I admit that I have a bit of a hard time caring about year end awards. Back in the day (gosh, maybe 15 years ago now) when I was caught up in the oh so competitive world of our local h/j circuit, I definitely cared. Gotta show in the same divisions all year so you can get more points, definitely always do the under saddle even if you only get a low ribbon because every point counts, look through the points the second they’re posted online, and so on and so on and so on. It only took a couple years of that for me to realize how absolutely idiotic it was. If you went to every single horse show you’d end up racking up enough points to get a year end award pretty much default, and what did that really prove? You’re good at filling out a show entry?

You’d also see people entering tons of classes, trying to rack up rider points. There’s a time at which you cross the line into excessive and I’ll go out on a limb here and say that 20+ classes in a weekend is well beyond that. Sometimes it was just… ridiculous. I’ve seen people make some seriously bad decisions for themselves and their horse just in the sake of trying to rack up as many points as they can get, and it left a sour taste. When I really thought about it the whole thing just didn’t sit right with me, and I’ve never chased points since.

And while I definitely don’t think you see this situation as much in eventing – after all, you only have one opportunity for points per show – I have seen people enter more shows than they otherwise might in order to try to get more points. The whole “quantity” method of point tabulation has never seemed like the best way. It feels like we’re rewarding the wrong thing. I felt like I’d always rather see some kind of average, or a different way of doing the math that didn’t just go for sheer quantity.

It seems I’m not the only one that thought that way, because this week USEA announced that they’ll be changing the way they tabulate points, going from a basic quantity method to a “quality” method. It’s a bit complicated and intricate (details here if you want to read) but basically it calculates only the rider’s top 6 results, and they have to be MER’s in order to be counted.

I definitely like this method better, although I still think it doesn’t really dissuade the folks who want to show their horses’ legs off in order to get more points. They could still just go to tons of shows in a quest for getting the best “top 6 results” they possibly can. Then again, I think (hope?) those types of people are few and far between in this sport. It does, however, kind of even up the playing field a bit for the people who can’t afford to show as much, if their performances are good. If you only show a handful of times a year but hit it out of the park every time, you now actually stand a chance in the year end points against people who are showing every other weekend. This points method isn’t foolproof or perfect, but it’s definitely an improvement, IMO. It seems more fair all around.

It’s interesting to think about how this method might work in the h/j world though… would it? Theirs is far more complicated, given all the classes and the fact that they have no such thing as MER’s. And at the end of the day would it even really change anything with the true pointchasers? Meh… I’m not sold on that one.

I won’t even pretend to understand how the dressage world does its awards, I feel like they’ve got special prizes and awards for literally every scenario. Ride a one-eyed Bashkir Curly that never scores over 50%? There’s probably an award for that, and it likely includes a wine glass. (Joking, dressage people, don’t get mad at me. Ok I’m not really joking, y’all seriously love your awards. And wine.)

What do you think of the new changes? If you’re not an eventer, do you think something similar could apply to your discipline, and do you think it would be better or worse?

I swear this kid spends most of his time thinking I’m a ridiculous human. Which is ironic because I spend a lot of my time thinking he’s a ridiculous horse. Honestly, we’re both right.

But anyway, on Saturday this big kid did a thing… his very first “formal” jumping session! He’s hopped over a couple logs before and I pointed him at a few jumps when we went on our last off property outing, but this was his first actual structured at-home jump school.

Last week I set up a very basic grid (a trot-in one stride) with just poles on the ground and trotted him through that a few times on one of his hack days. Since the SO was here this past Saturday and he actually wasn’t in a hurry for once, I asked him to be my groundperson so I could ride Presto through the grid and have SO build the elements for us as we went along. Kind of an essential step that is a real PITA to do while you’re alone and without a groundperson, unless you like getting on and off a billion times. I do not.

We trotted through it once just with poles, then built the second jump to a crossrail (which he just trotted over like he was bored), then progressed to both jumps being crossrails.

Then a crossrail to a little vertical.

Then the vertical became a wee oxer.

Then the oxer got a little bigger and wider.

If anything he was a little over eager most of the time, wanting to take a canter step over the trot pole coming in, which combined with his big gangly stride made the distance short. But for his first attempt at anything like this, I was super pleased with him. He was forward and straight and seemed to understand it right away, like it was easy for him and he enjoyed the game. Next time I’ll modify it a bit, giving him more trot poles coming in to see if we can’t take that little canter step out before the crossrail.

It was also SO’s first time ever setting jumps for me so he got to learn all this fun lingo like crossrail, vertical, ground line, trot pole, oxer, etc. Have to admit, he took to it pretty fast too. We’ve got two quick learners in the house. AND, he hated a couple sets of rickety standards and rusty jump cups so much that he was like “where can I buy you new ones, this is awful”. So ya know… I uh… did him a favor and sent him a link to some standards and cups. I’m a nice person like that.

I definitely do need some more standards though, I don’t really have enough to make a full course with oxers, and I will certainly never refuse someone who wants to give them to me. I may have also sent him links to some flowerboxes and fillers too. Ya know, just in case he wants to be extra thorough.

I think we might have a jompjomp pony on our hands though, y’all!

Another week with 3 successful Presto rides! Considering I basically never leave the farm, fitting in 2 horses is still harder than it should be. It’s our absolute busiest time of year at work and I find myself drowning under meetings and emails and general extra volume. We’ve had a lot of rain in the forecast too, although pretty much none of it has come to fruition, even on the days with an 80% chance of rain. It all keeps barely missing us. Which is helpful for my productivity with the horses, but not so good for the grass (which is already nowhere near as plentiful as last year). It’s weird to be in January saying we need rain. I won’t complain about the lack of mud though.

Last week for Presto’s arena ride I decided it was time to play around with a baby dressage test. I’ve never tried to string elements together like you would in a test, and I’ve definitely never tried to do things at specific places in the ring. Mostly I’m just trying to get this drunk brontosaurus of a baby horse with all 4 legs traveling in mostly the same direction and in something resembling a rhythm. Still a work in progress, some days. I had taken a look through Intro B and C – the tests for the two HT divisions I’m considering entering him in at the March show. I figured we’d run through most of both of them but there were two things in particular I knew we’d need to work on – halting through the walk (it’s possible that the brakes might be installed a little tight on this horse, he’s real good at trot to halt), and just that one teeny 20m circle of canter. Legit never tried to canter this thing for just one 20m circle. It’s a big strung out baby horse, I wasn’t even sure if we could canter just one 20m circle.

I spent a few minutes warming up then starting diving right into it, mostly just actually stringing movements together with a solid plan of where they needed to happen. We played with a couple turns onto centerline (easier on this creature than Henry – how?), halts through the walk (lol), and trying to make actual 20m circles at specific places (how round does a circle really have to be?). Then I tried the canter circles, which was… as challenging as I thought it would be. The transitions aren’t that terrible but his canter is still a bit all over the place so it’s definitely more like a wiggly unbalanced 23 meter oval. Theoretically it’s sorta close though. Not as bad as it could have been?

We threw some free walk across the diagonal in there too, which is more like a cross of him being like “oh thank god, a break” and “WHAT IS THAT OVER THERE THO? CAN WE GO SEE?”. Lazy sightseeing, maybe? There is a lot of room for improvement all around. BUT, I think we can actually put a test together that at least stays within the confines of the arena and executes the movements we’re supposed to, so there’s that. We finished up with a few baby leg yields and then called it a day after a total of 19 minutes.

His official opinion is “dis dumb”. He’s not sure why we have to do this silly stuff when we could just go hack around the field instead. He’s kind of at a fun point though when things are very slowly starting to click into place, but he’s been looking extra growthy again so I don’t want to push too much. Managing those giraffe limbs can’t be easy when your body is doing… whatever his body is doing.

It’s really funny riding him and then riding Henry, especially back to back. I’m not sure I could have two more opposite horses if I tried. They feel absolutely nothing alike.

I did finally get a response from one of the local saddle fitters, and she does have a few monoflap jump saddles in her demo lineup that I could try. I didn’t ask what brands or models because at this point I’m willing to try just about anything. I think she sells Adam Ellis, Black Country, and Albion though. Still waiting to hear back about an appointment, but hopefully next week. That’s the only development on that front.

Presto did have another exciting day this weekend, but we’ll talk about that tomorrow!

What a week, y’all. What. A. Week. There is a decidedly different feeling in the air though, and I’ve seen more positivity this week on social media than I’ve seen in literal years.

The inauguration was cool and all, but holy crap how mindblowing was Amanda Gorman? I’m sure everyone on earth has already seen the performance of her poem “The Hill We Climb”, but if not there’s video here and a transcript here. I had chills watching her, feeling like I was seeing history being made. What an incredible young woman. I am a bit of a poetry nerd (I have the last two lines of Invictus tattooed on my body, for god’s sake) and there’s been a bit of a void since my all-time favorite Maya Angelou passed away, but Ms. Gorman may have just stepped right in to fill it. I had to pre-order her debut book (direct from publisher here or Amazon here) and absolutely CANNOT WAIT to get it.

The other highlight was Garth Brooks, for sure. I have always been and will always be a Garth fan (quick – rank his top 3 songs! For me: The Red Strokes, Standing Outside the Fire, The River) but I did not know he was going to be there, nor would I have expected it in a thousand years, so it did my heart good to see him. Garth forever.

And then of course, the gift that has kept on giving after Inauguration Day: the Bernie memes. Omg the Bernie memes. They’re all over social media so I won’t post a ton, but I think this has to be my favorite non-horse one:

And my favorite horse one (courtesy of WTW):

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by WillowTreeWarmbloods (@willowtreewarmbloods)

Ok, anyway, enough of that stuff. Let’s pivot.

Speaking of WTW, since a lot of y’all are sort of invested in the babies after watching them grow up via the blog and social media, I’m excited to be able to say that Mari has found the perfect new home. She’s been sold to upper level eventer (and U25-er) Megan Sykes, who you can follow here. Megan was familiar with Mari already and liked her, and her team got together to purchase Mari for her as a surprise. The “unveiling” video was pretty cute.

Those two seem like a great match so I’m looking forward to watching what they can do together. And with that there are no more WTW sale horses left. Good thing we’ve got 7 foals coming?

Last but not least, pivoting off the baby event horse thing, the US Event Horse Futurity has officially starting posting the entries for the 2021 Futurity. They kicked it off with a familiar face

and will be posting horses every day until they’re all formally introduced. I think there are 18 or 20 this year so it should be a really good group. After they post everyone’s official intro photo they’ll get started posting the breeding vlogs for each horse in February. I already submitted mine so hopefully it’ll be one of the first posted again.

The Futurity does their own fan prizes throughout the year – for example the person with the most comments, or someone who shares the posts or likes a bunch of them, etc. They reward fan interaction, so please like and comment and share away. Aside from just the draw of winning stuff, any publicity you can help bring to the program is greatly appreciated. The two awesome ladies running the Futurity (who also have lots of other commitments) are working their butts off to help breeders, trainers, and US-bred horses, with no outside assistance or funding or PR from other organizations, so any kind of support really is greatly appreciated. The more we can spotlight our US-bred horses, the more it helps our breeders, which is a benefit to everyone here, not just the pros. And the more we spotlight our good US-based young horse trainers, the more we can help their businesses and get the horses in good hands right from the very start, which can benefit all of us in the long run too.

So with that in mind, I’m going to be offering my own little side prize as well. Each time there is a Presto post on the Futurity page, anyone who likes (or loves… I’m a big fan of those loves…) his post AND leaves a comment will get entered into a pot to win a “Presto’s favorites” prize package, to be given away at the culmination of the Futurity – basically a basket of items that Presto loves and fully endorses. If you SHARE a post, that will get you TWO additional entries for each one you share – just make sure the shared post is set to public on your privacy settings so that I can see you shared it. So that’s up to possible 3 entries for each Presto post. Only caveat to win is that you must be following the US Event Horse Futurity page. I also greatly encourage you to look at and like and comment on ALL the entrants pictures if you can, or if you feel so inclined. Your interactions with the page help bring it more attention and expand the audience, and that’s what we’re after. Plus, let’s give all the entrants some love – each and every one of these horses has been years of blood, sweat, and tears for someone, and they also represent someone’s big hopes and dreams. Sometimes just a simple handful of likes can make someone’s day, so please spread the love if and when you can.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Of all the stuff I’ve mentioned doing on here lately, I’m pretty sure the only thing I’ve actually accomplished is going in circles. Does that count as progress?

The first thing is the blog rebranding. Most names I ruled out immediately, and all the others I talked myself into and then subsequently out of. Maybe the problem is that I don’t love any of them. Maybe the problem is that if you let me overthink it too much, I won’t love any of them. I narrowed it down to Chance Events and BreederRiderEventer (or EventerRiderBreeder or RiderBreederEventer or… yeah that’s a rabbit hole I went down for a few days). But then I sat down and wrote out a list of questions for myself.

Does the title alone give the reader a good idea of what the blog might be about?

Chance Events – No / BreederRiderEventer – Yes

Is it generic enough to have longevity, without being too boring?

Chance Events – Yes / BreederRiderEventer – Yes

Is it applicable to ME/what I do?

Chance Events – Yes / BreederRiderEventer – Yes

Could there be any negative connotations?

Chance Events – Not really? / BreederRiderEventer – Maybe

Is the .com domain name available?

Chance Events – No / BreederRiderEventer – Yes

Are the social media handles available?

Chance Events – No / BreederRiderEventer – Yes

If you google it do you get a lot of random unrelated crap?

Chance Events – Yes / BreederRiderEventer – No

Based on those I ended up nixing Chance Events. It DOES sound like an event planner, and indeed there actually is an event planner in the UK and an event planning decor company in the US by that name. The social media handles are taken and lots of random stuff comes up when you google it.

But it’s not like BreederRiderEventer (or EventerRiderBreeder or RiderBreederEventer?) is particularly flawless either. Based on the questions I asked myself I definitely like it more – no one else is using it, not much comes up when you google, it clearly defines what to expect before you even scroll down. I think my lone sticking point is the word “breeder” for fear that it would garner some unfavorable visits. That word means something else to muggles. Then again, I asked a breeder friend who has a blog with “BREEDER” and “BREEDING” all over it like 9 million times and she said that other than a stray random comment here and there, which she just deletes, she hasn’t had any issue. I already get those randos here anyway, so that wouldn’t be anything new.

I tried about 9000 combinations and ways to make Bloodlines & _________ work, but I never found anything I really liked. For now BRE (or ERB or RBE) is the front runner. Obviously I haven’t actually taken any steps toward making any of the rebranding work happen though, because I can’t even get past the damn name.

I put that whole thing on the back burner, hoping that if I just let it simmer there for a little while I’ll come to a decision. We’ll see. Instead I’ve spent the last week throwing myself into the “Next Saddle for Presto” quest (Presto Questo? Help me it’s been a long week.).

I came out of the gate running and full of optimism. I emailed a few brand reps, a couple local fitters, and a few fitters from out of the area. While I waited for responses I started looking deeper into the monoflap jump saddles for the different brands they carried, making a list of ones I wanted to try, researching the different options, scouring the internet for them, and being an overall stalker. And then the days started to tick by, one after the next, and NOT A SINGLE PERSON RESPONDED TO ME.

Until yesterday that is, when one of the brand reps responded with a simple “I don’t have any monoflap demos”. That was it. The entire message, beginning middle and end. No “lets see if we can find one for you to trial” or “here’s someone else you could contact”. Nope. Just an “I don’t have one”. Um, ok. Cool then. Uh… thanks… I guess. I’ll just, um, see myself out?

Yesterday afternoon a fitter from DFW responded and said she’d tentatively be down here in about a month and could put me on her list, although it might be a awhile before she firms up her plans. I said that was fine and asked her to go ahead and pencil me in, since I’m not exactly lining people up to assist me at this point.

I’ve gone so far as to friend request these people on FB since I’m not getting responses from their websites or business pages. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s being really annoying.

I do have a few more people on my list to contact, the second tier choices, if I don’t hear back from the first ones. I suppose I’ll give it another week before I roll to plan B.

So, ya know… basically I’ve accomplished nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. But, um, it’s not for lack of trying I guess?