I feel like we really haven’t had enough Blog Hops in the past couple years. They’re fun, they usually offer a little bit of levity or good discussion points and it gives us bloggers some material, thus I think for 2021 we should have more of them. Except I’m kind of shit at coming up with topics, so… tag, someone else is it for the next one.
I did find myself musing about one particular relatively silly topic the other day though when I was cleaning stalls and listening to podcasts. They’re always brought to you buy some company or another, sometimes really random things that don’t even make logical sense with the theme of the podcast. But it got me thinking… if each of my horses had one big sponsor, which company could they best represent? Picture like NASCAR style branding. EVERYTHING covered with massive logos, casually whip out said item during post-show interviews (cuz, ya know, those are common…), be in commercials, etc etc. What product could each of them sell FOR SURE? What are they both super enthusiastic about?
They solve this problem by getting paid by Coke or Gatorade
Honestly, this was an easy one for me, they both popped in my mind instantly.
For Henry, without a doubt, it’s Little Debbie. Or more specifically, Oatmeal Creme Pies.
I buy a few boxes of these a month just to keep him in his pie habit. He LOVES them, and he demolishes them in a really satisfying way. I mean, the video of him ravaging a creme pie last year won us a dang bridle in an Instagram contest (ok, it technically won Presto a bridle which honestly sounds super jacked up now that I say it out loud). Lots of his online friends have gone out and bought creme pies to see if their horses like them too, so I have to think that surely Little Debbie has seen a sales bump over the last year. Henry is the perfect spokeshorse for the brand, if you ask me.
A runner up could be Pop-Tarts, he eats those the same way. In any case, his would definitely be some kind of sugary junk food. He doesn’t have enthusiasm for many things, but the boy loves snacks.
Presto’s should be relatively obvious by now too. I’m pretty sure that I’m currently this company’s number one customer, and the reason why this product among the top most popular products on Corro’s website.
I really wish I knew how many of these he’s sold by now. It’s gotta be dozens, at least. He’s a walking sales boom, not just because he makes these balls look so damn fun, but because he also destroys his own on the regular. He would def need that sponsorship. Lifetime supply of balls, please (which at this rate would be about one a week). Like Henry, Presto too is savage AF, but damn if he isn’t also hella entertaining in the process of completely disrespecting my hard-earned dollars. Show me a better salesman and representative than this (ok maybe it would be better if he didn’t so readily destroy them, but you definitely can’t say he lacks enthusiasm).
Plus, like, how funny would it be for all of his stuff to be branded with JOLLY MEGA BALLS all over it. Apropos. The audacity of that kid is off the charts.
its possible that I say this to him at least once a day
So what say you friends? What products or brands could your horses definitely sell and represent to the fullest? Like… big huge logo printed all over your trailer and everything. What would their (not yours, theirs) dream sponsorship be?
For real tho Little Debbie, hit me up. Henry looks good in a hat.
Well that long holiday weekend where I had envisioned lots of riding didn’t quite go to plan.
Dammit Henry
Really it started on the 30th. It rained for a solid 24 hours, and while we definitely needed it, it did mean that everything was too wet to ride for a couple days. Presto was absolutely climbing the walls from being stuck inside for a day, and when I turned them back out he was BANANAS. Henry made the mistake of trying to keep up with him which lasted about 5 minutes before Henry wrenched a shoe off and flung it into the next county. One of the front ones, of course. Luckily I have a deep collection of boots, so I texted the farrier (Happy New Year…. my horse lost a shoe…) and slapped a boot on it. On Saturday when the ring was dry enough I did hop on him for a few minutes with the boot, mostly just to stretch him out a bit. I thought about riding Presto on Saturday too, but given that he’d spent all morning galloping and bucking and spinning and squealing and leaping I thought maybe he needed another day to get all of his sillies out, and planned on riding them both on Sunday instead.
Presto spent pretty much all day doing this
which ended about how you’d expect
Instead I spent 8 hours at the small animal emergency vet clinic on Sunday.
On Saturday Stewie had a few brief moments where he kinda curled up into a ball and whined for a few minutes. He’s coming up on 16 years old, and he’s a mega anxious dog (he whines a lot), so behaviors like that aren’t necessarily super unusual for him. Aside from those brief moments he was still acting normal, still eating and drinking, and still happily trotting around the barn. But throughout the night it happened a few more times, and by lunchtime on Sunday he was pretty much just staying curled up in a ball. He also was having trouble lifting his head. Something definitely wasn’t right. I hopped online to find whatever emergency vets might be open, mapped the closest one, filled out their online request form, then called to get their official covid procedure speech. I loaded Stewie up, drove down there, called to let them know we’d arrived and what parking spot we were in, and proceeded to wait. And wait. And wait. An emergency vet in a big city on a holiday weekend is a busy place. It took almost two hours for them to come out and get him. Stewie hates car rides, he hates the vet, and he hates being separated from me, so poor dude was absolutely beside himself when they took him away.
After about another hour the vet called and said that she thought he had herniated a disc in his neck, and ran through all the diagnostics she recommended and how much they cost. I approved all of them (yes to the full blood panel before we prescribe him any meds, yes to whatever x-rays you want to do, and yes to any and all meds you think he needs) and she said she’d go ahead and do everything and get back to me in about an hour. By this point it was getting close to feeding time so I drove back out to the farm, brought the horses in, fed them, and drove back to the vet. She called me when I was about halfway back there and said that she didn’t see any evidence of tumors or anything in the neck/spine, but he did have reduced disc space and some beginning signs of Intervertebral Disk Disease in his neck, not super surprising since he’s got a little dachshund in him. It’s not particularly severe yet but it does make him prone to things like this. We’ll circle back to that with our regular vet once we get this herniated disc healed up a bit. His bloodwork looked good – very slightly elevated liver enzymes but nothing outside of the realm of normal for his age. She recommended an additional medication to help protect his liver from the other meds, which of course I also approved (can I just say that I think it’s fun how the small animal vets get permission even for all this little stuff – $30 – and quote prices up front? Horse vets are like beepbopboopwavemagicwandforfiveminutes “okay here’s your $2500 bill, want me to just use the card we have on file?” LOL).
$600 later – bag o’ drugs
She’d gone ahead and given him a dose of gaba as soon as I approved it, because apparently he was in full-on meltdown mode in the clinic by that point. That seemed to help chill him out and by the time they finished all his diagnostics he was much less anxious. She said he was ready to go home, so I got back to the clinic, parked, and called to let them know I was there for pick-up. The receptionist said that two very critical patients had just come in so it might be a little while before a tech was available, which was no problem. So I waited. And waited. And waited. It was two full hours before I saw a single person emerge from the building at all, and that was just to come grab another new arrival. It ended up being 3 1/2 hours before anyone was able to get to me, at which point it was well past my bedtime and I was almost asleep in my car. But finally Stewie did come out, and he definitely seemed much better than he had when I’d dropped him off. Of course, he trembled the entire way home anyway because he hates car rides, but once we got home he pretty much went straight to sleep.
The instructions are to keep him as immobile as possible, which is a sick joke with a JRT mix, no matter how old. If I crate him he goes absolutely ballistic, so I’ve mostly just barricaded a small area around his bed so that he doesn’t feel trapped but also can’t really go anywhere. The gaba is keeping him pretty quiet. I carry him in and out to go to the bathroom, and he’s not allowed back at the barn for a few weeks. He’s not thrilled. The meds are helping though, he feels better already, so hopefully he can get back to “normal” before too long.
Off to a good start, 2021. (insert heavy sarcasm here)
The farrier was able to come put Henry’s shoe back on yesterday morning, and yesterday afternoon I was able to sneak out long enough to get Presto ridden. It’s been over a month since I rode him in the arena, so we went in there to check in on how he’s feeling in a more proper environment.
I think the time out on the hills and in the fields is starting to help, he’s getting a bit steadier and stronger. Still a long way to go for sure, but there’s solid improvement. He’s really growthy again right now (stooooooppppp ittttttt) which always makes his parts a little less coordinated, but I’m pleased with how much more “broke” he feels in the ring. Like you can actually ride him a bit more. We’ll continue working mostly in the hills and fields for now, and add in some pole work days. I keep having every intention of riding him 3 days of week but I think that has yet to actually happen, for various reasons. In the past two weeks he’s only been ridden twice. I’d really like to up that so we can focus on building his hind end a bit more; I want him to be stronger by the time we start his jump training in a couple months. If life could stop getting in the way of me riding my horses, that would be great. It doesn’t help that this is our busiest time of year at work.
Today it’s Henry’s turn to get back to work. I dunno why he keeps insisting that he’s retired. He might look like a fat old broodmare but I swear he isn’t. Definitely has the right amount of sass for that job title though. Hopefully the first few days of 2021 weren’t foreshadowing of what’s to come…
There were A LOT of suggestions rolling in last week for a new blog title – lots more than I expected, so many thanks to y’all for putting on your thinking caps and helping me out.
I’ve narrowed it down to 5, an official “short list” if you will, and from here I’d like to whittle it down to 2 before we do a final vote. I’m in that place where I like all 5, don’t really LOVE one in particular more than the others, so I’d like input and opinions that might help sway me. They all have some pros and cons. Anyway, top 5, in no particular order:
BreederRiderEventer
Unbridled Eventer
Bloodlines, Bascules, and Bridles
Bloodlines and Bascules (or Bloodlines and Bridles?)
Chance Events
Please feel free to let me know which one like most, and/or if there’s one in particular that you really hate (and why! There might be a problem you see that I haven’t though of yet). I’ve tried to consider them from every possible angle but maybe I’m missing something. I’m probably overanalyzing this to the nth degree, but I want to make sure I really think about it before I just pick something and then end up hating it later.
And of course, thanks again for your continued assistance. I am bad at decisions.
Some of y’all are out here with some BOLD New Year’s posts. Like…. y’all are making goals and plans and resolutions. I wish I had that level of bravado, but truth be told I’m still worried that 2021 is just going to be 2020: The Sequel. I’ll be skipping all that goal-setting and plan-making stuff this year, lest I anger the beast that is 2021. I mean, my 2020 Plans post was mostly about all the traveling I planned to do. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Ha. ha. *sobbing*
So, yeah… I’m just gonna welcome 2021 with caution and try not to do anything to spook it. I did take some pics of the boys in some festive headwear though, because why not. Let’s just say, though, I hope ’21 behaves better than the horse who was wearing the 21 headband…
So… Happy New Year I guess? Maybe Cautiously Optimisic New Year?
I usually pick one item every year to win my own personal “MVP” award, whether it be as simple as an awesome hoofpick (look, anyone who’s kept horses on black clay soil knows how important those are) or as complicated as a helmet camera. 2020 was a challenging year to say the least, the ripple effect of the pandemic making for a pretty quiet and solitary year on the horse front. For an active blogger the lack of horse shows, lessons, xc schoolings, and general “fun” outings made it difficult to come up with content sometimes. And when you’re like me and ride alone 99.9% of the time, the lack of outings or social events also meant that it would be super challenging to get any of kind of pictures or video. No one wants to read blog posts with no pictures or video, right? Enter: Pivo.
I’ve talked enough about the ins and outs of this thing by now that I won’t bore you with any of that. There are a lot of old posts you can go read if you missed them the first time through.
Look, is Pivo perfect? Hell no. New software releases can be buggy sometimes. It has a lot of limitations. There is a learning curve. It needs a relatively new phone and works better with iPhones than Androids. Pivo is very much still a work in progress, something to be expected from relatively new technology. For me, though, it’s been magical. Without that little pod I would have had very few photos or videos this year at all, and next to no footage of Presto period. Not only has it been a great learning tool, but it’s also captured some really big “firsts” that I’m delighted to have on film. I can watch my rides and see how the horses are looking and pick out things for us to work on. The education value has been super helpful for me. Plus, ya know… the fails. Those are priceless too.
I mean, it really paid for itself with this one alone, didn’t it?
For as cheap as it is ($140 for the Silver) it’s made such a big impact. Not everyone can justify dropping $800+ on a Pixem or a Soloshot, myself included, but a Pivo can be worked into just about any budget and it’s a lot easier to set up for those of us who are lazy or perpetually short on time (or holding a baby horse that has the attention span of a gnat). I still have absolutely no guilt and zero regrets about that particular quarantine splurge, and it’s definitely gotta be my 2020 MVP. It’s provided entertainment, insight, and memories… hard to beat that.
What was your favorite purchase in 2020? Any must-have items that would make your MVP list?
breedrideevent.com 