Just me or does time move more slowly when you’re waiting on a cold front and impeachment proceedings? Okay okay, no politics on here. But for real, this has been a loooooong week, so I’m just gonna hit on some of the highlights.

Young horse FEI classes

Finally, finally, finally! News broke that the USA will have it’s own age-restricted international classes at Morven Park next fall, geared specifically toward 6yo’s (2*) and 7yo’s (3*). The Europeans have tons of these, culminating with the World Champions at Mondial du Lion in France every fall. Some of the best horses in the world have come up through these classes, and so many upper level horses. 53% of this year’s Burghley field competed in young horse international classes. 62% of this year’s Luhmuhlen field. 51% of the last WEG field. They’re very effective stepping stones for the best horses in the world, and to help find and develop the next big superstars. To finally be able to have something like this in the US is absolutely HUGE for our young horse producers, our breeders, and US eventing as a whole. I spoke on the phone with someone who is involved and it sounds like they’re really trying to make this into something big, with other fun and relevant stuff going on at the event as well. I will definitely be there, with bells on, to support in any way I can, even if it’s just to put a butt in a seat.

As for the rest of the USEA calendar updates, I remain extremely frustrated that there is still no Modified anywhere in Area 5, but hey… there are FIVE new CCI1*’s (yeah so the closest one of those is 16 hours away too, but what else is new).

Retired Racehorse Project

Know who did awesome at RRP? Fellow blogger Hillary! She and Dobby were on fire, finishing as the 4th highest scoring amateur in the eventing section and even earning a 10 on cross country at the water. It’s a big deal buying a baby horse off the track and getting it ready for something like this in less than 10 months, and she did it while being responsible for a baby human as well. Proud of you, friend! Dobbins looks fantastic and it’s been fun to have a front row seat to their journey. He’s a really cool horse, can’t wait to see how their story continues.

 

Cold Front 

Yes, when you’re officially on the 124th day of July and have a horse who is relatively heat-intolerant, a cold front is absolutely headline news. Yeah, ok, so it’s just gonna drop the temps down into the 80’s, but I am so freakin excited. Anything is better than triple digits. It’s supposed to get here on Sunday night and I’m pretty sure everyone is counting down the minutes. Now if we could just get a little precipitation to green up the grass and soften the ground (I said a little, Texas, please don’t do that shit you did last year where it rained for like 5 months straight).

Arctic Fox hair color

Okay, this is a non-horsey thing, I admit, but I’m kind of excited about it. Some of you noticed that you can spy a purple ponytail in one of my FEH pictures…

I’m a fan of fun colored hair, but 1) I have naturally dark hair 2) I’m not into all the maintenance that bleaching requires 3) I’m definitely too cheap to get it done professionally these days. I’ve tried several different brands in the past, just putting the color over top of my natural color. Nothing has ever really shown up, or if it did it only lasted one or two washes. I bought Arctic Fox’s Purple Rain color and have been really impressed with it… we’re on week 2 and it’s still purple. Granted, my hair is so dark that any color I put on it really shows up more as a tint than a true vivid color, but I kind of prefer it that way since it’s more subtle for a professional environment. Now I’m kind of obsessed with what to try next… burgundy? Dark blue? A deep emerald green?

October

Yes, it’s October. Finally. I can start to emerge from my summertime fugue of sweat, sadness, and despair. October is very important, because it’s my favorite month of the year, and contains my favorite holiday of the year – Halloween. What’s not to love about October? It starts getting cooler, there are horse shows galore, it’s the time of year where Texas stops sucking so epically, everyone is constantly trying to plow you with candy, it’s socially acceptable to try to scare the crap out of children… it’s fantastic. Except for maybe all the body clipping. I guess nothing can be perfect, not even October.

And last but not least, my new favorite meme.

Happy Friday and HAPPY OCTOBER everyone. What good things are going on in your world this week?

When it comes to buying horse stuff, I have a few different categories that things fall under. There’s the “Long list”: things I’ll need within 6 months or so, or things I really want but can’t justify unless it’s a really good deal. There’s the “Short list”:  things I actually legitimately need right now. There’s also “Impulse purchases”: things we don’t talk about and I refuse to defend or explain. And I guess technically I do have one other category existing within my Riding Warehouse wishlist… mostly stuff I would buy if someone handed me a big pile of money or a really really generous gift card, but realistically most of it isn’t going to ever happen. Fantasyland.

As an example, that new clipper blade and blade wash that came in the mail yesterday? Definitely short-list. I legit needed that, and needed it ASAP. Horse is approaching yak status. So sensible, that purchase. Look at me being an adult.

The AmazeBrush that I demo’d at Burghley but thought I didn’t really need so didn’t buy at the time, yet have thought about several times since and now realize I could definitely use? Yeah, that got “added to cart” a few days ago. Maybe it falls more into the impulse purchase category, but I could probably manipulate it onto the short list with some excellent equestrian reasoning. Also.. ya know… it was cheap and there was free US shipping. Barely counts.

Lately though, it’s been a bit of a boon for my long list. I had several things on there that were more on the “if I come across a smoking deal” side of things, and it just so happens that several smoking deals have presented themselves. First it was the closeout Mountain Horse Opus boots. I KNOW I KNOW I just got a nice pair of Pioneer’s. But… that’s the problem. Now I have two really nice semi-custom pairs of tall boots (black Tucci and brown Pioneer) that I really don’t want to trash by wearing daily. I want them to last a long time, which is unlikely with the amount of abuse I tend to inflict on my “daily” boots… stall cleaning, baths, mud, lots of walking around, etc. It physically pains me to destroy my nice boots one day at a time. So I reasoned that if a good, hard-wearing pair of boots came along at a really good price, I’d pick them up.

And then Equizone clearanced their MH Opus.

$150 for a nice, pretty pair of brown boots that I can wear around the barn without guilt and completely destroy without feeling like such a garbage human? Sign me the eff up. And they’re Mountain Horse, so they should be able to withstand some abuse. And my calf size came in Tall (not a thing with the Sovereigns)! Score.

A few days after that I got the email from Dover offering 30% off a blanket purchase. The boys are fully stocked on turnout apparel, but I had been wanting to buy Henry a very lightweight cotton sheet for those in between temps. I loathe Dover, but they do get me a couple times a year with coupons. So I popped into the store on Sunday, figuring I’d just see if they had anything in his size. They did, and it was $20 with my coupon, so… sold.

And then I happened to peek in on Insta, where I saw a new story from The Tried Equestrian, who had just posted an Equifit bellyband for less than half of what it costs new. I actually HAVE had a bellyband on my list of things I need to buy soon, because Henry gets rubs from just my leg/boots in the winter and I’m tired of fighting it. I just… haven’t been excited about shelling out $140 for one. But for $59, I’m in.

I’ve managed to take care of most of my long list, completely by happenstance, in the past couple weeks. The stars are aligning for some reason, and I’m not going to question it.

I also got the shipping notification for that Hufglocken order I’d kind of forgotten about, with the navy shimmable Mattes sheepskin half pad. That’ll be Presto’s. I still need to get white versions of Henry’s Premier Equine sheepskin pads, because turns out I love those things more and more every day and will definitely be sticking with them. Which in turn means that I have a lot of other saddle pads to sell (among a ton of other things, because downsizing to tiny house). Ugh. Selling things is my least favorite. Kind of thinking I should just haul it all to a tack swap or send it to consignment. What have y’all done (and liked) in the past when you have lots of random shit to get rid of?

I also found out (or rather, Mimi told me) that you can actually buy those blue Decathlon gloves that I got in France in the US now. I am absolutely freaking in love with those things (like… I like them more than my Roeckl’s and they’re half the price) so I’m considering stocking up on a couple more pairs. I just wish they made them in more colors! But hey, tada… just like that the long list is no longer empty.

I think I may have talked here before about how downright violent Presto is with his food. He’s polite enough about actually being fed, but as soon as the food is in his bucket and he’s left alone to eat, my god… it is like a demolition derby. He puts his feet in his bucket, he smashes into the bucket with his head, he puts his head under the bucket and tips it upside down. It’s loud AF, and food goes everywhere.

Over the year and a half that he’s been solely in my care, I’ve tried pretty much everything. Pan on the floor, pan in a tire, food dumped on top of hay, several different kinds of buckets and feeders and different ways of tying them all down. Shit, there’s even been duct tape involved. He can break anything, given enough time. I just kind of gave up and resigned myself to buying a lot of buckets and Sand Clear. And then I had oooonnnee last idea.

I saw a lot of very positive reviews for the Cashel Feed Rite feed bag, so I figured… why not. Let’s just try it and see. Best case scenario it works and keeps him from putting his feet in buckets/breaking things constantly, and worst case scenario it would be damn funny to watch him eat with a bucket strapped to his head. So I ordered a black one, it showed up a few days later, and I found myself feeling pretty optimistic. It was a nice bag, with a reinforced mesh bottom and lots of heavy duty stitching. The weak point was, IMO, the strap. It was kind of thin nylon with a plastic snap buckle. I figured if he was going to break anything, it would be the snap (oh how close I was to being right).

So, step 1, I took it out to the barn to let him wear it and understand how it works.

In order to get all the feed out of the bottom of the bag, the horse needs to lower their head to the ground and let the bag rest on the ground. I figured this was the part he’d have a problem with (he is a lot like me in that we tend to just kind of come in like a wrecking ball of chaos with no actual plan) so I wanted to teach him to put it on the ground to get the food. First I had to get him used to it being on his nose/head, which was no big deal. He’ll tolerate a lot of things when there’s food involved.

Once he was okay with just wearing it, I set it the feed bag on the ground, held a treat, and led his nose down to the ground and into the bag to get the treat. We repeated that a few times until he was seeking to put his nose on the ground to get the treat. Then I just put a couple handfuls of food in there, strapped it on, and let him go. He figured it out really quickly.

I sat there and watched him eat, feeling semi-victorious. He pawed half-heartedly a couple times, and walked a circle in the beginning, but otherwise the typical bucket-bashing behavior was gone. I had taken all the fun out of it, by giving him nothing to toss around or make noise with. He settled down and ate the food like a normal freaking horse, for once in his life. I was hopeful that we’d finally found a good solution for him.

But in some ways he is his mother’s child through-and-through, and I should have known that my optimism was misplaced. This is a family of destroyers, after all. Remember that time Sadie sat on Michelle’s truck wheel well and smashed it to shit? Or all the baby trees, freshly planted, that she snapped in half with her ass? A natural talent for breaking things – definitely genetic.

After dinnertime that night (his first full official meal with the feed bag) I got a text from the barn owner saying that he’d broken it. More specifically, he’d ripped the strap completely off one side.

Of course he did. I was 0% surprised by this of course, although I had kind of been hoping to get at least a few weeks out of the damn thing. I thought that first he’d learn how to flip it upside down and dump the feed out, or maybe fling it off his head. Or… ya know… break the plastic buckle, the obvious weak point. But no, he completely removed the strap from one entire side. Top to bottom. Ripped clean off. How? Who even knows. How does Presto do any of these things that he does?

One meal in the feedbag and Presto was right back to bucket life. Of course, at the new place his feed bucket is screwed down, so it’s not as fun and he can’t tip it over. We’ll see how long it takes him to break that one though (which will probably happen with his feet)… we all know it’s just a matter of when, not if. I give up. You win again, Presto.

This year I didn’t have an entourage with me at Championships and I found myself really missing our personal photographer from last year (aka Michelle). She was on a flight to Italy on the day of FEH Championships, on her way to Tuscany for vacation. I know, I can’t imagine why she’d rather go to Italy than FEH Champs either. But the venue does have a really good resident photographer, so I signed up and paid my proof fee, because we all know that the most important part of horse shows is the pictures. And we also definitely all know that I really really suck at remembering to take pictures at all, and when I do take pictures they’re generally terrible.

The photographer definitely did not disappoint, and I got a proof folder full of 140 pictures. They were a bit pricey so I had to limit myself, and choosing just a few proved to be quite difficult… not a bad problem to have! In the end I settled for a social media package rather than the hi-res, since I could get more pictures for less money. Plus like… I’m about to live in a tiny house, there’s not going to be room for any more art or photos on the wall anyway (Hillary did get me one of those cool digital picture frames for my birthday that will totally be stuffed with pictures of my horses that shuffle through on repeat).

One of the few things I regret in retrospect with Presto’s mother is that I never really got any nice photos of her like this when she was a baby. Lots of cell phone pictures, and some badly posed photos with real cameras, but nothing like these. These are beautiful. And looking at Presto’s FEH pictures from last year compared to his pictures from this year is really fun, you can see him growing and maturing and changing so much.

But I think one of my favorite things about these photos is how I can so clearly see both parents in him. I see a lot of Sadie in the above photos, which makes sense because he inherited her big floaty trot. For the rest of him, though, I see Mighty Magic. SOOOOOO much Mighty Magic. I mean… look at this:

I swear I think Presto is looking more and more like MM as he grows. They’re two peas in a pod for sure.

Big thanks to Ernesto Photography for these lovely pictures. What would we do without these awesome show photographers?

As of yesterday the boys are all moved in and settled at their new home! I know… that probably seemed fast to y’all, since I kept hush-hush about the whole situation until last week. But the previous barnowner has known about it for a couple months, I just wasn’t really sure if I’d be moving them in October or November. Once we’d talked through the turnout scenarios and logistics at the new place there was really no point in staying, since there was already someone else lined up to take my stall. And since October 1 fell on Tuesday, I figured we might as well go ahead and get them moved the weekend before.

On Saturday I moved all my jumps over, since they’re a trailer load in and of themselves. They’re looking pretty sad these days, so my winter project will be to repair and repaint everything… something that will be a lot easier to do when I’m on site. Tell you what though, after loading all those stupid things in the trailer I was starting to question just how important jumping really was to me. Just kidding. But for real though it was like 100 degrees (this is the neverending summer from hell) and those things are heavy.

On Sunday it was the boys’ turn, and I rode Henry early in the morning then loaded all my stuff up (which only took 4 trips to the trailer, let me be proud of myself for a second) and away we went. We unloaded them and took Henry to the barn, while Presto went over to the front pasture and went out with an older mare and a yearling. As predicted, he and the yearling were fast friends. I think it took all of 10 minutes for them to engage in their first game of Bitey Face.

I think the best part of this new friendship is that the yearling, JB, has even less awareness of personal space than Presto does, so Presto actually finds him a little bit annoying. Talk about a major role reversal from the norm. At one point JB was actually eating grass out of Presto’s mouth and Presto had this exasperated look on his face like “Bro, I’m trying to graze here.”. As you might expect, after watching Presto annoy the shit out of every horse he’s ever met in his entire life, I find this to be HILARIOUS. The mare (who’s official role in this situation is “referee and voice of reason”) wants nothing to do with either of those idiots.

After making sure that those guys were getting along, I started unpacking my stuff. The tack room here is nice and big, plus there are auxiliary storage spaces, so I took this as an opportunity to sort of re-vamp my storage spaces. At the other barn I had all my stuff crammed into my tack trunk, which is kind of hard to keep neat. It inevitably turns into a big black hole and I end up digging around for things all the time. Since I don’t really need all that stuff on a regular basis I went and bought a set of drawers, to hold the regularly used items like boots, tack cleaning stuff, ointments, a fly bonnet, etc.

Everything fits with room to spare, with my bathing bucket and grooming bag stacked next to it. I think this will be easier to work out of with the daily items, and the tack trunk with all of it’s less frequently used stuff is over in the storage barn. It’s nice to have the drawers to keep thing separated and easily accessible.

While Presto is really good at handling whatever life throws at him, Henry is a much more anxious type, so I was a little more worried about how he would settle in. There was a bit of neighing at first, but not bad, and he seemed happy enough eating hay in his stall and watching the goings-on. Since it’s still so hot he’ll stay in the barn during the day with Toni the stallion (the two huffers and puffers) and go out at night in the pasture next to Presto’s. The other horses in the barn go out during the day and are in at night. Henry does best being turned out alone anyway, so it works out well. Once the weather cools down (IF it ever cools down) he can go out during the day too, and they can all be in neighboring pastures. There are plenty of pastures to go around and rotate through here!

Both of them ate dinner well last night and seemed content. JB and Presto are totally two bros in a pod, and Henry isn’t being a screaming idiot so that’s definitely a bonus.

Everyone came up for nightcheck and ate their cookie (I think these boys will quickly become fans of THAT particular perk) and all were happy and well. So… here we are… the new adventure has officially begun, and it’s off to a great start. I think we’ll all be happy out here.