May 12th has been a relatively historic day for me, full of little landmark moments. Like 13 years ago, when Sadie was born.

A lot of things have changed in my world because of her, in ways I never could have predicted. Not just because I ended up here with one of her foals, but also because of the connections I’ve made and the things I’ve learned along the way. Horses have a way of doing that, I’ve noticed. Absolutely nothing went according to my plan, but I think everything went the way it was supposed to.

Six years ago today, I started this blog. And this has been TRULY unexpected. My plan starting out was to try to post something every other day and see if I could maintain it for at least a few months. I had zero intention of it becoming an actual thing, much less a 5-days-a-week-for-six-years thing that has come to mean a lot to me. And again, this blog has led to so many other things and people and opportunities that were completely unforeseen.

I’ve made a lot of friends (indeed one of my closest friends Hillary is someone I met completely through blogging) and gotten to do some cool things. Granted, I’ve also gotten myself into a little trouble here and there along the way too, but hey what’s life without a little controversy? Sometimes blogging feels like work but the vast majority of the time it still feels like a fun creative outlet, so… guess I’ll keep going.

Two years ago today Presto went to his first horse show. Remember his in-hand trail debut? It was adorbs. Look how little he was.

I’d only had him home for a little over a month at that point, so it was a real test of what kind of horse I had in his most raw form. Some of those things were a little weird to him but he was smart and willing (and maybe a little cheeky), which has held pretty true as he’s gotten older too.

And then one year ago today was the very first time my butt graced Presto’s back. It was his first time wearing a western saddle and after a little bit of groundwork we did a mounting block lesson. As I was leaning across him I figured “ah, what the heck” and just swung a leg over.

We did nothing but stand there, and only for a few minutes, but still it was the moment when I got to be the first one to ever sit on him, and that’s pretty cool. Now a year later he’s 8 rides into his training and starting to look more like a real horse.

I’m not sure that any landmark moments will happen this year (it’s supposed to rain today – boo) but I guess we’ll see. Either way – happy Birthday Sadie! You were the beginning of the May 12th landmark moments.

Ok, first of all:

1. I have verified with my own eyeballs that there are indeed two holes under the tail, so yes for real this time, it’s a filly for sure.
2. Technically she’s Presto’s half sister since they have different sires (although both sires have Heraldik as a grandsire so they’re a little more than half-related if you’re really into math)

Sadie has been looking like she was going to pop for days. This is her fourth foal, and she’s been pretty textbook with her labor/foaling patterns with the previous three, so when things just seemed to drag on and on and on with this one, we started to get a little concerned. She was restless and pacing and clearly uncomfortable for all of Friday (to the point where it looked like she could lay down and pop it out and any second) and Saturday. Her milk test said “any minute now” on Thursday, and we were all a little bit on edge at how long she was taking when there was still no baby by Saturday morning. Usually once her milk is to that stage she foals within 24 hours. But time just kept dragging on, and she just kept looking more and more uncomfortable. Michelle prepared for the possibility of a red bag/dummy foal, with all sorts of supplies on hand including an oxygen tank, and someone was watching Sadie every second.

But finally, finaaaallly just before midnight on Saturday she laid down and started pushing. Michelle said Sadie seemed surprised at how hard she had to push… she kept looking back like “seriously, it’s not out yet???”. Her others have been pretty easy. This one, not so much. And why might that be?

Because she’s a baby elephant! Seriously this kid is freaking massive for a newborn.

Luckily there was no red bag, and aside from requiring more pushing than usual, everything was ok. Baby was in good shape, no special care required. She was in such good shape, in fact, that she was born at 11:45 and was on her feet completely unassisted at 11:57. Super fast, especially considering she’s a monster.

Sadie has definitely been feeling the after effects of such a big baby. So far nothing major, just some lingering pain, so she’s had some banamine. Her milk production was a little bit slow at first, so baby got some plasma yesterday too just as a precaution. Hopefully if all continues to go well they’ll be able to get turned out a little bit today.

Completely unbeknownst to each other Michelle and I had both independently been referring to her as Ellie (as in Ellie-phant). Upper level event rider Alex Green bought both her and Remi, and she seems to like Ellie too so I think it’ll stick as a barn name. Her registered name will be up to Alex, but it has to start with O this year for the sBs registry. She is very much open to name suggestions! It will end with the farm suffix WTW so something relatively short is best, lest it become a mouthful.

Fingers crossed that baby and mama continue to do well and that poor Sadie’s lady bits recover soon.

WTW does also have two mares confirmed in foal already – Peyton to LePrince des Bois (who completed Badminton and Luhmuhlen, had two top 10 finishes at Burghley, and a top 5 at Pau with Kai Ruder before going on to win the European Junior Championships with a young rider)

and Daisy back to Usandro for a full sibling to Oakley.

I should have a winner of the Baby Bets contest this week, as soon as I tally the results (which admittedly I have not started yet, because reasons)!

Since it’s Ollie’s first Foal Friday I figured I’d let him have the spotlight all to himself. Plus, let’s be honest, most of the pics coming out of WTW this week are of this kid, because it’s hard for anyone else to get attention when you’ve got a pony baby that’s THIS level of cute running around.

And when I say running around I do mean RUNNING. What is it with these pony foals, they’re born with firecrackers in their bums.

His pretty metallic silver color definitely adds to his charm, too. It’s a shame he’ll gray out, but maybe he’ll look even more silver in the process?

So far his personality is more like Oakley’s, who is by the same sire. He’s cheeky and bold and weird and contains large doses of sass and ponytude. It will be interesting to see how their dynamic unfolds when they get turned out together (my money is on the filly).

But he’s also REALLY well balanced already, and looks like he’s going to be a nice mover. He’s uphill and getting more and more suspension as he figures his legs out.

Also did I mention Ollie is really really cute and he knows it?

If your heart hasn’t exploded from cuteness yet, here’s the coup de grace:

Happy Friday everyone! It looks like Sadie is going to foal any time now… I’m watching her on the camera as we speak. Fingers crossed for an uneventful foaling to round out the WTW Class of 2020!

To be clear up front: I have in no way used this enough to give a full review yet, but I’ve had A TON of people asking me about it, so I thought I’d offer my first impressions. Especially since the US dealer doesn’t have a lot of stock left and isn’t sure when more will be coming.

At $280 the Brockamp Spezial bareback pad isn’t cheap, although I would call it mid-range compared to others like Christ and Stargazer, which are more in the $500-850 range. If you only ride bareback a few times a year, it would probably make sense to buy something cheaper like the Best Friends pad or the Thinline. Or if your bareback rides are short and/or mostly walking and your horse isn’t particularly sensitive… the cheaper ones are probably fine. But, ideally I’d like to ride bareback at least once a week, I do full flatwork and sometimes jump bareback, and I own the World’s Most Delicate Flower. My crotch and his withers both wanted more padding, and I wanted a pad that had enough structure to sit well up off of his TB withers and spine (the biggest problem I’ve seen with most bareback pads is spine pressure on the horse’s back – many of them bind due to their design. Which is also why you should NEVER buy a bareback pad with stirrups – there’s no internal structure to support that pressure so it all goes on the spine.).

The Brockamp comes in TONS of colors, and of course I wanted navy, which was sold out at the time, so I had to wait for the next shipment. These pads are made in Italy (the Italian suede is real nice, omg) and Brockamp is based out of Germany, so as you can imagine covid had an impact. But they did finally make it to the US distributor, who got it in the mail to me the next day.

Initial impression out of the box: it’s definitely beautiful. It’s finished well, the suede is luxe, and it has the structure I was looking for. It comes with a neoprene girth or you can use a short girth you already have. I had already fully intended to use my own girths that I know Henry likes, which was the reason why I wanted a pad with the english style girth straps in the first place. The next question was what, if anything, did I want to put underneath it?

There are a lot of options when it comes to padding underneath a bareback pad. Option 1, of course, is no padding. This is totally fine, and the under side of this pad is a no-slip neoprene so that you won’t have slippage issues. Another option would be just a square pad or baby pad, to minimize bulk but help keep the pad clean. If you have a particularly wide horse who has issues with slippage from side to side, many people opt to use a treeless saddle pad underneath to provide even more structure, more like the panel of a saddle. I knew that I wanted to put something underneath, since Henry’s super sensitive skin has already told me that it prefers the sheepskin/merino wool life, but I didn’t think I needed to go as far as a treeless saddle pad. Enter – Presto’s Mattes half pad.

The Mattes sits damn near perfectly under the Brockamp, gives the pad a layer of protection from sweat and dirt, provides Henry’s princess skin with protection from the pad, and gives a little bit more padding along his topline, too. Of course it does create a slightly wider feel under my seat, which is ok for my horse but might be annoying on particularly wide ones.

But, most importantly – what’s it like to ride in?

Grippy. And squishy. Not overly so – I can still move around up there, and I still definitely have to use my core to keep my balance, but it’s for sure not slipping around and was more secure for me when Henry inevitably spooked (at a tree, as one does). I first I was concerned it might be TOO much padding or TOO much bulk, but I could still very easily feel Henry’s back through the pad. As you can see there is less padding underneath your seat and leg compared to the front/back, so it gives you a nice place to sit and still be in close communication with the horse. What made me happiest was feeling the difference in Henry’s trot using this pad vs when I had just been using a regular sheepskin pad or half pad for bareback rides. He was obviously more comfortable, with no hesitance to really swing through his topline. For as much as I don’t like having his withers in my crotch, horses don’t always love having our seat bones in their backs either.

The only slightly nitpicky things I can say about it so far are 1) I don’t love the underside. Then again, y’all know I don’t like neoprene much in general. I do like that it’s anti-slip, though, and I think that’s almost necessary with a bareback pad. In my dream world I would love if they made a version that was half-lined with sheepskin or something and the rest was non-slip. Granted I also realize that a lot of people use these with treeless saddle pads underneath, which makes this lining much more ideal to fully grip the other pad. My Mattes pad makes it all a non-issue, but just a rambling thought. 2) when I first pulled it out of the box I thought it might be a little TOO structured. It was rigid, and sat kind of stiffly on the horse – until I rode in it. Then, ta-da, it molded to the shape of the horse and sat really nicely. So don’t be scared if it looks a little bit like bat wings at first. It’s also worth noting that the company churns these out in fairly limited quantities, so you can’t always just go online and buy whatever color you want at any time. The stock tends to go in waves as more are distributed and it can be months before they put any more out. It makes them fairly high demand, especially in certain colors. If you’re tied to a particular color, be prepared to wait.

So far, though, the Brockamp is really hitting the main points in what I was looking for in a bareback pad. I was hesitant to spend this much, but in retrospect I’m glad I opted for the one that had everything I wanted rather than just trying to be cheap. The structure and spine clearance is great, it works with my existing girths, its comfortable for both horse and rider, it’s pretty, and it doesn’t shift or slip. Because it fits all my criteria, I know I’ll actually use it. I’m excited to get more miles on it summer and see how it holds up and how my opinion continues to evolve. I plan on posting a full review sometime in the fall, but I hope this helps give a little insight for now!

So, Presto got demoted from a part-time barn horse to a full-time outside horse. He had been an outside horse when we moved out here initially, living out in the pasture with his 2yo friend. But when the other horses left for Florida for the winter and it was just me here with the remaining 4, it was easier and gave me more peace of mind to just have all of them come into the barn at night. I could easily see them on cameras, I knew they were under shelter if the weather was bad, it’s warmer in there, they were more settled in the group, they each had their own space to eat and snooze, etc. The Florida horses are coming back this weekend so he was about to get moved back out to his full time pasture life again anyway, but he got booted a week early. Why, you ask? OH I’LL TELL YOU WHY.

He figured out how to open his stall door, and the results are just as bad as you might imagine. I came out to feed on Sunday morning and it looked like an actual tornado had gone through the barn. Henry and Presto were both loose. Presto’s stall door was open, Henry’s stall door was open, and the hay room door was open. Boards had been ripped off the front of every single stall. He ate every scrap of afalfa that was in there, which luckily wasn’t very much. He tossed the opened coastal bale all over the place. He ate and pulled down part of one of the shade bushes. He broke a broom and a manure fork and the board that’s used to separate the aisle by the stallion’s stall when he’s here. He knocked EVERYTHING down. Every halter, every blanket, anything and everything that was knock-down-able. He even managed to undo a couple snaps in the process.

From the amount of poop in their stalls and runs I could see that Presto had to have been out for a while, but Henry can’t have been out for very long at all. Also, Henry is a jerk and would never let other horses out or destroy things that weren’t food motivated – totally not his style. He got out one night before and just ate grass in the courtyard. No, this one had Presto written all over it from top to bottom. Why he chose to let Henry out, I’m not sure, because when I happened upon the scene Henry had chased him into a corner and was about to kick the daylights out of him. Releasing Henry was a dumb move. It looked like he had tried to release Quinnie too… her stall has an extra clip on it because she has a history of opening her own door, and he succeeded on removing the clip but didn’t actually finish opening the latch. The only stall with no evidence of attempted breach was his 2yo friend’s. Which, thank god. I can’t imagine the damage if both of THOSE idiots had been out. JB has a history of barn destruction himself.

So that’s the end of that shit. I had already given him a second chance when he pulled down a couple boards in his own stall a few weeks ago. That appeared to have been a one time incident, but no. He certainly hadn’t forgotten, he was just waiting to repeat it on a much larger scale.

You should have seen the complete and utter heartbreak and confusion on his face Sunday night when he didn’t get to come in. Henry and Quinnie came into the barn as usual, and I brought Presto and JB’s feed out to their shed so they could eat. They thought that was odd, but ok. After they ate they both went to the gate like “ok let’s go in now”. And I just laughed at them from the porch as they stared forlornly toward the barn. JB wandered away after a few minutes, but Presto stood there for quite a while.

On Monday I went out to lunge him real quick to try a different bit on him (this bit saga is becoming long already) and he was absolutely exhausted. Clearly he didn’t get his usual 3 hour dead-to-the-world nap that he usually takes after night check, because it took all of my effort just to get him to trot for a few laps each way. If I stopped clucking, he stopped moving. Poor kid. The life of a delinquent is tough. Maybe you should have been more appreciative of your private nap time before you destroyed the barn.

So I’ll be spending the weekend fixing the rest of the Prestnado damage. What a turd. Y’all pray for their shed, I’m worried that it’ll be the next victim. JB already pulled down some of the ceiling insulation a while back…