Somewhere around January 1st I thought “Boy, wouldn’t it be nice if I could go the entire month without spending hundreds of dollars on vet bills…”. And then maybe 2 minutes later I realized that the boys were due for their shots and coggins. And then maybe 2 minutes after that I figured we might as well go ahead and check Presto’s mouth to see about those wolf teeth too, if I’m going to start riding him anytime soon. Oh, and he probably needs a float.

Okay, so… maybe next month. I think by this point I haven’t gone a single month without paying the vet something since like… May? April? Come on, February, don’t let me down.

Anyway, the vet came out last Monday to do the shots and coggins, which was easy. Except Presto had a meltdown when I left him in the crossties and tried to paw his way to China, thus began 4 subsequent days of Camp Dontbeanasshole where he was put in the crossties and ignored for the entire time I was mucking stalls. Naturally he never threw another fit again, and indeed barely moved a muscle in any of those sessions, because they always save that kind of behavior for when we have company over.

We checked his teeth on shots/coggins day and they did indeed need a float, and he did indeed have two wittle wolf teeth prime and ready for removal. I was happy to see that his wolf teeth were so little (ie normal sized) because his mother’s were so big that it took almost an hour to get them out, and that vet asked if she could keep them because she’d never seen any so big. Because if anyone is going to have a horse with anything freakish, it’d definitely be me.

Presto’s tooth appointment was yesterday. We started with the power float, and he had a couple decent size points in there, but they didn’t take long to smooth down. When the vet was satisfied with the teeth, he went and got his little wolf teeth extractor tool and essentially just… popped those suckers right out.

It took less than 5 minutes, and they are totally the cutest wittle baby wolf teeth ever. While the vet was in there he noticed that Presto had a couple premolar caps that were about to fall off, so he literally just tapped them with his tool and out they came. Those were much more impressive looking, at least, and really cool. There are a couple more caps that will be ready soon he said, but not quite yet. He’s shedding these baby teeth like a machine, and right on schedule.

As we were finishing up, the vet asked me how old he was again (“2yrs 10months 5 days”, it’s totally normal to know that btw) then looked at him and said “he’s huge”. To which I reasoned that technically he’s only like an inch taller than Henry and he’s basically 3 now, so ya know, it’s not that bad. I tell myself that all the time and after a while it totally works. I did say that I’d held off putting a few rides on him because of the timing of his most recent growth spurt and he looked at him again and said “Yeah that’s probably a good idea. He looks like an Ethiopian Warmblood.”.

I died.

That’s probably the most accurate description I’ve heard of Presto yet. He’s definitely very gazelle-like at the moment, maybe mixed with a little ibex and Somali wild ass.

Presto came out of his sedation well and ate his dinner normally. His mouth is maybe a little sore but it hasn’t seemed to slow down his consumption at all. And with the wolf teeth gone, we’re hopefully finished yanking things out of his body (hey, it’s almost a year to the day since he got his cojones chopped!) and he’s made the right of passage into being a real boy. Or a real Ethiopian Warmblood. Whichever.

Next stop, his 3yo birthday! Which reminds me… which birthday hat does he want?

I can’t quite decide…

It’s been probably a solid decade since I’ve had a riding horse who wasn’t getting at least two body clips every winter. This is Texas, it can still be 80+ degrees in the winter (it was last week actually), and it’s difficult to have a horse in full work that isn’t going to die of heat stroke if they grow a lot of hair. As has become usual by now, I clipped Henry for the first time in early October – it was still 90+ degrees so he was DYING – with a plan to clip him again in November. He grows so much coat that only clipping him once, at the beginning of Fall, tends to leave him with a winter coat about the same as that of most other un-clipped horses. If not for the fact that I leave his legs and a saddle patch untouched, by November you would never know that he’d already been clipped. He grows a really thick, long coat.

And then he hurt himself, so I held off on the second clip. If he wasn’t going to be working, there wasn’t much point in taking the hair off. And then I started riding him again, but not enough to really NEED a clip, and then before I knew it we’d gotten to the end of December and he started shedding. He’s hairy enough to where he really could use less hair when I’m riding on these warmer days, but he’s not struggling, so for now I’ve decided to just leave it.

The main motivation behind that decision? Blanketing. The complication of clipping is of course all the subsequent required blanketing, and blanketing is really really REALLY tricky when you leave the farm at 5:30am and don’t get back until 3:30pm. It could easily be 40 degrees when I leave in the morning, but 70 degrees by the middle of the day. Trying to blanket for that becomes nearly impossible, and obsessing about has already driven me relatively insane.

I have always felt like horses handle being a little chilly much better than being overly hot, especially Henry in particular. I’d much rather he be a little bit cold for the first couple hours of the day than to be standing under a blanket sweating for 6 hours. It’s also been beaten into me from an early age that it’s Very Bad if a horse is sweating under a blanket. They’ll be wet to their core, the blankets will be wet, and if I can’t get them dried off completely, they’ll end up way colder once the sun goes down. It’s not a cycle I want to opt into. Naturally, if they’re shivering then they’re TOO cold (and I will stand there for an obsessively long time staring at them to make sure they aren’t) but generally if they aren’t clipped, then most Texas days it’s better to err on the side of no blanket.

This would all be a lot easier if I could just work for home or be independently wealthy and not have to spend all day at work… then I could just take blankets off or change them throughout the day as needed. Unfortunately that’s not possible, so instead I drive myself absolutely bonkers trying to make the best decision every day.

Presto and the older mare are easy – they’re so freaking hairy I think it would have to be legit arctic for them to even notice, and they’re both pretty hardy. They don’t wear anything unless its really cold, and gonna stay really cold, and/or there’s a possibility that they might get wet while it’s also cold. Which is rare. The yearling got his coat a lot later than the others, but he puffed up quite a bit in December and is now sporting some really impressive 6″ goat hairs on his chin. I’ll put a blanket on that one before I put one on his other two pasturemates, but I also have to be careful because he is by far the most active and runs around so much that he makes himself hot once the day starts to warm up.

Henry is the trickiest one. When I was debating clipping him again I thought long and hard about it, imagining what I’d do in all these scenarios if he was clipped. I also considered doing just a partial clip of various styles. But really there’s just no good answer when the temperature swings so much between turnout time and noon most days. Since I already agonize way too much about how to dress the horses, I decided to not add any more stress to that unless I absolutely have to. He’s not going to any important shows, and he seems ok temperature-wise in his work for now. I’ll just keep trying to shed him out a bit, and if, once we get through February, he seems like he’s getting too hot or taking a while to shed out enough to be comfortable, I can always just clip him later.

The ability to do blanket changes might be one of the very few things I miss about the other barn… the worker was always happy to go pull Henry’s blanket off for me mid-morning. What I’ve noticed I’m NOT dealing with though, for the first winter in… 5 years? No little ulcery minor gas colics, and no skinny Henry. I’ve always had issues with him in the winter, keeping his weight on and battling some other ulcer symptoms. I think it had to do with increased stall time and not enough forage, mostly. But the ground at this farm is nice and sandy so it’s extremely rare that they have to spend much time cooped up, they get a longer turnout time every day, this is probably the best quality pasture he’s ever had in the winter, he’s got more turnout space and moves around a lot more, and I’m able to give him more hay at night than he’s had before. He’s never looked this good in January, and – knock on wood – no tummy issues. He’s also eating the least amount of grain ever for this time of year… I’ve been able to cut it in half, which I’m sure also really helps his stomach.

Aside from the blanketing turmoil, keeping the horses at home is quite possibly the best thing ever. I probably won’t stop fretting about blanketing decisions on a daily basis though… it’s my newest hobby and I’m real good at it.

Henry and I last jumped in early November. And then two days later he did… whatever the hell he did, and was mysteriously and disturbingly lame for almost a month. As soon as I paid a million dollars for xrays and two vet visits and those ridiculous glue-on rubber shoes he was totally fine, so now for the past 7 weeks I’ve been slowly and carefully legging him back up. Am I being ridiculously slow about it? Maybe. But I’d rather err on the side of caution and take the time to get him properly fit and conditioned again. A month off doesn’t seem like much, but we’d been in the middle of legging him back up to regular fitness (it was a long hot brutal summer that he really could not participate in very much) when he hurt himself. A half-fit horse that gets a month off ends up losing a lot of strength and fitness by the time all is said and done. It’s not just the cardio, it’s the muscles and tendons and ligaments that have to be ready for the workload too. There is only one Henry and I cannot replace him.

But now we’ve worked our way back up to a 5 rides per week schedule, and I’ve slowly been lengthening his conditioning days and asking for more in his dressage rides. It’s funny, this is the first time in my life I’ve ever had an actually “made” horse (ie not green or seriously remedial in some way) and god is there ever a lot to be said for that. The first day of pushing all the flatwork buttons was a little rusty, but after that everything came right back as if nary a day had gone by. On Thursday we did a bareback dressage ride and tossed in all his fun tricks – half pass, shoulder in, haunches in, 10m circles and figure 8’s, lengthenings at the trot and canter, counter canter zig zag, halt to canter, simple changes, etc. He did it all. I mean he spooked a lot, and it wasn’t always particularly correct, and I couldn’t get him within 10 meters of C because some kind of imaginary creature lives over there now, but hey. Close enough.

And my abs were SCREAMING the next day. Totally confirmed my theory that we should be riding bareback more often, because nothing quite murders my core like bareback dressage.

So after having had no problems throughout all that, I decided he finally seemed ready to jump again. We got a little rain on Friday and Saturday, which softened up the ground to absolute perfection, and I dragged some jumps out into the smaller flatter pasture, set them small for him (nothing over 2’9″) and in we went.

Naturally, Henry snorted his idiot head off at the coop. He’s only seen it 500 times before, just not in that exact spot. I honestly have no idea how he’s such a good cross country horse. But after a few laps of trot and canter he settled down, and after we’d warmed up I pointed him at the barrels. Where he proceeded to take off from at least a stride away and land bucking. I laughed. I can’t help it, he’s ridiculous.

Once he’d jumped a few warmup fences he leveled out, so we walked, I went and set my phone on the fence and pointed it at the coop to try to get some video, and then we did two courses.

We didn’t do much, maybe 20 jumps total. We both still remember how, thank goodness, although my eye is a little off. He didn’t seem to mind, he mostly just seemed happy to be jumping again. It’s definitely his favorite thing.

For as silly as the GluShu’s looked they stayed on really well and seemed to do the trick, so I have no complaints. We were able to transition him back into regular steel shoes (with a leather rim pad) over a week ago and all seems fine so far. I spend so much time obsessively watching every step he takes that he probably thinks I’m an even bigger stalker than I already was, and he’s not wrong. I can’t help it.

Henry looked good coming out of his stall this morning so fingers crossed he feels good this afternoon and we can keep marching along back toward his regular workload! It was definitely nice to be airborne again with my favorite. It feels like home.

If you didn’t follow the inaugural US Event Horse Futurity on facebook in 2019, you really missed out. The training vlogs were fantastic, and it was so educational to see how different trainers approach different issues, and how the horses progressed throughout the year. I developed a bit of a fangirl crush on Maya Black, someone I didn’t know a whole lot about before the Futurity.

You see some of these upper level people running around the big stuff with older experienced horses, but it’s such a different ballgame to see them with young horses and get a front row seat to watch how they train. It’s an entirely separate skillset. Some of the trainers were exceptionally good at knowing when to take the pressure away and just hack out or give time off, and knowing just how much they had to prepare without pushing the 4yo brain. It’s an art form that’s fascinating to me (and extremely applicable to real life), and the Futurity brought it to the public eye in a way that is rarely so accessible.

Anyway, if you missed it, the winner of the 2019 Futurity and the second place horse at the YEH Championships overall was Double Diamond C, by Diacontinus. Y’all might remember Diacontinus because I was stalking him a little in Germany in 2017 at Bundeschampionate, plus his sire is Diarado, who is also the sire of one of Presto’s half brothers (Manny).

This week the Futurity posted the 2020 entrants – 11 new baby event horses throwing their hats into the ring to be crowned the next winner. It’s an interesting group, with a couple stallions, a few trakehners, a variety of warmbloods, some tb x wb crosses, a little 15h guy, and even a few dressage-bred horses. It’s a whole new collection of rider/trainers too, so we’ll get to see even more insight into how different people approach the process.

It’s a little too early for me to pick a favorite, since the Futurity has just starting posting pictures and videos of the horses on their facebook page, but if we’re going by pedigree I’m particularly interested to see how Galway, Protego, and Exmoor Xena come along.

Anyone else been following along and looking at the new entries yet? Who’s your early favorite? Did you glean anything useful from the 2019 vlogs?

I am a big fan of riding bareback. Especially for long walking hacks, or those super hot summer days where it’s just too hot to be bothered to tack up, or even sometimes for dressage rides to get a better feel for what the horse is doing and my own aids. I’m convinced that it’s really beneficial when it comes to highlighting bad habits or position flaws. I ride bareback pretty regularly, at least a couple times a month even up to a couple times a week in the summer, and I feel like I would definitely do it more often if I had a good bareback pad. Right now I use a half pad or a saddle pad, which does the job comfort-wise but tends to slip and slide around, tending to become more of an impediment if you want to travel above a walk. It’s annoying.

I’ve always had it in the back of my mind that I should invest in a good bareback pad, but so many other things have always come first. I think I’m finally to the point where my other tack situations are well-managed (or, uh… overmanaged) and since we’re not so much in major competition mode right now and I’m sitting on some Visa gift cards, it seems like it might be time. Except… holy crap there are SO MANY bareback pads on the market. Since I’ve never owned one, trying to choose has been really daunting.

Here’s what I know:

• I know that I don’t want one of those cheap fake fleecey ones that have the girth attached way too far forward. I don’t like the material and they don’t stay in place well and everything about it fills me with hatred.
• I know that I want one with a generous contour cut, to allow for high withers. Because thoroughbreds.
• I know that I prefer one with english girth billets, so that I can use my own girths.
• I know that I don’t want a “treeless saddle” or stirrups/stirrup attachments on the pad.
• I know that I need enough padding to where when Henry inevitably spooks, he won’t break my vagina with his aforementioned high withers.
• I know that the only bareback pads I’ve ever tried before are the cheap fleecey ones and the Thinline, and I didn’t like either one.

Beyond that, I know literally NOTHING.

So I’ve been scouring the internet for a while, looking at all my options. When I found ones that looked interesting, I emailed or messaged the company to ask for more information. Most were really helpful. Some never responded. I think, from all of my obsessive stalking, I’ve narrowed it down to four contenders. They vary a lot, both in style and in price.

My old faithful Riding Warehouse does have a decent selection of bareback pads. The Horsedream and the Stargazer, while plush and dreamy AF, are massively over my budget. But they do carry the Best Friend pads, which I’ve found generally good reviews for. It comes in navy (always a bonus), it isn’t fleece, it has a little contour to the topline (I’m not convinced it’s enough, but maybe), and I think the girth is attached far enough back to work. Of course, it does have the western cinch style girth, which I don’t want, and it’s not as padded or structured as I had in mind. But, at $65 it’s the cheapest of my options.

Going to the next price point, I found the Barefoot Ride-On pads at $185ish. Still has about the same amount of padding, but it’s a little more structured, has the english billets, and also has some dees if I wanted to attach a breastplate or something. Unfortunately this is the only company that didn’t respond to my messages/questions, which bums me out. Also the color options are boring/awful. Not sure the good things are enough to be worth 3 times as much as the Best Friend, and the lack of communication from the company bothers me. A lot.

If you bump up the price point to $280 we get to the Brockamp pads, which are beautiful. The US Brockamp dealer answered all of my questions in a lot of detail and was super nice, which means a lot. Brockamps are made in Italy, and the foam is structured to give the rider more stability as well as give the horse’s spine more clearance, which prevents rubbing or binding. Really important qualities for Henry in particular who is really bothered by both of those things. The Brockamps seem to be very popular in Europe and thus are perpetually back-ordered. They come in a huuuuuge range of colors, and the US dealer has a few in stock, although not in either color I would want (navy or dark green), so I’d have to wait 2-3 months for the next shipment to come in to get one of those colors. But they DO have every feature I’m looking for, albeit in a bit higher price point than I had in mind (still nowhere near the Horsedream or Stargazer range though!). Then again, if I had a pad like this I’d probably ride bareback a lot more.

And then, because if there are beautiful and expensive things in the world I will definitely find every single one of them, there are the Trailmaster pads. They start around $250 for synthetic or $350 for leather, varying according to what exactly you want (I actually like the synthetic more – small miracle). They’re handmade in the USA completely custom, with just about any colors and fabrics and features you want and available in high wither cut. I mean come on. They are just gorgeous. More minimalist for sure than the Brockamp, a bit less padded and without as much structure for the rider. I love that they use wool felt topped with a thin layer of memory foam. I feel like it would put me closer to the horse for flat work, with the tradeoff being that it’s less secure. Hmmmmm. The owner of the company was again helpful at providing info and answering my questions.

 

I’m torn. My wallet says to go with the cheapest option, but after seeing the really nice ones it’s hard to be enthusiastic about the others. I do think I ride bareback enough to justify a nice pad, and if I had a nice pad I would probably ride bareback even more. Plus a good one should last for quite a long time. But then again, it’s not a small chunk of change. And if I did opt for a nice one, I’d have to choose between the Brockamp and the Trailmaster.

Halp me.