We need to talk about Presto’s ability to tell what day it is. Horses can’t really count, right? They don’t own calendars. They have no concept of days.

RIGHT?

But Presto is equal parts adorable and creepy with his ability to tell which day is his ride day. We’ve settled into a routine where it’s always Sunday, unless there’s something special going on (like his Saturday trip to the XC facility). But, ya know… pretty much always Sunday. Sometimes I lunge him on Wednesday, and I usually bring him in and groom in on Saturday, but Sunday is his Funday (do horses classify being ridden as a “funday”? I dunno.).

Anyway, for the past many Sundays, he acts completely different than he does on other days. I always ride Henry first, since it’s cooler earlier in the day, and then go get Presto. And on Sundays Presto has taken to coming up to the fence and staring intently at me, from the second I start untacking/bathing Henry, right up until I come get him. Like he leaves his friends, comes to the fence, and straight up STARES at me. For as long as it takes until I come out there to retrieve him. As if he knows it’s his day and his turn is next. But horses can’t know that… right?

Once I noticed that he was doing this, I started to pay more attention to what he does on his non-riding days. During the week he pretty much never pays me any mind. He will come up to the fence by the arena and watch me ride Henry for a few minutes sometimes, but he never does the staring-at-me-and-standing-by-the-fence-as-soon-as-I-dismount thing. I go out and give him cookies on most weekdays, so if there were days where you’d think he’d be stalking me, it would be those. I don’t even halter him, I just walk out and give him a cookie and leave. But no… on those days he’ll usually walk up and meet me halfway, but he’s never waiting for me and watching me. He doesn’t do it on his Saturday grooming days either.

So I started thinking, okay maybe I’m doing something different on Sundays and he’s picking up on it. But… no. I’m at the barn a little earlier than I am on weekdays, but the same general time as Saturdays. I always ride Henry first. There’s nothing different about my routine between the days that I can figure out.

So how the heck does he know? What’s cluing him in to the fact that yes indeed, it’s his turn next? Or is all of this just completely random coincidence (that’s happened at least 5 times in a row now, since I’ve noticed) and it just so happens that he picks his riding days to display this behavior?

I mean, I’m not complaining. At all. I think it’s really cute that he clearly wants so badly to come in and do stuff and go on adventures. My heart grows 3 sizes each time I catch him staring at me and demanding I come get him. He wouldn’t do that if he didn’t enjoy it. But still, it’s a little odd. The practical side of me says it has to be coincidence of course, right? How the heck would he know? But after so many times in a row… I’m not so sure.

You’d think that since it’s 9000 degrees here in Texas, these horses would be subdued and well-behaved. YOU’D THINK. But no, both Henry and Presto have been up to no good, in their own unique ways.

Henry has been… honestly kind of wild. Which makes no sense because it’s so hot he can barely breathe. Apparently oxygen isn’t really a necessary component? I’ve been riding him fairly lightly since I don’t want to actually kill him in this weather (the high today is 105. Not the “feels like”, the actual friggin temperature.) and he got an extra day off last week. I came out a little earlier than usual yesterday to jump him before it got too hot and good god I was riding a bronco. He squealed and leaped his way through almost every corner before and after every jump. It’s kind of hard to see a great distance when your horse’s head is between his knees most of the time. He seemed completely non-plussed by it though… *squealleapdolpinwheeJOMPleapsquealdolphinJOMP*. I have nothing but eye rolls for him right now (he’s lucky that I find his particular brand of naughtiness to be pretty amusing). He might spend most of his days huffing and puffing because of the heat but clearly he is not suffering.

I did do an ACTUAL dressage ride on him last week, like… in my dressage saddle and with his dressage bridle/bit. I thought he might be terrible since that was our first real dressage ride since… coughFebruarycough… but he was actually pretty good. He’s not as strong and as fit as he was a year ago when he was show-ready (we were at Coconino a year ago, btw. Sob.) but otherwise, he honestly felt almost the damn same. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I mean it’s awesome that he hasn’t regressed, but also… for real, we can go 5 months without taking this very seriously and it doesn’t really matter? I used to do dressage 3 times a week for what reason exactly? Ha. Hahahaha (more sobbing).

Presto, on the other hand, has been excellent under saddle. Yesterday I took him out for his second solo hack, but this time I skipped the arena work and just got on him at the barn and headed straight out.

He definitely had more pep in his step this time, just heading out “cold turkey”, but he was still really well-behaved. His ears get so busy as he tries to take in everything at once, it’s pretty cute. He seems to really enjoy exploring, because he marches right around there by himself like he’s totally entranced. This time we didn’t really have to stop to take in any scary things either, he was pretty bold. The only thing I didn’t really love was that he has this tendency to want to trot DOWN the hills for some reason, which… he’s super narrow and he’s 3, thus it kinda feels like you’re gonna tumble into a heap and die. So we had to do a few halts on the downhills. The first time I did it, I kind of forgot that his verbal “whoa” is REALLY sharp (I almost never say whoa when I’m riding him, it’s mostly a lunging cue. Usually when I’m riding I stick to his gait cues “walk/trot/canter” or if I need something to steady the tempo I tend to say “easy”, but his whoa from the seat is pretty solid so I just don’t really use the verbal cue) and when I said whoa he screeched to a halt on that hill so fast that I about lost my balance. Note to self: be real judicious about the use of “whoa” under saddle, it works like an e-brake.

While Presto is the better-behaved one under saddle right now, surely you know he’s never exempt from his own personal brand of naughtiness. And this time, it came about in the form of murder. Not just murder, but terrible gruesome murder complete with dismemberment and an attempted framing.

Those are the body parts of Ball #3. Ball #1 lasted months before he finally bit it hard enough to put a quarter sized hole in it. Ball #2 lasted about the same amount of time, and it just had a slow leak from being rolled through a cactus, nothing dramatic or violent. Ball #3 just debuted last weekend, and I came out on Saturday to find this particularly horrific crime scene. I dunno what the hell Presto did, but he did it very thoroughly. I can’t be sure of who actually popped the ball (I found a hole that looks suspiciously like the same teeth marks that led to the demise of Ball #1, though, which would point to Presto since JB tends to play with it more with his feet than his teeth) but there’s zero doubt at who mutilated the body. That’s TRADEMARK Presto. He ripped the cover apart, pulled the dead ball out, and then tore chunks off of it before depositing the largest piece over the fence into Henry’s field, as if dumping the body on Henry’s property would somehow shift the blame. It was in 9 pieces. Total massacre.

So, ball #4 is on it’s way. I apologize in advance for what’s going to happen to you, Ball #4.

Clearly this terrible disgusting heat hasn’t taken much out of the horses, if they’re both still managing to be cheeky. Me, on the other hand. I feel like a walking swamp creature.

You know it’s bad when you have sweat dripping off your second chin like a faucet before you’re even done tacking up. Ugh. Is it October yet?

The 2020 foals are taking a bit of a break this week from being quite so actively adorable, given the latest heat wave and triple digit temps. And since breeding season is pretty much over, I figured now would be the perfect time to introduce the expected class of 2021! We’ve got SIX confirmed (with the possibility of one more), making it the biggest expected foal crop yet.

The first is beautiful TB mare Peyton (Remi’s dam) in foal to 5* eventing stallion Leprince des Bois.

Peyton

Leprince

We were able to see Leprince in person at the Burghley Stallion Show last year and he was a really lovely horse. Leprince had quite a career, starting out with a bang early by placing in the top 5 in the French Eventing Championships as both a 5yo and a 6yo. From there he worked his way up to the 5* level with German rider Kai Ruder, competing at Badminton, Burghley, Pau, and Luhmuhlen. After he stepped down from 5* he was a young rider’s horse, winning the German Junior Eventing Championships, and in his retirement to stud he’s still sound enough to be ridden regularly at age 21.  This foal will be 82% blood.

We also have a couple of full siblings en route (thanks to embryo transfer) with two foals from Chanel Z by Faustino de Tili.

Chanel

Frosty

After a couple years of battling various breeding issues these will be the first WTW foals for Chanel! She jumped through the 1.40m Grand Prix level herself and has two offspring in Europe competing up to 1.45 as well. Faustino de Tili, also known as Frosty (which I think is ridiculously adorable – COTH did a “Behind the Stall Door” column with him if you’d like to read more about him), has been tearing up the GP circuit the past few years and has jumped through 1.60m level. It should be fun to see these two full siblings and how they compare!

There’s also one other embryo transfer foal on the way, this one by Utrillo van de Heffinck out of Lasilissa.

Utrillo is a very well known stallion who jumped through the 1.60m level and has produced the same. He is an excellent, very proven producer of top showjumpers through the highest levels. Lissa herself competed through 1.50m, so this should be a really nice one! We got to see some Utrillo foals at his home farm in France last year and they were lovely and intelligent looking horses.

And last but not least, I hope y’all like Oakley and Ollie, because they’ve both got full siblings coming in 2021! Daisy and Stormie are back in foal to French sportpony phenom Usandro Tilia Derlenn.

Maybe Michelle will finally get her grulla (well… one that won’t turn gray *ahem OLLIE*) this time?

Fingers crossed – there should be a little bit of everything in 2021!

It finally happened. I finally felt the twinge of disappointment and sadness about not showing this season. Well, let me clarify. I’m still not sure that I miss the actual showing aspect (aside from XC, of course), but I sure do miss Coconino itself and my two week summer escape/vacation/adult summer camp. All year in my facebook memories, old pics of lots of different horse shows have been popping up. My reactions to them have ranged somewhere from “oh yeah that was a fun one” to “god that was hot and humid and miserable, never again” (looking at you, Chatt). And then the Coconino memories started popping up this month and I felt my first true sense of longing. I had really wanted to take both boys this year, Henry to show and Presto to just hack around. They ultimately had to cancel their summer shows, which eased the FOMO, but it didn’t really make me any less sad about it. I absolutely love that place.

It’s nice to know I’m not totally broken though. I was starting to wonder. I have to admit that I thought that there was a big silver lining to the horse world’s forced covid break from showing. For the first time I saw lots of pros posting on social media about trail riding, or riding bareback, or doing other fun/silly things with their horses. The same seemed to be true of everyone who was able to keep riding and accessing their horses during that time. It was almost like we all took one big collective deep breath and there, for a hot minute, we were all back to being plugged in to what made us fall in love with the sport in the first place. For the sake of riding and training progress, maybe the forced break wasn’t great, but for horse and rider mental heath… I don’t think it was a bad thing.

I also think that a big part of not missing it as much as I felt like I should is because I’ve admittedly become a bit disillusioned with upper level horse sports in general over the past several years, and like it or not, it’s trickled down a bit. Looking back I think it really started with a big name rider/trainer/coach saying that the USA has to “be prepared to win at all costs”. That comment latched on to my brain and dug in deep. It still makes me feel queasy.

It got hammered down a bit more after listening to some interviews with top level riders that, while they spoke kindly of their horses, definitely gave off a “horse as a means to an end” type of vibe. I know there is a huge difference in people who are trying to make it as a top rider in the sport vs people who just have a horse or two or three that they deeply love and are committed to having fun with. We want different things out of it, and that’s okay. I used to be the former and have kind of morphed into the latter so I see both sides.

In my head I think of it as “horse oriented” vs “goal oriented”. The former buys the horse and if necessary adjusts their dreams/goals in accordance to what that horse needs/wants, whereas the latter has very specific goals for themselves and buys/sells the horses that will or won’t get them to said goals. And there’s nothing wrong with either, in my mind. It’s 1000% fine to have clear cut goals for yourself in your athletic endeavors. I don’t think everyone has to keep a horse forever, not by any means, or stick with a situation that makes them unhappy. We don’t all have to approach or enjoy the sport the same way. But I do think that everyone has a responsibility to the horse, and it admittedly bothers me to hear them talked about as if they’re a piece of equipment vs a living breathing animal. Used up, pushed to the limit, and spat out. Putting bandaids on physical issues to try to eke out one more show or season, or resorting to some barbaric methods just to gain some advantage. Not everyone does that, of course, it’s just a small percentage, but now that I’m really listening for it… I hear it and see it more than I’d like in the show world.

Most recently was the Andy Kocher debacle with his electrified spurs. I kinda feel like at this point nothing surprises me anymore (especially from that guy, whose list of horse welfare offenses could fill up a CVS receipt). It’s infuriating to think about how long he’s been getting away with this. It’s infuriating that he was still winning. It’s infuriating to think that people around him KNOW what’s going on, likely including some of the owners, and they felt it was permissible. It’s infuriating that even now, in the face of a mountain of photographic evidence, people are still defending it (god if there’s one thing the last year has taught me it’s that no matter what the atrocity, there will always be people waiting to defend it). And it’s especially heartbreaking to see a top level judge/official say things like “you would be surprised at how many top level riders use these”.

Ugh. It’s disgusting.

It’s all been weighing on me a lot a lot over the past year or so especially, and I’m still grappling with how to get my brain around it. I love horse sports. I always will. The things horses will do for us is amazing. But there’s a dark side to it, too, and I don’t know how to (nor do I want to) compartmentalize that. It has made me think long and hard about my own motivations and decisions though, that’s for damn sure. I don’t want to be someone that uses a horse up, or ekes every last bit of “usefulness” out of them. I don’t want to become willing to slap bandaids over physical issues or resort to questionable training tactics. No competition is worth that to me. It’s repulsive, and it’s stained my view of everything.

So it kind of makes sense that the first memory in my feed that really made me remember what’s so great about horse showing was Coconino. That’s the show where I get to live 40′ away from my horse’s stall for 2 weeks straight, able to see him any time of day or night. That’s the show where we get to hack through the pine trees before or after our rides, and just unplug from the world and enjoy the view. That’s the show where the cool weather and crisp mornings make him happy and comfortable. That’s the show where I sit outside of his stall every morning before anyone else wakes up and share breakfast with him. That’s the show where I’ve always felt most connected to my horse, no matter the outcome. That’s the show where I’ve inevitably driven home bursting with pride for my horse and all that he’s done for me, whether we had a ribbon or not.

That’s the epitome of what I love about horse showing, and that’s why I do it. I remember now.

Honestly if you want to make me buy things, just create a “swear words” collection of horse stuff and make normal boring items completely inappropriate by slathering them with various 4 letter words. I am like a moth to a flame and I can’t even help it. Especially in 2020… what better to sum up the status quo than a bunch of expletives?

I found my way to this collection completely by chance, while looking for a fun flymask for Henry. We’re past the worst of fly season here now, but they’ll be back in the fall, and somehow neither of the fly masks I own fit either of my horses. Presto can’t wear one, he’ll just pull it off, but Henry generally seems to appreciate having one. I’d also like one that I could ride in during gnat season. Who wants a boring fly mask though? So I stumbled across the above Swear Words fly mask, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything so perfectly suited for Henry in my life. He is the king curmudgeon, and I’m pretty sure he says “for fuck’s sake” to me more often than anything else. Well ok it might be a tie with “bitch please”. Either way, this mask has all of Henry’s favorite expressions covered.

But naturally… it’s in Australia. WTF is up with y’all down under? Why is ALL THE COOLEST STUFF from Australia? Punk Ponies, Sweet Iron Co, Valentine Equine, Black Horse Clothing, Emcee, Hufglocken…. I could keep going. Seriously, it’s ridiculous. And the prices are always great too. But ya know, if I’m gonna ship a fly mask from Australia I may as well see what else they’ve got too, right? And boy… they have a lot. They even knew how to speak directly to my soul via pompoms.

I was rolling. There are even fly bonnets and saddle pads and tail bags. They also have a whole bunch of non-sweary stuff too I guess but like… pffft who’s even interested in that?

In the end I settled on this particular gem, which seemed to cover pretty much everything. It can be my schooling helmet cover. Of course, it’s the style meant to go over a brimmed helmet rather than a skull cap, but I can do some quick DIY surgery on it at home and convert it. I had to have it, it was too good.

It said at the top of their website that international shipping was temporarily suspended but it let me place the order and the next day I got a shipping notification and a tracking number, so… we’ll see how long it takes this particular Australia package to catch a plane. I won’t need the fly mask for a few more months probably anyway so it’s fine, I can wait.

I also had to order Henry a new leather halter (thank god I found one I liked in the US, small miracle). His old one had really been battered severely, and finally a few weeks ago he broke one of the cheekpieces just by trying to bite at a fly in the crossties. The leather was getting really rotted and it had sustained plenty of various damage over the years. It was past time to retire it.

I wanted something a little bit more unique for his new one and started off looking at colored ones and padded ones and anatomical ones and all that stuff before I finally searched for braided ones. That led me to this one at Fritt’s Tack.

I really liked the style, it was different but still super classy and I thought it might be flattering on Henry’s slightly boxy head. Plus the price was good. I really didn’t want to drop $100+ on a new halter.

It is super pretty in person, I like it a lot. It doesn’t look like a relatively inexpensive halter. I also think it suits his head really nicely. This might be my new favorite! It does run a bit big though, if you’re thinking of ordering one. I got the full but easily could have gotten the cob. Still, two thumbs up.

I also won an Instagram contest for a Halter Ego gift card. Or rather, the video of Henry annihilating an Oatmeal Cream Pie won a gift card. Naturally, I gravitated directly to their page of bridles. Yeah I know, I already have too many bridles. But wouldn’t this one look really cute on Presto…

with the Punk Rock browband he already has?

Yes it would. You know I’m right.

And in my defense, I really don’t have a plain brown bridle for him to show in. I have a hunt bridle, a figure eight, a bitless, his green bridle, a hunter bridle that I’m giving away because it’s way too red-toned and looks so terrible on him that it hurts my eyeballs, the cob one that he grew out of a year ago, and a hackamore. No plain brown bridles that fit Presto. And while I love the green one, I don’t think I want to show him in that. So theoretically he does need a show-worthy brown bridle for next year. Tooootally justifiable.

Plus it’s a gift card, leave me alone. I can feel you judging me from here. It’ll look cute on him, trust me.

But that does kind of bring me to my next issue: I have A LOT of shit to sell. Like a lot. I’m gonna give away a good chunk of things to friends, but that still leaves lots of horse stuff that needs to go before the tiny house happens. Like I could probably have my own tack swap just with my stuff alone. But considering that there’s the covid thing going on right now… how are you guys selling stuff? I really don’t want to make a bunch of trips to the post office (edited to add: and I don’t have a printer at home so i can’t print my own labels). I also don’t want randos coming to my house, nor do I want to meet people somewhere because of the massive covid surge in the city and I just don’t love the idea of deliberately coming into direct contact with people I don’t know (will they be one of those nutjob anti-maskers? WHO KNOWS.). I thought maybe I could just send one big package off to a consignment place but 1) I dunno if they’d want all my various shit, I’ve got clothes and tack and blankets and books and electronics and just… all kinds of stuff. Some of it is worth decent money, but some of it isn’t really worth much at all. 2) I don’t know which place to send it to since I’ve never done anything via consignment.

So what are y’all doing right now with your sale stuff right now when “hanging on to it” isn’t really an option? Just thinking about how to get rid of the excess sends me right into swear words territory.