Presto didn’t want all the big kids thinking he was a baby that had to trot things. He even went so far as to throw in flying changes in the turns. Well ok then fancybritches.

He did have one rail, at the very last fence. It was a two stride combination where he jumped in a hair bold, and he’s just not that adjustable yet to compress his stride down and make the two fit better. He ticked the rail with a hind foot coming down and it teetered for a second before it fell. Simple green horse mistake, definitely not a big deal. It sure didn’t stop him from being quite proud of himself, either (when is he not?).

It was a big first show day for a little kiddo, but he was still plenty full of energy by the end. Cross country wasn’t until the next day though, so he got a bath and um, like 4 Oatmeal Creme Pies.

It’s really fun to be at the stage where you can start to see some of his quality shining through. I think it’s safe to say that he’s definitely got enough scope in there to suit my needs, and I absolutely LOVE how confident and bold he is about all of it. He never once wavered, wiggled, or even sucked back behind her leg at any fence he was pointed at. Presto’s got a “lemme at em” approach to the jumping, which is much better for me than one that’s more spooky or hesitant. We can work on polishing up all the stuff in between and adding the finesse and helping him learn to keep a lid on his enthusiasm, but it’s a lot harder to instill confidence and bravery where there isn’t any to start with. That part isn’t a problem for him. Bold, bold, bold, for sure, and pretty clever with his feet most of the time.

I am already DYING for the pro photog to post proofs, but they won’t be up for another couple weeks. I know she got a couple of his best jumps and you can bet I’ll be buying those. I did order the pro video too and they’re usually fairly quick, so hopefully soon we’ll have some better quality video than what my fairly crappy cell phone can manage.

Tomorrow we finally get to the best part: XC!