For a quick reminder, my last post ended with this

“So much drama from these horses around here though, my goodness. If we could all just… tone it down for a bit… that would be great.”

Narrator: They indeed did NOT tone it down.

Presto was footsore from his torn-off and put-back-on shoe for a couple days. On Friday Rubes had his follow-up gastroscope to check in on his ulcer situation, and while his stomach looks way way better, there are still a couple grade 1 squamous ulcers. Considering he was on antiobiotics and NSAIDs for his cellulitis in the middle of all the ulcer treatment, and the issues he’s been having with the bugs, I wasn’t particularly surprised by that. But the lack of glandular ulcers this time meant we could discontinue the miso, so that’s good, but he gets another month of 1/4 tube of gastrogard to wrap up the few remaining glandular ones.

By Saturday Presto seemed to be feeling better again, so I texted Ellie and made lesson plans for Sunday. In the meantime, I had PLANNED on going over to a friend’s house on Saturday to watch Burghley XC. Naturally though, because these horses can’t give me one day of peace or let me ever leave the farm, they derailed that entire plan.

First I turned Rubes out and he had a meltdown (first turnout meltdown in several days, to be fair) so I had to deal with that (there were bugs, y’all, and he wasn’t having it). And then Florida decided that actually it was going to rain in the morning instead of the afternoon, which it never does except for the day I need it to NOT do that, so instead of waiting until after XC to clean stalls, I had to go ahead and clean them in the morning like usual, in case I had to bring horses back inside. Which also means stuffing hay nets and scrubbing/filling buckets. And then Tilly lost one of her hoof boots in her turnout and I had to go look for that so I could put it back on, lest she tear up her foot. And then it did start raining.

At that point I gave up. I ended up half watching and half listening to Burghley on my phone while I cleaned stalls and did everything else. It was extra annoying because I had gone and gotten all the stuff to make some dope crepes (Kentucky has trained me to want crepes at 5*’s, what can I say) and that got entirely derailed. I mean I did make myself a banana and nutella and almond and honey crepe for a late breakfast, so it was partly salvaged but still.

I love them so much, and I love having them right outside my front door, but if you want to entirely ruin your social life and make it impossible to make plans, just be responsible for a farm full of horses.

On Sunday (after fixing boards that Freya kicked down in her stall) we did make it over to Ellie’s for our lesson and Presto felt good, praise be. Well physically he felt good. He was a bit wild from his very light week of work, and at the beginning he spooked at himself in the mirror, flipped his tail over his back, and tried to passage sideways. Cute. Let’s just say the rideability for this lesson was not as good as it has been.

She had us doing some turning exercises with simple jumps and he was really convinced he knew exactly where he was going and exactly what he was doing, right up until the second he realized he didn’t, which still didn’t faze him in the slightest.

That’s fine though, because it IS one of the things about him that comes into play sometimes. He’s cocky and sometimes needs to remember that he doesn’t know everything. (he finds that statement to be super offensive)

We also made plans for Alex to pop Presto around some XC. I really wanted to get his thoughts on kind of where we’re at, what I need to be doing better, and if there’s a way I could/should be riding him that will put me in a better place when he wants to do the spooking and spinning shit. We penciled that in for Tuesday.

Meanwhile on Monday, Sadie scratched her ass on the fence so hard that she snapped a board in half and sliced her ass open on it. Fun times with the vet calls. And it’s been raining buckets for over a week now, so the mosquitoes have returned in full force, which means Rubes’ marbles have been officially lost again. Poor guy, he really really really hates Florida nature. To be fair, I’m starting to understand where he’s coming from, I’m covered in so many damn mosquito bites.

Anyway, on Tuesday we met Alex over at Majestic.

Presto was annoyingly well-behaved. Like come on, not even one little teeny spook? Nothin? Turd. It was fun to see Alex pop him over stuff though, and he got to see some bigger/more technical things again. He really hasn’t jumped much XC since the 1*. He was a little surprised at the first couple bigger fences and had the teeniest wiggle about it, but it definitely woke him up and tuned him in. That’s the thing with him – he’s better when it’s harder.

Alex had a jolly good time though, and had a lot of really nice things to say about him. He gave me some ideas for how I should be approaching the XC rounds at the moment, and changes I can make to my position and Presto’s galloping style that might help. I’ll need a XC lesson to actually put it all into place, but I really appreciated him taking the time to stand there and talk to me about the theory and the physics of it… my brain really really needs the “why” and the “how” in order for everything to click, so it gave me something to take home and think about.

It was also fun to just watch my horse go. I haven’t seen anyone else ride him around XC in a really long time and it’s cool to see how he’s matured. He does look terribly unchallenged, which Alex also said “all of this is super easy for him”. Yes yes I KNOW he’s not the one holding this particular duo back.

On Wednesday morning Rubes had an entirely epic come apart when I tried to turn him out in the morning, so I had to really re-evaluate my plan and approach for how to help him deal with the mosquitoes. He was already going out in head to toe fly garb and covered in fly spray, but the fly spray really doesn’t do shit for mosquitoes. I have to be careful using OFF since he already had a reaction to it once, but I went and got some Mosquito Halt. This morning I turned him out in fly sheet, fly boots, fly mask, did a light spray of OFF and heavier spray of Mosquito Halt, and waited to put him out until after 8am when the sun was well and truly up. We had the first entirely no drama morning in days, so hopefully we’re maybe on the right track? He just truly has a menty b about the mosquitos.

To top off yesterday’s drama, Rube pulled a shoe in his stall, the golf cart shorted out and died in the middle of my afternoon chores, and the pressure sensor went out on the well pump last night and we had no water. Fun times on the farm.

On an entirely different note, a few people had asked if I was going to weigh in on the Andrew McConnon situation, and I would have except for the fact that the EN team was putting together a piece that was totally kick ass and said everything I had to say. If you haven’t read it, you should. It’s so well done and makes me really proud to be part of the EN team.

Mmmmk I’m a little late on my weekly update post but how frickin cute is Rubes in his new custom halter from Dark Jewel Designs?

The noseband is silver and gray and blue crystals and it really adds a nice little touch of bling. I got the nameplate put on at Tack Shack, because I thought he needed to be officially official. 10/10 love it.

He thanked me by getting bitten/stung by something in his turnout, and having the most epic meltdown about it that could only be stopped with a healthy dose of dex. It took me a while to even figure out what the heck was going on, because at first it started out as frantic pacing that turned into wildly kicking and biting at himself. If I didn’t know him I would have probably thought he was colicking, but he’s had a few bug-related mini-tantrums similar to that before. There wasn’t a mark to be found on him at the time, but he seemed like he was about to jump out of his own skin. Nothing would settle him down until the dex, and then about an hour later this bad boy appeared.

Add it to the list of weird shit that happens to Rubes. My best guess is that during one of his morning naps/rolls (he goes for many between like 7am and 10am) he either rolled on or just got stung by something. This is Florida, it could have been a lot of things. He really reacted to it strongly though, whatever it was. It’s a little weird that it took so long for that giant bump to appear, and then it was totally gone by dinner time.

That was a fun little dramafest, but I did feel really bad for him. He’s already got a major aversion to bugs (even just flies) so for something to get him that good just seems mean. I’ve taken to turning him out in his fly sheet in the morning, no matter how hot it is, so at least he has something covering him when he’s doing all his napping and rolling, and then taking it off mid-late morning so he doesn’t entirely suffocate. Let’s hope he’s a little less high maintenance in the winter? (ha. hahaha. he’s a horse, so probably not.)

Not to be outdone, the next day Presto broke out of his stall in the middle of the night and wreaked absolute havoc in the broodmare barn. Trash can turned over, stuff everywhere, and he got into one of the grain bins. Want to see me have a menty b at 4:30am? That’s the way! I was absolutely terrified he was gonna colic or founder. He got banamine and a bit of starvation (he was SO MAD) and I stared at him like the creepiest helicopter parent all day long, but luckily he seems to have escaped that particular mayhem unscathed. After much sleuthing I think he only ate maximum 12lbs of grain, which is still entirely too much, but not as bad as it certainly could have been. His extra stall reinforcement methods have since been reinforced even more.

I debated not taking him to the POP show the next day at all, but since he seemed fine I figured we’d just go and take one phase at a time and see how it went. It was hot hot and our ride times were in the afternoon, so I decided before I even got on for dressage that he wasn’t gonna run the full XC, no matter what. I didn’t really want to risk overheating him or anything like that.

When I got on for dressage warmup there was a Gypsy Vanner in the ring with the most fabulous feathers that Presto could NOT stop staring at. It did occur to me in that moment that he’s never really seen a spectacularly hairy-legged horse before. It cantered at Presto at one point and Presto spooked big time. To be fair… it was a lot of fluffy flying feather. The rings were running a bit early so I just cut my warmup short and went in the ring, where he proceeded to try to stare at the Gypsy Vanner the entire time. He wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t our best work. A score of 32.5 is about what that test deserved.

After that I had a couple hours til SJ, which was just long and hot enough to regret all my life choices. If I didn’t really need the showjump practice I would have gone home, but… I do need it. Presto doesn’t really, but I do. He was set up in the shade with his bougie-ass battery powered fan and his full hay bag, so he had no complaints about the day. I on the other hand trudged up to the ring to try to watch some rounds, since I hadn’t been able to walk the course. These schooling shows go from the lower divisions to the higher divisions, and they hadn’t yet added all the jumps in that my course would have. I watched the rest of the lines though, just to get an idea for striding. The only one that wasn’t set up yet was the first line of my course, and I was like well… I’ll figure it out. Or I’ll just ask someone how many. Or I’ll just ride it and see what happens. I was too hot to care that much about it. Back to the trailer I went.

SJ ended up running behind, so we had to wait in the shade near the ring for a bit while that wrapped up. I was the first one to go in the Modified, so once the Training people started to dwindle I did an as-abbreviated-as-possible warmup. At this point for him that consists of trotting both ways, doing some haunches in and shoulder in, cantering both ways lengthening and shortening, and doing a lead change. It was maybe 5 minutes. Then I popped him over a smaller oxer, then a vertical, then a bigger oxer, then a bigger vertical. Good enough for me… into the ring we go.

I was happy with how the course went. We did have a rail at a square oxer, he ticked the front rail with a hind foot because I think I just let him get a taaaaaad strung out through the corner. It wasn’t a bad jump by any means though, so… just a bit of a cheap rail. The rest was good though, and I was really happy with how rideable he was. It was… boring, dare I say? We like boring jump rounds.

After that I decided to just throw his boots/my vest on and go jump the first few jumps of the XC, just to get him out of the box. I told the starter that I would pull up and retire after that. Presto felt totally fine, but it was just too hot to run him 5+ minutes around when I was still a little worried about his grain-indulgence the day before. Better safe than sorry.

All in all, it was a fairly unremarkable and boring show. Nothing great. Nothing terrible. Just knocking off some rust, which is exactly what these schooling shows are great for.

I’m not sure what will be next on the docket for him. We were supposed to have another lesson yesterday but on Wednesday he decided to rip a shoe off and took a wee bit too much wall with it, so even after putting the shoe back on yesterday morning he was a touch foot sore. Hopefully he’ll be better in a few days!

So much drama from these horses around here though, my goodness. If we could all just… tone it down for a bit… that would be great.

Happy Friday! Or, alternatively, whatever day you may be reading this.

It feels like it’s been quite a week around here but in reality I guess it’s just the normal things. Presto rides, Rubes groundwork, and – surprise – a couple sessions back behind everyone’s favorite little ears.

Now that Henry’s had shoes back on he’s starting to look better and better, so this week I decided to take him for a couple of walk hacks around the farm to start working on getting him back into shape. And because I am nothing if not an opportunist, I opted to bring Rubes along with us too. One big perk about a racehorse, you know they’re gonna pony.

Henry, true to form, acted entirely uninterested in Rubes, and if Rubes thought about stepping out of line in any way, Henry was quick with the reprimand. I think Henry long ago appointed himself God of Ponying, and no one will ever convince him otherwise. To be fair, he probably did earn that title after dragging Presto all around the state of Texas for a couple years. Truly a veteran.

Rubes was well-behaved aside from thinking that Henry walks too slow (Rubes thinks all of us do everything too slow around here) and occasionally thinking he might want to bite Henry. I think it was a good way for him to get to explore and see the rest of the farm without being as stressful. Henry is a nice emotional support animal for things like that.

Presto went for a gallop last weekend, which this time of year always has to be more on the short and sweet side. I took him to Sweet Dixie because I love to utilize their long hill, both up and down. Up for the extra workout, and down because I think they have to learn how to balance themselves a bit, which hasn’t always been Presto’s best quality. Practice helps though, and he’s definitely smarter about it than he used to be. He only did 7 total minutes of gallop since it was so hot and humid, but that’s all he really needed. We have more time to ramp it up a bit before the shows really come into play, so we can do more when the weather isn’t so gross.

We also had a lesson this week, this time with Alex since Ellie was away at AECs. I really liked this lesson a lot, Alex took the same things that Ellie and I have been working on the past couple lessons and added another layer to it. The way they teach is really complimentary. Our warmup exercise in particular was helpful for letting me iron out the feeling of my aids and getting my timing to be quicker and more concise.

Fairly simple exercise, but not necessarily easy. The idea was to trot the poles, do a few steps of a bit of a leg yield feeling, canter, put the haunches a bit to the inside, go to the jump, and then trot again right after, making sure to keep their shoulders up so they were balanced when you got to the poles again. Everything happens pretty quick, so there wasn’t any time for a late or sloppy transition anywhere. Really there were only about 10 strides of canter total, including the jump. I liked the exercise a lot.

After that we moved on to courses, doing one at a lower height and then raising the jumps up and repeating it again. Alex really wants me to focus on putting him deeper to the jump and keeping him a touch rounder through the turn, while also maintaining a bit of that haunches-in through the turn like we’ve been doing a lot with Ellie. Really what it boils down to is quality… improving the quality of the canter by making sure we don’t lose the hind end and have him go wide behind (his fave), and improving the quality of his jump by insisting that he has to get closer to the base and use more power off the ground.

Even though Presto isn’t always convinced that very much effort is truly required. To be fair, for him it isn’t hard enough to require much effort yet to just get it done, but it will be eventually, and the correct ideas and muscle memory need to already be there by the time he gets to that point.

I’m hoping we can squeeze in some training rides soon because I think a really expert ride from Ellie or Alex could help him understand the idea that much better/more quickly. He’s smart like that, so training rides are always so beneficial for this horse.

There’s video of one of my courses on my Insta with the original sound if you’re interested, or of course Patreon folks you have all the video on your dashboard.

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This weekend we’ll be back in the show ring after a four month hiatus. We’re signed up for the M/T at the FHP schooling show, although I’m not entirely convinced if I’ll run him XC or not. We dressage at like 1:30 with jumping phases around 3:30, so if it’s balls-out hot and humid then I’ll have to decide whether or not he goes XC. Depends on how he feels after SJ I guess. He handles the heat well but I still try to be careful about it when it’s mega gross. It would be nice to get a run in, but we’ll see!

Just popping in today real quick for a couple things while they’re on my mind!

First and foremost, one of the articles on Rubes that I was interviewed for has been published. You can read it here, scroll to page 7.

I also got a call from his previous owner last week to let me know that Rubes is officially being inducted into the PA Racing Hall of Fame, and the ceremony will be in October. I don’t think I’ll be making the trip, but it’s really cool that he’s officially getting his name on the wall!

Entirely unrelated but another good and really important read:

Social License to Operate

This is what I’ve been saying for years. If you don’t think equestrian sports (All of them. Every single one.) has a public perception problem, go to the Olympics facebook page and read through the comments on any of their posts about Equestrian. It’s a whole lot worse than you think. If we don’t get ahead of this and do better, all of us have a lot to lose. Read it, share it… I think we all need to be super real about this, because it affects every single one of us.

And lastly, I’m reopening the BreedRideCompete queue for a limited number of custom pedigree reports, so anyone that’s been waiting, now is the time! You can either go through the Etsy listing or contact me directly, if you prefer.

It’s been a hot minute since I did a review post! I have a few things on the docket to review over the next couple months, but I figured we’d start with the most budget friendly item: the Kunkle Everyday Riding Gloves.

The Kunkle brand isn’t new, but they’ve recently started branching out into more designs than just their standard black show glove. It’s been a popular brand in the h/j world in particular, winning over a lot of diehard Roeckl fans. Admittedly these are the first ones I’ve actually had, mostly because I tend to buy “fun” gloves and the plain black ones just never called to me.

But, ya know…. slap some purple accents on them, put them at an irresistible price point ($29 is basically free these days for gloves – don’t argue with horse girl math), and what do you know, I’m in. It’s also worth mentioning that I have a bit of a glove problem obsession and may or may not have *mumbles a number that definitely ends with teen* different pairs of gloves, only like 3 of which I use on a regular basis, because I am a harsh critic and a bit of a weird fit. So, with all of that said, lets get into it.

Fit/Sizing

I have big hands for a woman my size, and quite long fingers. It’s very common for the fingers of gloves to be too short for me and I end up either not being able to hold the reins well or I bust through the end of the fingers (for example, me and Heritage brand gloves just cannot coexist ever). I would say the fit on the Kunkle are very average – the fingers aren’t too short for me, but I could use another half inch to make them perfect. Which means that pretty much everyone else in the world will fit in them just fine. I like that they don’t come up too far on the wrist… I hate it when they’re so long they interfere awkwardly with a long sleeve shirt. I ordered my regular glove size, 8.5, and they fit true to size.

Durability

I’m almost 4 months into pretty much daily use and they’re holding up remarkably well so far. I mean… I have a pair of Roeckls that cost twice as much that I popped a seam on within the first 3 weeks. These bad boys aren’t showing any wear yet (I use rubber reins, before anyone asks) and the stitching and seams are all pristine so far. Ask me again in another 6-8 months, but so far I have high hopes for the long term durability of these.

Grip

I ride a ginormous elephant and live in Florida’s left armpit, so grip is important. They’ve been through rain, super super super sweaty rides, and everything from dressage rides to jump schools to gallops. So far so good with the grip. I also like that they’re touchscreen friendly, which is a must-have feature for me at this point.

Style

There is nothing particularly groundbreaking about the general design – it’s a synthetic leather palm and fingers with a mesh back. But for the above reasons (re: armpit) I really appreciate the breathability and airflow that a mesh back provides. As far as looks go, I love the little purple accents with the purple piping, purple stitching, and purple logo. I like purple but not enough to want a full purple glove, so for me these are a happy medium.

Value

As I’ve already said, I think these are pretty darn cheap as far as gloves go, especially for comparable styles. I feel like pretty much everything is $40+ these days, so for a lighter-weight, durable glove with the grippy synthetic leather, the price point is really nice.

My only complaints are that 1: I wish they dried a little faster. To be fair, this is a problem I have with literally all my gloves except the thin fabric ones, because Florida. It’s just moist AF all the time, there’s no getting around it. 2: selfishly I wish the fingers were just a tad longer, although I know that would probably make them too long for most people.

The TLDR version of the rest of this post: if you’re a fan of the classic Roeckl gloves, you’re going to like the Kunkle. They have a similar design and feel but seem to be more durable, and the price point on these are a major selling point. Even though I’m picky about gloves, these have wormed their way into my rotation of Top Tier gloves that I always reach for, which I think says a lot.