Presto is sooooooo close to being a big boy. Well… in stature he’s already got it covered, but I mean in age. Four years old is tantalizingly close. And while in the realm of the riding horse 4 years old is the babiest of babies, in the baby horse world, it’s graduation age. Like “welcome to real life, you’re an adult!”.  I’m trying not to get too excited about it because in reality he’s not even 3 1/2 yet and I know the next 7 months until he’s officially FOUR are going to drag, but still. 

And I will say this, if all the covidiots rambling about their freedumb end up ruining my horse’s 4yo year by getting everything cancelled again, I might consider a career change to assassin. If I don’t get me some Coconino next year, heads are gonna roll.

But I’m living in the land of happiness and denial, and pretending that 2021 will be totally fine, and Presto will get to go to some horse shows. Just… give me this. So when the video of Henry demolishing an oatmeal cream pie won an Instagram contest that garnered us a Halter Ego gift card, it took me about .5 seconds to decide what to get. 

Look, I gave away two other bridles, stop judging me. Also, it’s SO PRETTY.

See, I figured that most likely Presto will spend his first year doing the dressage in jump tack, because that tends to be easier, but all of my brown bridles are either bitless or figure 8’s or partly green or too small for this beast’s noggin. So I wanted to get him a pretty brown bridle. When I saw the Olympia, I knew it was the one. I loves me a chonky noseband with slightly darker padding. THIS was a big boy bridle, for sure.

I did take the standard browband (brown with clear crystals) off and put his spikey Dark Jewel Designs browband on it though. There is nothing that says PRESTO more than that browband and I’m just as obsessed with it as I was when I got it. I ordered the bridle with stainless hardware specifically so that it would match his spikes. It pleases me deeply. Gorgeous bridle, badass browband… it just works. I’ve decided that the overall look is called “Posh Punk”. Posh bridle, punk browband.

I’ll review the bridle at some point eventually. It occurs to me that I need to do like one big bridle review post because I don’t think I said much about most of them… at least not Presto’s QHP or Henry’s La Cense, the other two latest additions. I did take a picture of the Halter Ego bridle next to my PS of Sweden hackamore, so you could see color and leather comparison.

He will probably mostly wear his green QHP bridle at home though, that’s his designated schooling bridle, and we’ll keep the Halter Ego nice for special occasions. Presto tends to scratch or break anything you put on or near his head, and I’d hate to have to strangle him with his pretty new bridle.

While Presto has been getting fancy big boy things, I’ve remained unable to stop dyeing my riding clothes. There isn’t much left that I haven’t gotten to yet. But I did have a couple that I’d already done and wanted to change, one of which being the light blue shirt that I’d dyed with RIT. It was fine, but not as good as the ones I’d dyed with Jacquard (RIT’s pigmentation is weak sauce in comparison), and I kind of wanted to play around with some dye techniques. 

My original idea was to do an ombre, and I had a plan of action all figured out and everything. I wanted to go from a pale blue down to a deep, more french blue, so I bought some navy dye. I got my water ready, put just a little bit of the powder in to start with (like… not even half a tablespoon), and got ready to do the first dunk. The plan was to start with lighter colored dye water, dunk the whole thing, add a little more pigment to the dye water, dunk 2/3, add a little more pigment, dunk the bottom third. 

But as I was standing there, about to wet the shirt and then lower it into the pot, I was like… hmmm… I wonder…

Originally I would have loved to tie-dye one, but this fabric and the way it needs to be dyed doesn’t really lend itself well to that technique. But I wondered what would happen if I just balled the dang thing up, got it partially wet, and then dunked it quickly in the dye water. Would that give me the splotchy look?

Figured it was worth a try, if it didn’t work or I hated it, I could always go back to my original ombre idea. So I balled it up, ran it under the faucet, and then dropped it into the pot. I gave the ball of fabric one little swishy stir and then quickly fished it back out with my tongs. It was in there for all of maaaaybe 8 seconds at most. 

It has almost a stonewashed look, and I kinda dig it. It’s not tie-dye, but in the same realm. I think it’s neat, and unique anyway. You can buy an ombre shirt, but I haven’t seen one like this. I went ahead and washed it and waited for it to try before I decided for sure.

In the meantime, I still had a pot full of dye water that had been barely used. Seemed like kind of a waste. So off I went into my closet, looking for something else that might want to be blue. Then I spotted my Kerrit’s Ice Fill tights, which were “navy” but a brighter/lighter tone than I prefer. I checked the tag and they are indeed mostly nylon, so I went back to my pot, added a little more pigment, and in went the tights. I was hoping I could get them to a nice deep navy. Twenty minutes later I pulled them out, washed them, waited for them to dry, and voila!

It worked really well, they’re a much deeper navy now. Which is good to know, because I do like the Ice Fil tights, but Kerrit’s has some absolutely god awful heinous color choices. Turns out they can be quite easily changed.

I still have most of the jar of navy pigment left, plus most of the jar of the pink I used for the dusty pink shirt. And some green coming, so I can try to fix that hideous bright turquoise that I did and hate. But I’m out of riding clothes to dye at this point. Which is sad, because it’s kind of fun. Who knew this would be such a slippery slope…

 

Well, this is happening almost four months later than originally planned, but this week we’re FINALLY finalizing all our paperwork for the tiny home order. In the end I think the timing worked out okay… we’re able to put more $ down, and we got a great rate for financing. The only bummer is that with covid and all of it’s repercussions, the build time has doubled from 5 weeks to 10 weeks. That takes away basically aaaalll of our “cushion” time that we were hoping to have, which gets my nerves rattling a bit. But it is what it is, so hopefully it’ll work out fine.

We went back up to the builder a couple weekends ago hoping to walk out with everything done, but I didn’t realize that their financing guys didn’t work on the weekends. And of course a few days before we got there they had sold the one we really wanted to see right off the lot. It was kind of irritating at the time, although we did get to see a different version of that model (that they didn’t have last time we were there) and look at all the options again in person. Which… I tweaked one of the standard floor plans a bit and we changed our minds on some colors and appliance options after the fact, so… not a wasted trip. But it does make all the paperwork and back-and-forth take longer since we’re having to do it via email. The dealer is over 3 hours away and the SO can’t get off work during the week for the foreseeable future (apparently luxury car repairs and upgrades are BIG BUSINESS right now for whatever reason, they’re super busy) so another trip up there in person just isn’t in the cards. It is what it is. We submitted all of our final options/floor plan approvals this morning, so now we just await the all the final paperwork. Hopefully we’ll get everything completed and submitted in the next day or two so we can get this show on the road.

In the end we couldn’t get everything we wanted, because it pushed us over the price point I wanted to stay under. We had to prioritize and compromise, but I think we still made something really cool and functional.

This particular house was our “inspiration” I guess you could say. We liked almost everything about it. We changed most of the colors, the style of the front porch, some of the appliances, tile/backsplash/countertop, and a couple of door locations. More specifically, the exterior will be gray and white, like this one (different model, but you get the idea):

We went with a plain galvalume (so “silver”) roof because the color options were crippling and it’s literally the only one we could agree on. That’s kind of the story for all of the colors involved here. SO really likes a white, red, orange color palate and I really like a blue, purple, green color palate. The only thing we both like is gray and black. So, there’s a lot of gray. And we decided to paint the exterior of the front door black. He wanted red, I tried to compromise with burgundy, but the only thing we both liked was black. I have a black horse head door knocker that I think will look really cool on a black door. It’s like… goth farmhouse. (gray house black door. There’s something a little bit Addam’s Family about it and I’m here for it.)

The inside walls are white with gray trim, like in our inspiration house. The flooring is a grayish tone – “Fumed Oak” (again, same as in the inspiration house):

The cabinets are painted gray (again, same as inspiration house)

The countertop is “mercury vesta”. I liked the splotchy rain look.

We went a little bold with the backsplash at the last minute, opting for matte black tile. I wasn’t in love with any of their other options (which were basically gray, cream, and tan) but when I googled “black backsplash” I dunno, I just really liked the look. Plus it ties in with the front door. There’s very little actual backsplash space, between the kitchen and the bathroom, so it’ll just end up being a touch of black. I went through like a billion pics trying to find someone else that has put in the black backsplash option in one of these tiny homes and I couldn’t find one. Had to go with my gut on that one, hopefully I’m right in how I’m picturing it.

The shower tile is Platinum

and the exterior decking is gray (the only options were gray and brown so stop judging all my gray right now).

We “splurged” on the upgraded stainless appliances (dishwasher, full size french door fridge with bottom freezer drawer, microwave, oven) and on the porches. Specifically the back porch, which we opted to fully screen, like our inspiration house. It was the most expensive thing we did, but it gives us a really nice indoor/outdoor space (and a “bonus” 150 sq ft, since porch spaces don’t count as actual square footage). SO got a tv jack out there, it’ll be wired for a ceiling fan, we’ll have space for a table and chairs… basically like a little sunroom. The cats and dogs can both hang out there too.

We also added a little reading nook up in the loft (again, like in our inspiration house). Since it’s only 399 square feet and one bedroom, and we both like having personal space, we tried to give the house as many good usable spaces as possible. The fancy fridge and all the tv jacks were SO’s splurge items, and mine were a fancy deep stainless sink with pimped out faucet (because I love me a good sink), USB ports in one of the kitchen outlets (so I can charge all my shit without having to go find several plug adapters) and a transom window above the front door (so I can put up a stained glass panel).

The things I changed from the layout of the inspiration house were: 1) only 1 bathroom door. Honestly, I’d rather the bathroom be more private and not connect to the bedroom. I don’t really need the toilet to be 8′ away from the bed and separated only by a little pocket door, thanks. Give me a solid wall. 2) I moved the location and style of the closet door. Now it’s a pocket door that opens on the “hallway” side by the back door, rather than a regular door that opens on the bedroom side. This is because we have a California King, and that bed is gonna be TIGHT in that room as it is. It will be much easier, and better flow, to access the closet from the hall side.

Because we did spend so much on the rear porch, we had to sacrifice some little things, like a super fancy front load washer/dryer, upgrades on the tile or countertops, the rain shower head, fancier stair and railing options, etc. Little things that we were okay giving up in order to have that awesome screened porch.

This is the first time either of us have ever built something for ourselves, and it was kinda hard to choose, even with relatively limited options. But in the end I think we’ve made a pretty functional space, and something that will be comfortable to live in despite the small size. We’ll see in a few months I guess! Let the adventure begin…

Hurricane Hanna hit south Texas this past weekend, and while Austin is too far inland and north to have really felt any hurricane effects, she did bring us some much needed rain and a break from the triple digit temps. I dunno about y’all but it feels like it’s been summer for about 8 years now and we’re only halfway through it.

Since they weren’t quite sure how much rain we were going to get from this, I switched up the horse’s schedule a bit in the preceding days. Presto got ridden on Wednesday, and they both got worked on Friday just in case it was too wet on the weekend. On Wednesday, Presto went for another hack out to the back. Ride #20! Feels like some kind of milestone. Honestly pretty thrilled with where he’s at after 20 rides, especially considering how slowly we’ve been going. Most horses have 20 rides within their first month or so of being started, but he’s 5 months under saddle now. He’s gradually getting stronger and more confident, which was the plan with this approach, without making him sore or tired or sour or overwhelmed.

For his hack I got on him at the barn and rode straight out again, no lunge or arena riding first. He had a lot of pep in his step, and he behaved, aside from one genuine honest-to-god spook when something moved in the bushes. That’s the first time he’s really spooked under saddle, and it was mostly just funny. He did a very obvious wind-up to where I knew what was coming, and then he just spun around in a pretty darn balanced pirouette. I was barely even jostled. Considering that Henry’s spooks are more like teleporting 15′ away with little to no notice, Presto’s was fairly adorable.

We walked back to the scary bush, made a couple circles, and then carried on. He got over it immediately and that was the end of it. I was pleased with that. Horses are gonna spook sometimes, that’s just the nature of the beast, what’s more important to me is how quickly he moves on from it.

On Friday Presto did a quick lunge session. I set up my Pivo at E this time, mostly because I wanted to see how well it worked from there. The new Beta tracking makes it so that you no longer need to have it in the middle of the ring, and I figured E would give me a better view than C. It never really occurred to me before to use it to film a lunging session because, well… that’s boring. But I actually got some interesting footage (to me anyway) and some good screengrabs from it, so I might start including some of that footage in Presto’s monthly vlogs.

I did a quick dressage ride with Henry (because it was approximately 9000% humidity on Friday and we both start to feel like death after much longer than 20-25 minutes) with the Pivo at E and I definitely think that’s my new favorite placement. Having it outside of the arena is obviously easier, and it tracked perfectly from there. Seriously tickled with the new tracking, I’ve now used it for jumping, lunging, and flatwork without any issues. Y’all don’t even know how exciting this is as a thirsty blogger who always needs media but is also always alone. Revolutionary.

Plus I really like being able to watch the rides, it’s helpful. I don’t get lessons very often (um it’s been like a year almost?), especially not right now with covid plus the heat. Being able to see the footage gives me some kind of feedback, at least.

Luckily the rain held off until Saturday afternoon, so I was able to fit in a quick jump school (we did some little gymnastic-type exercises over small jumps so I didn’t bother to get the Pivo out) with Henry, and just groomed Presto and added more air back his ball. I dunno what they’re doing to that thing at night, but it was waaaaaaaaaaaaay in the back by the neighbors fence and looked like it taken some serious abuse in the process. I feel like this ball might not be long for this world either.

I was hoping to ride Presto on Sunday, I had plans to set out some poles in the arena and trot him over them, but Sunday morning it kept raining more. Both boys got a mini-spa day instead (ok mostly I just groomed them, brushed out and re-banged their tails and chopped some mane off).

While there wasn’t as much riding this weekend, it seems like a fair trade to have a short reprieve from the heat and some moisture for the ground. My jump field was starting to get hard, and any kind of rain in July is nothing short of a miracle around here. The last remnants of Hanna should be cleared out by tomorrow, so hopefully this week I’ll be able to do Presto’s first groundpole ride!

Well guys, gone are the days when it took effort to get all the babies together in one shot. They’ve all gotten bigger, bolder, more comfortable with each other, and the helicopter moms (ahem PEYTON) have relaxed a bit.

And while they don’t always play in one big group, none of them have really paired off either. They play with each other without a whole lot of preference, and for the most part they all seem to like each other and they all get along pretty well.

The girls hang out with each other…

the boys hang out with each other (generally with lots more biting involved)…

and they also mix it up as well. They’re very good comminglers, an equal opportunity kind of group. Admittedly, a lot of the commingling includes Ollie, because he’s a terrorist.

But Remi isn’t afraid to play with the girls sometimes either (even if he is generally quite out-matched and less bold about it than Ollie).

I think the real friendship story here though – the ride or die, the thick or thin, the BF5Ever – is Ollie and the round bale. He is kind obsessed.

But his absolute, most favorite, #1, bestest activity to do with the round bale? Jump in it. Cowabunga style, complete with a running start.

Happy Friday everyone, and I hope you have someone that loves you the way Ollie loves his round bale (although perhaps a little less violently…).

 

Yeah I know, I don’t usually do these bloodline posts for short format events, but… since 2020 has killed pretty much all of my nerd joy, y’all are just gonna have to give me this one. Plus this was kind of an interesting field at Strzegom (in Poland) last weekend. It drew a good mix of been-there-done-that horses and up-and-comers, from all across Europe. If you’re itching for some cross country live stream action like I was, you can watch the replay here (they’ve also got the replay up from the 2* pony division, which I’m not gonna go into here but it’s pretty freaking fun to watch).

If you haven’t seen the results yet, I’ll go ahead and ruin it by saying that Michael Jung and fischerChipmunk won it on a 19.4, almost a 15 point margin over the second place pair. However much of this was down to XC time – Chipmunk was the only double clear, not particularly surprising since most of these horses have had quite a light year so far and many probably weren’t really going for the time.

While the upper level European fields and the short format events tend to always be lighter on full TB’s than American events, this one had particularly little representation with only one full TB. This field definitely was not lacking in TB blood though, with 14 starters (23% of the field) having one full TB parent and 32 (53% of the field) having a full TB somewhere in the first 3 generations. French anglo-arab blood had some presence as well, with 8 horses (13% of the field) carrying some AA within the first 3 generations.

The average blood percentage of the field was 52%, which is slightly lower than what we tend to see at 4*L or at 5*, but not significantly off. The range of blood percentages was all over the board, with the lowest at 18% (Sacre Coeur – who was withdrawn after XC. Interestingly, this horse has also showjumped to the 1.55m level.) and the highest – if we toss out the full TB – at 99% (FRH Butt’s Avondale – who finished 11th). If you average the blood percentage of only the horses who went clear on XC, it stays pretty much the same – 54%. If you average the horses that finished in the top 10, it’s again about the same – 53%. You don’t see any variation until you average the top 5 finishers – then it’s bumped up to 61%.

Looking at the TB names with the most representation here, we see some of the same we’re always used to seeing. Heraldik shows up in 5 horses, Jape in 3, Chef’s Supreme in 2, Sir Shostakovich in 2, Betel in 2, Hand in Glove in 2, plus some we’ve seen several times before in other fields, like Sunlight, Esteban, Ostermond, Star Regent, Hill Hawk, Nobre, Sadler’s Wells, Lucky Boy, Likoto, etc.

I think my favorite part about this particular field is that we had THREE full siblings participating – Bandaras, Belfast 35, and Barbados 26. I’ve yet to see that before! It’s quite a feat, all things considered. All 3 are Polish-bred, by Moravia out of a full TB mare, Babilonia (by Jape). Moravia was bred in Germany, by French AA stallion Monsieur out of a Westfalen mare, and Babilonia is a Polish-bred TB by turf champion Jape. Clearly these two were a good cross and brought lots of blood – their offspring are 70%. All 3 horses completed, with Banderas the highest placed at 27th.

Moving on to the warmblood stallions who had multiple progeny in the field, we’ve got more familiar names. Valentino had 3 direct offspring, Jaguar Mail had 2 direct offspring, and Stalypso had 2 direct offspring. Valentino especially should perk the ears of American breeders, since he now stands in Canada and is available to us here in North America via fresh semen. His highest placed finisher was Valentine FRH in 7th place.

If we move beyond just direct sires and go back a couple more generations, stallions that we see multiple times are Contender with 5 appearances (3 via his son Contendro), Ramiro Z with 2, Silvio with 2, Empire with 2, Lavall with 2, and – less typically – we also see the dressage stallion Flemmingh twice, both times via the dam’s side. Not such a surprise considering that although Flemmingh was a very successful dressage sire, he has a very “jumper” pedigree.

There was definitely not as much repetition of the same sires in this field as we’re used to seeing, probably because the Polish horses gave the field more diversity than we typically see in the western Europe events. Those tend to be dominated by Irish and German blood (we only had 3 Irish horses in this field).

And of course while the mares produce many fewer offspring and therefore are harder to spot patterns with, we all know they are the most important part of the equation. If we look more closely at the dams of the top 10 horses, we find some really cool mares among them. FischerChipmunk’s dam Havanna produced several offspring, including 2 Chipmunk full siblings, one of which is eventing at 3* level and the other has made a career in the A/O jumpers and GP through 1.35m. Dimitri N.O.P.’s dam Jorine produced a whopping 15 foals, most of which competed in dressage (one to GP level). Herby’s dam Naomi competed in sport herself, showjumping through the 1.30m level, and has produced 9 foals, mostly showjumpers (successful through 1.50m level).

I don’t know whether you guys love this stuff as much as I do, but boy does it feel good to get my spreadsheets up and running again. I’m really missing the 5*’s this year, but hopefully this will tide all of us over for a little while, until the next interesting event comes along. I’m holding out hope for some of the big fall events, at least in Europe!