Can y’all believe we’re still debating helmet usage in 2020? I thought we’d moved past the aversion to helmets thing in the past decade or so, but then I saw the article on Dressage News about all the top level dressage riders who had signed a petition in response to FEI’s upcoming 2021 rule requiring helmets for all disciplines. The petition was these riders’ attempt to get the FEI to continue allowing them to wear top hats in competition if they so choose.

My first response was an eyeroll. The h/j world went through something similar almost 20 years ago when they started requiring helmets instead of hunt caps. Things were a lot different then in regards to helmets and how widely-used they were. Back in those days a lot of us wore those hunt caps with the snap-on harnesses, and as a junior it was kind of a right of passage to finally be able to unsnap that harness and show without it (juniors had to have a harness on their ridiculous hat). The approved helmet rule went into effect the year I moved into Adults, and I definitely remember how salty everyone was about it at first, myself included, even though I can look back now and say that it was 110% the right thing to do and I’m glad they did it. Within a couple years pretty much everyone had quit their bitching and look at how far that world (and eventing) has come in regards to their views on rider safety. Honestly I don’t think it would have evolved on it’s own nearly as much if people had the option. Plenty of folks would STILL be out there wearing those silly hunt caps. How many people have been saved from injury by now because of that rule?

Still though, I didn’t get much past my initial eyeroll until I clicked into the article and read the actual petition.

“There has never been a serious accident at an international dressage competition, and the riders believe there is no reason to change that for senior competitors at CDI4*/5*, Games and championships on Grand Prix level.”

Huh. This is an interesting argument. We know of several big time dressage folks that have been seriously injured at home in very silly accidents, but I guess since it hasn’t happened YET on the world stage with everyone watching and bearing witness, it’s fine. I have not yet been in a car accident serious enough to deploy my airbags, thus there’s no real need to put them in the car. Sorry but “not yet” is a ridiculous argument.

“The top hat is an essential part of the identity of dressage.”

I feel like Charlotte Dujardin managed to nail down the “identity of dressage” just fine without it? If an essential part of your identity as a sport is based on a hat that makes you look like a butler from the 1800’s, it miiiight be time to re-assess priorities.

“It should be noted that there are other disciplines that are not required to wear helmets, and we feel that this inequality is not warranted”

Ah yes, the classic “but THEY don’t have to, it’s not FAIR!” argument. Good one. Although the only sport that will be exempt from the new helmet rule is vaulting, so…

“We believe it is the right of each individual rider to choose between the use of a top hat or protective headgear. This right cannot be revoked.“

Honestly this one kind of just made me crack up when you think of it in regards to rules. They tell you what color boots you can wear, what kind of coat, which tack, what bits, how long your whip can be, how big a logo on your saddle pad can be… but a top hat is THE “right” that cannot be revoked? Of all the absolutely ridiculous and asinine rules that DO exist already, the FEI finally passes one that attempts to increase safety and that’s the one people are petitioning about? The butler hat is really the hill they want to die on (no pun intended)? I also have a problem with the whole “personal choice” argument when the person wearing said top hat isn’t actually the only person that could be affected by their choice. What about all the people close to you, your friends and family, that now have to take care of you and everything else in your life after an accident because you just had to wear a top hat? What good does it do for the sport if you fall off and crack your skull open in the middle of a big event packed with spectators, televised or on a live stream? How does that story circulating in the media help anyone at all?

By the time I made it to the bottom of the petition I was embarrassed for the people that wrote it. It’s bad. It’s cringey. I thought “omg who in their right mind would sign this?”. Turns out, A LOT OF PEOPLE. OMG SO MANY PEOPLE. People I had a lot of respect for. Carl Hester? Kasey Perry-Glass (this one was extra confusing to me, because she’s been pretty pro-helmet)? Many of the 150 people on the list are sponsored by helmet companies, even. Not a good look, y’all. These are the people that our young riders look up to, the people who set an example for others. What kind of message do you want to be putting out into the world at the moment when all eyes are upon you?

I think it’s odd how equestrians are always so desperate to be taken seriously as a sport, especially on the world stage such as the Olympics, but attempts to modernize us a bit or even just make us look more like serious athletes is met with such resistance. I have a hard time imagining other sports being so anti-safety equipment. The football player saying “No, please don’t give me this fancy new helmet with the latest safety technology, I want to wear that weird leather cap thing because tradition!” would never happen. Can you imagine a NASCAR driver writing a letter with “my daddy didn’t run moonshine in a car with a HANS device, I ain’t gonna use one neither!”? In the cycling world (which I have had one foot in for a while) they’re crawling over top of each other to acquire and wear the latest safety technology – MIPS is old news to them, they’ve been utilizing that technology for over a decade. It’s a source of pride any time there’s something new and better, and something the media loves to talk about any time these sports are in the spotlight.

Have we not learned a lot by now? Have we not progressed in our view of the sport as an actual SPORT, one that requires safety measures? Have we really not figured out the importance of helmets by now? There’s a point at which clinging to tradition is detrimental – not just for the safety of the participants but also for the forward progression of the sport itself. I think we’re at that point. Put down the top hat, put it in your display case or something as a memory of a bygone era, and let’s move forward to better things. The loss of one antiquated item of apparel seems a small price to pay for all there is to gain.

(Also, your butler hat looks ridiculous in the modern era. Especially you male eventers with the really really tall ones that make it look like you’re compensating for something. There, I said it.)

As I mentioned last week, we’ll no longer be using the words “t!ny” and “h0use” together in these posts, since it attracts waaaaay too many random hits, comments, and emails. I can’t deal with it. The past week has already been enough to where I’m having dreams about glow in the dark worms crawling into my pores or being chased by Trump around a Sam’s Club with some kind of chemical weapon in a spray paint can and only Chris Christie and the Scooby Doo gang for protection. Clearly I’m stretched to my mental capacity.

But anyway, the house is aaaaalmost ready to be lived in. It got leveled and set and anchored last week (which mostly just made me realize that nothing ever looks level to my eye, even when it absolutely is) and they installed the back porch fan, back screen door, all the other drawers, etc. The next thing to tackle was the electric, which is a very long story that I’m still far too traumatized to re-tell. Short version: it took two days, a lot of bruises, more expletives than even I knew I possessed, a tractor, an electrician (who is himself most of the story), and I learned waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more about electricity than I ever thought I would possibly need or care to know. When those lights finally came on at 11pm on Friday night, I could not possibly have been more relieved (yet also totally dead inside by that point).

On Saturday the SO came out to see it for the first time, and we finished unwrapping the appliances and looking at all the measurements for furniture options. We wanted a sofa with a chaise, but we also want a lift-top coffee table that can do double duty as an eating spot, and the reality is that we just can’t fit both without entirely filling up the room with furniture. So I think we’ll have to forego the chaise. We don’t have one on either of our couches now, so it’s not a huge loss. We also went up to Lowe’s and got a few big stepping-stone pavers to put in front of the stairs so that I stop tracking so much dirt in there on my quick trips in and out. Eventually we’ll put a little pea gravel walkway down, but the pavers were a quick and cheap temporary solution.

On Sunday we finally did a “giveaway day”. By this point I’ve donated 14 big black lawn bags of clothes/shoes/bags/small items over the last few weeks, but there was still a lot of random decor, books, small appliances, christmas stuff, rugs, a couple old rickity rocking chairs, bigger household items (like a couple hampers, an old vacuum, etc), and that kind of stuff left over that I didn’t really want to have to haul away to donate because it would have been several loads in the truck. So instead we put all that stuff in boxes, put up a FREE STUFF ad on Marketplace and Next Door, and let people just have at it. There were some good little gems in there, but nothing was really worth enough on it’s own to bother selling, and it definitely wasn’t worth enough collectively to justify having a garage sale during covid. All the stuff left in the house that IS worth selling (which isn’t much, mostly furniture) can go on Marketplace individually. But anyway, we put everything out with a sign and just left it there, and within 45mins everything was gone. Massively easy, and hopefully people got some stuff that made their day. It definitely made me feel a lot better to just have it all out of the house and off my list of problems.

Yesterday I made the 5-hour round trip drive up north to pick up our gray tank (and rolled over 150k miles in my truck in the process). I had to wait an hour at the place for someone to be available to load it, because they were busy loading HUGE tanks onto big trailers. It was a little frustrating because I could literally see my little tank sitting there just on the other side of the fence. But it was fine, once they got to me it took all of one minute to plop it in the back of my truck, I secured it with ratchet straps, and off we went back to the farm to drop it off.

I had measured and re-measured 4 times before ordering to be sure I got something that fit nicely under the back of the house, and it slid right in there like it was made for the space. Thank the lord. Later this week we’ll get everything hooked up to it. The water is hooked up at the house now too, so… I think we’re reeeaaally close to having a livable space. Hook up the tank, install the turdburner toilet…. then I think we’re there. After that stuff is done I’ll need to figure out getting WiFi service and skirting/back stairs, but those things aren’t quite as urgent as everything else, obviously.

Once the major stuff is settled and done, we’ll move on to acquiring the furniture and decorating. My brain just can’t quite handle that yet. All I really need in order to live there is a bed, which we’re moving from our house, and a few kitchen items, which will probably also move from our house, and towels, which I need to buy. The rest of the stuff can slowly be added as we go. I have some ideas, and a lot of stuff saved in Favorites. There’s not really much to acquire besides the sofa, coffee table, rugs, new bathroom towels, a couple items for the kitchen, and then whatever we decide to put in the reading nook and on the back porch. Ok, confession, I did already buy one of those hanging egg chairs for myself. It was on sale.

I can’t help it, I love the porch so much and I can’t wait to sit in that thing with a book and look out at the ponies. The porch is for sure the best spot to be.

Today I’m taking a quick pause from all things house because I’ve GOT to catch up on all the work I’ve missed over the past several days. I’ve been logging in early and late to get the bare necessities done, but everything else is piling up fast.

Hopefully next week everything will be done and ready to go and we can proceed to talking about move-in and furniture/decor, which I’m sure will probably be more interesting than all of this not-very-fun stuff. And hopefully I stop having insane, anxiety-filled, trippy AF dreams. That would be cool too.

First off – I know, I know, I missed Foal Friday last week. Many apologies, and no I’m not dead, but truth be told I’m insanely busy right now and sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Unfortunately when that happens the blog is the first thing to go by the wayside. I have some posts half-done, including foal stuff and Pau analysis, but I’ve had zero time to sit down and finish. It’s coming, I promise.

Until then, I have a practical, more pressing issue.

My beloved barn boots have been on their way out for a few months now but the insanity of the past week has been their real coup de grace. They’re falling apart more and more by the hour at this point, and I need new boots like yesterday. I’m not 100% convinced I want to go with Blundstones again though, I feel like these didn’t last me as long as my previous pair. I don’t pay much attention to the paddock boot market so I’m not sure if there’s anything similar out there that I should try this time instead.

Here’s what I want:

• ankle height
• pull on with elastic sides
• brown
• good tread
• can take a beating – I muck stalls and dredge through mud in these things
• not stupidly expensive
• comfy for all day wear
• not narrow in the footbed or toe

Give me your recommendations please!

I’m off for another full day, hopefully things will be more normal around here by tomorrow.

Note to self: must not use the words “T!ny” and “H0me” in a post together, much less a post title. I get 9 bajillion hits every time, most of which are people who typically never read this blog and found their way here because of those keywords and want to ask me a bunch of questions via my contact page email (it BLEW UP) that google could easily answer. I’m not into it. At all. Henceforth those posts shall be titled “THT” and the house will just be referred to as like… or “the mini abode” or “the diminutive dwelling” or “the petite palace” or… I don’t know. Anything. Anything but those two words. I can’t keep using the T word with the H word, I don’t need that kind of headache.

So, um, as you can probably tell, I’m wound a little tight right now with the house stuff. I have A LOT to get done in the next two weeks and I’m majorly stressing. I didn’t have a lot of time to dedicate to this post today because I have a million other things to do, so my apologies. BUT I did want to take a second to show y’all a really cool Instagram giveaway that I’m cohosting, in case you haven’t seen it yet. I had a vague idea of putting together something to encourage/reward our fellow equestrians for voting, and luckily was able to find two equally enthusiastic cohosts that helped develop the idea and get it off the ground. We were lucky to find a bunch of amazing brands that were equally enthusiastic about the cause to throw in toward the prize pack, too! First, the prizes:

It’s easy to enter too, you just have to 1) follow all the hosts/brands (you should follow them anyway, they’re great people and super generous), 2) tag a couple people in the comments, 3) post a photo to your Instagram feed with #equestriansvote. Easy peasy.

Here are the guidelines for the photos:

-Take a pic with your “I voted” sticker

-Take a pic dropping your sealed ballot in the mail (NOT of the ballot itself – sealed and with any sensitive/personal information covered)

-If you’re too young to vote or voted super early & didn’t take a pic, write “I will vote for (or voted for) ______” on a sign & fill in an ISSUE you’re passionate about (i.e. education, women’s rights, etc), NOT a candidate. We want to know what motivates you the most! Take a pic with the sign.

You can involve a horse in your photo or not, it’s up to you. Have fun with it! In addition to the main winner, we will also have two additional winners that get a monogrammed Majyk Equipe fly mask.

See this post for full entries rules/details. It’s open through voting day, but I know many people are voting early, so go ahead and get your photos in!

View this post on Instagram

Election Day is just around the corner! 🇺🇸 One of the greatest privileges of living in a democracy is having your voice heard via the voting booth. Myself, @modernequestrian & @brittsabbah put together an 𝐀𝐖𝐄𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐆𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐘 to reward 3️⃣ lucky winners for exercising their right to vote! _____ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐙𝐄 𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐚𝐠𝐞, 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐭 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 $𝟏,𝟎𝟎𝟎: @MajykEquipe full set (front & hind) of brown leather jump boots in M/L or Cob/Pony @Decopony custom stall plaque @LevadeKentucky vintage varsity sweatshirt @TheHerbalHorse Horse & Rider gift basket @BoyoBoyBridleworks custom Double Square Loop belt @MareGoods “Badass” necklace & Mindfilly band @SilverOaksFarm tee of winner’s choice @DreamersnSchemersSocks 4 pairs of socks @Mane.Jane.Eq spur straps @Callingallhorsegirls water bottle & pin @Huntsmen_and_Hounds Mini Clutch $100 CASH 💵 (Winner’s choice of Venmo or digital Visa card) _____ 𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 will each receive a @MajykEquipe monogrammed fly mask! _____ How to enter: 1. Follow giveaway hosts @the900facebookpony , @modernequestrian , @brittsabbah 𝐀𝐍𝐃 all brands above. 2. Tag 2 friends in the comments who may be interested in this giveaway. 3. Then choose one of the following (swipe to see the hosts’ examples): -Take a pic with your “I voted” sticker, post it & use hashtag #equestriansvote OR -Take a pic dropping your sealed ballot in the mail, post it & use hashtag #equestriansvote OR -If you’re too young to vote or voted super early & didn’t take a pic, write “I will vote for (or voted for) ______” on a sign & fill in an ISSUE you’re passionate about (i.e. education, women’s rights, etc), NOT a candidate. We want to know what motivates you the most! Take a pic with the sign, post it & use hashtag #equestriansvote *** Giveaway is 𝐧𝐨𝐧-𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐧. Entries including a candidate’s name will not be considered. *** Horses don’t have to be included in your pics, but we’d love if they were! 🐴 Giveaway closes on 11/5/2020 at 11:59pm PST to give time to those voting on Election Day to get entries in. Winners chosen & announced on 11/6/2020.

A post shared by The $900 Facebook Pony (@the900facebookpony) on Oct 19, 2020 at 7:31am PDT

If you have any questions feel free to DM me. I’d love to see a reader win this contest!

I feel like I’ve spent Presto’s entire life obsessing over his condition. He’s been a scrawny, rangey, skeletor-type kid since the word go, and I kind of feel like we’ve always been playing catch-up, in a way. I don’t know if it’s all his thoroughbred, the fact that he’s been pretty fast-growing, or if this is just him, or if there’s some kind of lingering effect of all his digestive-system-related problems early on in life, but keeping condition on this horse has always been a challenge. Over the years I’ve run just about every test on him that you can imagine, never quite satisfied. He’s never looked BAD, but he’s just never looked truly GREAT either. I have an actual spreadsheet where I’ve logged and broken down all of his feed and nutrition information over the years, trying to find just the right formula.

To be fair, it does seem to come and go a bit with his growth spurts. He always thins out when he’s growing, and because he is such a blooded horse, he doesn’t naturally have very much in the way of natural muscle bulk. I’ve always hoped that this would improve with age, and it definitely has, especially since I started riding him lightly.

I also don’t believe in throwing a ton of concentrated feed at a horse, especially a warmblood baby. That’s just asking for issues. And when he was boarded, while he did have access to grass and hay, it wasn’t nearly as much as I would have ideally wanted. I did what I could, buying him premium feeds and extra fats and extra hay and making sure everything was balanced, but y’all know how it is when you board – there’s only so much you can control.

Now that Presto is “at home” I’ve had a lot more leeway with what I can feed him, and he has 24/7 access to grass and/or good quality hay. I also switched both of my horses over to a top of the line feed, and added flaxseed oil to Presto’s. It definitely helped some – Henry’s grain amount has been cut in half, and Presto has held his weight better. Still though… never quiiiiiiite the kind of condition that makes you feel really pleased. You know what I mean.

I’ve never been much of a supplements person, I always start at the roughage and then add a super high quality (and low NSC, high fat) feed, and I strongly believe those two things are by far the most important basis for a horse’s diet. I have a bit of a grumpy grumbly old man response when it comes to supplements, a distrust that runs deep enough to where you might hear me mumble something that sounds a lot like “snakeoil salesmen” and “show me the non-biased research”. Henry and Presto both have been on various powders and potions over the years, me trying things out here and there, but none of them have made any real noticeable difference. The barn owner is a long-time user and big fan of the Platinum Performance line, which admittedly I have always heard really good things about and her horses definitely look great, but with boarding two horses that supplement line has also always felt a bit hard to swallow budget-wise. They aren’t cheap.

There have always been a couple little niggly things with each horse that have continued to bother me a little though. Henry’s a walking Mr. Sensitive. Like if you look at him wrong his hair will fall out, or he’ll break out in hives, or his butt will start flaking off, or he’ll have an allergic reaction to like… dirt or whatever. Tres sensitive. And with Presto, it’s always been just that little lack of truly great condition. Not-quite-shiny. Not-quite-thriving. You guys know what I mean, when a horse seems 95% of the way to “great” but you just can’t seem to bridge that final gap.

The BO and I got to talking about supplements one day when she had let one of her mares’ supplements lapse and noticed a difference really quickly. The more we talked the more I was kinda like… ya know what… I’m in a place right now where I can afford to drop a little bit of money on one of the few things left that I haven’t tried – let’s just see what happens. I mean, worst case scenario I was out a couple hundred bucks right? WHAT THE HELL ELSE IS NEW WITH HORSES.

It’s been about a month now and honestly? They both look great. Presto especially. He’s on Platinum Performance Equine and Platinum Balance, and Henry is on Platinum CJ. I haven’t noticed quite as much difference in Henry yet… I do think his skin and coat look nicer/shinier, but granted there was not as much room for improvement with Henry, he already looked pretty good. Presto though… wow. Despite already having a good start to his winter hair, his coat is looking the best it ever has. He is SHINY, the hair itself feels different, and he’s rounding out a bit. Not in a fat kind of way, but in a topline kind of way. My skeptical side wants to pipe up and say that he’s rounding out because we’re heading into the time of year where his growth rate slows down, and he’s getting older, but even if both of those things are entirely responsible for the change, he’s still shiny AF. I can’t even tell you the last time I gave this horse a soap bath, nor have I touched him with a shine spray. Shit, he only gets groomed once or twice a week. He’s about as filthy and au natural as you can get right now. I was watching him yesterday though, while the crew was there to level the house, and I was like DAMN. Who dat horse???

Kind of can’t wait to see what he looks like after I bathe and clip him.

The Platinum supplements have earned themselves an extension for sure. I’m not quite 100% sold on it for Henry yet but the difference in Presto over the past couple weeks has been pretty undeniable. I’m finally feeling pretty pleased with his condition. I don’t know if it’s the Equine or the Balance or the combination of both. I don’t know if it’s the extra vitamins or extra fats (he was already getting a lot of both between his feed and flax oil) or if the digestive assistance is helping his body utilize the rest of his diet better. Maybe a combo of everything. Either way, I’m not going to question it. If this is what it takes to give him that last little bump towards THRIVING, count me in. Bye money.