I sat down to try to write my weekly catch-up post yesterday and realized I have basically no media from any of it despite there actually being a lot going on at the moment. So… enjoy mostly filler photos.

Last week I went to jumper rounds at Majestic, just hopping around one 1.05m. It was relatively straightforward and uneventful, but there wasn’t a photographer there so ya know… take my word for it. We also did another brief XC school with Megan, kind of reaffirming some of the things (holes, they’re really holes in the education) we worked on the first time. She’s changed the way I’m sitting ever so slightly, and trying to confirm something new into muscle memory takes time.

Argo also jumped down his first line, just a couple crossrails with flower boxes. This was because a friend of a friend is coming to try him next week and asked for video of him jumping a line.

I really had no intention of selling him, but I’ve had several people ask me if I’d be willing to part with him sooner rather than later. I had to think about it for a bit, but I came to the conclusion that if the perfect person comes along and wants to buy him within the next month or so, that still gives me enough time to start over with a new horse for RRP. Do I need to sell him? Nope. But if a super awesome situation comes along sooner rather than later, am I open to it? Yep.

The truth of the matter is that he’s a superb boy, simple and kind in every way, but he’s not an upper level athlete or the type of horse I would keep long term. Because, you know, I’m not right in the head and like them a little bit more… MORE. Know what I mean? See Presto as Exhibit A.

Meanwhile, Argo would love nothing more than to plod around the 3′ and under for the rest of his days, getting treats and face snuggles and having the most predictable and simple life. It’s a fantastic quality in a horse, and one that’s hard to find in something relatively young and fresh off the track. So if his perfect match comes along soon, I’m open to it.

In other news, Presto had his re-check appointment last Friday to look at his stomach and ulcer situation again.

The good news is that the original ulcers that were all along the very top of his stomach are healed. I suspected as much, because he’s been back to normal about jumping ditches and banks. However, something told me that we haven’t solved the problem entirely, and unfortunately I was right. He had some new areas of ulceration a bit lower in his stomach.

There were a couple good things we found, though: 1) his pylorus (we weren’t able to see it last time but this time we got a good view) looks great, and 2) the new ulcers are below the area where food would be, so as long as he’s got forage in him all the time, there shouldn’t really be an issue of discomfort from acid splash like we were having with the original ones.

The bad news is that in my vet’s opinion, this means that ulcers are likely to just be an ongoing issue with this horse. We did learn that his particular ulcer drug of choice seems to be omeprazole and not sucralfate… the sucralfate appears to have done next to nothing for him. She feels like he might be one that does well staying on Nexium, so now we’re trying that along with Platinum GI and Alimend. Which is probably overdoing it but hi hello now I’m paranoid AF.

He could honestly just be that type of horse that requires a round of ulcer meds annually (love that for my wallet) in addition to daily preventatives. All in all I’m extremely glad we’ve scoped him both times, even if my wallet is crying. We’ve learned a lot, and have a much more solid plan because of it.

In more fun news, on Monday I took Presto over to Sweet Dixie mostly just to hop over some bigger stuff, since it’s been a while since we’ve galloped at big tables. We jumped a couple of their P ones and then I schooled their coffin and their new sunken road complex. I jumped maybe 15 jumps total, just mostly wanted to practice the new tweaks a little bit more and at bigger things.

Yesterday I went and had a showjump lesson with Megan and she only really changed one thing but blew my mind entirely in the process. I’ve been having a bit of an ongoing issue lately with riding a little past my distance, especially to oxers. I did it a couple times and she said “so when you come out of the turn to a jump, where are you looking?” and I said top rail, which is what I’ve pretty much always been taught. She said ok this might sound weird, but when you come out of the turn try looking at the exact spot where you want the horse’s feet to be at takeoff, and then once you’re a couple strides out you can lift your eye again.

And I’ll be damned bro, it worked a lot better. There were sparks coming from my brain. But the concept makes tremendous sense when you think about it. It’s yet another re-wiring that I’ll have to do, so right now I really have to concentrate to make my eyes look at the takeoff spot everywhere, but it does seem to help me and my depth perception tremendously. She made a few other small tweaks, but we didn’t jump much since it’s hot and Presto’s got a lot to do this week.

Anyway, I have no media from any of these rides since I went by myself, so… you’ll have to take my word for it I guess. I think having a couple different sets of eyes (Megan and Peter) these past few weeks has been really great, but I’m also now on a big time learning curve trying to enforce some new habits and fill some holes. This is what I’m here for though, so I’m loving it!

Do y’all ever stop and think about what gluttons for punishment we are, trying to ride horses? I mean aside from the obvious things that come along with the fact that they’re ginormous flight animals that thrive on breaking your heart. Like… we dedicate our whole lives to the never-ending, entirely unattainable pursuit of trying to learn how to ride them well. The whole thing is absurd when you really think about it.

Luckily I too am absurd and love to do absurd things. A sport I will never actually master and dedicate my whole entire life to learning how to do it just some kind of marginally decently, with varying levels of success? Sign me up!

Anyway, last week featured a jump lesson, a Peter Gray dressage lesson, a jumper rounds outing, and XC schooling. I don’t have media from the Monday jump lesson but it went well. Lots of turning exercises because it kind of forces you to ride more forward out of the turns, and I needed that.

Tuesday afternoon, Peter Gray was here. And guys, I’ve kind of been wanting to make this happen for years. I don’t idolize anyone (there’s a whole lot of truth to the saying never meet your heroes) but I have a very deep respect for Peter and have always admired the quiet, fair, and methodical approach that he’s always seemed to have in any of the materials I’ve seen or heard from him. He judged Presto as a yearling at YEH, he’s judged dressage tests of Henry’s, I’ve seen him at work so much as a judge or a member of the ground jury, and at YEH/FEH symposiums.

This year I was finally able to connect with him and arrange an afternoon of lessons here at the farm for a few of us. Peter was as expected – fair, but meticulous. He praised what was good and didn’t mince words about what needed work. He gave us exercises to help address the things that need improvement, and I think all the horses got better from beginning to end. Nothing about it was easy – the exercises he had us doing at canter were definitely beyond anything we’ve tried before – but it gave you the opportunity to level up and rise to the occasion.

While his expectations were high, he was very very consistent to enforce that he is seeking quality over quantity, and to always give the horses a lot of breaks and never ask them to hold things for very long when it’s hard for them. Even just half a circle is enough, and we should never drill them. His horsemanship seems top tier. I learned a lot and have already continued to apply the concepts to all of our rides. I’m hoping to have him back out again before season is over, but I think we all need a few weeks to absorb and work on the things he’s already given us. It was a lot!

Patreon folks, you’ve got lots of video of Presto and Tilly’s lessons on your dashboard.

On Wednesday morning Argo went on another field trip to Majestic.

I was mostly just tagging along while other folks jumped around. My goal for that ride was just to have a chill hackabout and let Argo continue to learn that going places and doing things is no big deal. He stood for a while, he walked and trotted and loped around a bit, stood some more, went in the water, etc. He was super good except for when the pony leaped off the down bank like a crackhead right next to him, then he got a little worried, but he calmed back down without much drama.

Michelle also came along and rode Henry, and he was delighted to take her over some of her first XC jumps in a really long time.

On Wednesday afternoon I loaded Presto up and we headed to jumper rounds. The idea was to pop around the meter, and then if that was good maybe do the 1.10m.

Presto went in the ring for the meter and thought he saw demons in one corner. To be fair there was stuff wrapped in black plastic stacked over there, so he wasn’t far off. After a little bit of spooking he decided he might be able to survive it, and we picked up a canter and jumped around the course very uneventfully. We like uneventful. Uneventful is good. Boring is superb.

So we stayed for the 1.10m/Prelim. He was still kind of staring distractedly into the demon corner a little bit, but it wasn’t too big of a deal. I didn’t get him down the first line straight enough and we had a bit of a gap there that resulted in a rail, but the rest was again uneventful and boring.

On Thursday we went and did a quick/simple XC school with Megan (the rider who had Presto when he was a 4yo), who is in town for the season. My regular trainer will be gone for the next show, and since we’re just now dipping our toe back into Modified, I thought it would be prudent to have some trainer assistance lined up for that show. Since Megan already knows us and will be there anyway, she seemed like the logical choice, but I also thought it would be a good idea to ride with her a few times between now and then rather than just day-of. The XC school was super productive, she gave me a few little position tips that I think made a big difference. Getting more eyes on you is always helpful!

The rest of the week was more chill, and one of Michelle’s friends was in town so Argo got to play musical riders. Michelle rode him a couple times, and then her friend rode him a couple times too.

They both rode him great, and again it continues to be really helpful to me to have other people ride him and see how he goes. He’s certainly more of a kick-ride, which makes him more reliable for any level rider… I’m definitely never worried about him running off with anyone or anything like that. I mean, it might take them a few minutes to get him to trot, but… he’s safe!

Michelle was only here for a quick pre-breeding season check-in, so she’s back home now, but she’ll return in a few weeks as we officially get to breeding season. Hopefully she’ll be game to keep riding Argo and Henry some while she’s here!

This week looks to be a little bit calmer (I hope) but ya know… we’ll see what kind of adventures we get up to.

Man, catching up is hard to do. I gotta purge everything else that happened last week before I forget entirely.

The day before the show at Majestic, they hosted a YEH Symposium for USEA. I’ve been to several other YEH Symposiums (this was my 4th I think?) but I will always go to another one if I can. Even if the subject matter isn’t new, every single time is a learning experience. It’s an opportunity to see young horses, discuss them as a group, and every time – without fail – there is really good discussion generated, whether it’s by the attendees or the speakers. Usually both.

This symposium featured not only judges Marilyn Payne and Debbie Adams, but also a panel of speakers that included Lauren Nicholson, Liz Halliday, and Dr. Lisa Casinella. We got to see some really nice 4 and 5 year olds presented by Caroline Pamukcu, Kelly Hutchinson, Alex O’Neal, and Ariel Grald. Each horse did it’s SJ and XC round, then came over and was untacked so we could see the conformation and discuss what we liked/didn’t like about all of it. I appreciate the riders bringing their horses and being willing to subject them to group discussion like that.

My favorite (and I think the overall favorite of most) was Ariel Grald’s young mare Melypsa. She was a stunning type with a big gorgeous ground-covering gallop and seemed to have plenty of scope in the tank.

The discussion generated from this one was pretty interesting too – this is where the riders and the judges disagreed a bit. At one point it was said “the gallop doesn’t really get any better than this for a 5 year old” and a score of 9 was thrown out. The riders on the panel argued that if the gallop doesn’t get any better, why wouldn’t it be a 10? The judges said that they felt it could be even better down the road as the horse matured. So then the debate was – are they judging on a scale of the perfect 5yo or are they judging on a tip top “gold standard” mature 5 star horse scale? As you can imagine, there were feelings on both sides and no real satisfactory answer.

The other horses presented were all quite different, which was fun to compare and contrast. Alex’s was a much heavier type, Kelly’s was quite light and more green/less mature than the others. Caroline brought last year’s 4yo YEH Champion who was in a bit of a weird growthy stage, which generated nice discussion about how young horses develop, what can happen when they’re in these growth stages, and how the riders prefer to cope with that. Overall it was fun, as always. Highly recommend attending these if you ever have the opportunity… even if you don’t think you’re into YEH or young horses, it will be interesting and a learning moment.

The rest of the week was kind of a blur of working horses and working at WEC. Hillary hopped on Argo for the first time in a little while and did great with him.

I think it’s good to get as many people on him as I can… it gives me a lot of feedback on where he’s at and what I need to keep working on, plus it gives me the opportunity to really watch him go and find more things to improve. It’s all information.

On Saturday we went XC schooling, which. Well. I had a real menty b. I was displeased with how I’d ridden at the show on Wednesday, to start with, which is never really great for my psyche. And it was our first time going back to Magnolia Sands, which is where the wheels first started to fall off the bus a little bit last fall before we figured out the ulcer thing. So I was hoping for a nice quiet simple confidence building day, and it was basically the exact opposite.

The other horses that came were wired, which spun Presto up, which really just made me feel like the entire experience was giving him ulcers again, which made me feel like I didn’t want to be there at all, which made me ride not great, which just spiraled and spiraled and spiraled, as you can imagine. As he spooked and spun his way around the field I really just quit and wanted to go home. There was nothing productive about that, and it wasn’t at all the situation I had wanted to put him in that day. We ended up jumping a few tiny things that went ok, but overall it was a massive failure for the mission of the day and I was exceptionally frustrated by the whole thing.

I spent the next day doing stuff around the farm getting it tidied up and organized and ready for Michelle to get here to start preparing for breeding season. I completely wore myself out, which was maybe better for my menty b? Maybe worse? Who knows. I did make a glittery sign for the door of the lab, which yes is a little bit too big but it’s glitter, so. It’s fine.

We were supposed to have Peter Gray lessons last week but he was sick and pushed to this week. I’ll write more about that in next week’s updates, but spoiler it was great. Also spoiler I think I’m back from the menty b maybe? Knock on wood?

The other thing that happened last week was that RRP announced a new fundraising initiative for this year. Basically they’re allowing Makeover participants to get $350 of their entry fees back if they raise $1000 for RRP. Honestly, I love the idea.

Obviously I believe pretty strongly in the mission of RRP and what they’re doing, and have sponsored awards and given them donations in the past. Participating this year is obviously giving them my money too, but I’m always down for helping raise more funds if and when I can. The bonus of it also being a bit beneficial to me as an entrant is an extra perk, because lets be honest… as with anything with horses, the road to RRP is not cheap. A chance to get some money back is always helpful. Seems like a win-win. So if you’re interested or maybe you have an aunt/grandma/cousin that likes pretty ponies and would throw in $20 or whatever, feel free to share my fundraising link with them.

I’m also offering special incentives to business owners, so if you own an equine business and would like to donate, please shoot me a message and let’s talk. And if you make a donation and would like a very small token of our appreciation, email or PM your address!

Getting creative now with our show recap post titles, because why not.

I have a lot to catch up on from the past week, but lets start with the horse show, yes? We ran a Training at a one-day schooling HT last Wednesday, in an attempt to knock the rust off and see how Presto is feeling now that he’s post-ulcer treatment. First off, my ride times were positively delectable – 9:30am dressage and 10:30 show jumping, followed by XC. I got there at 8:30 and left at 11:15. What an absolutely delightful morning.

Anyway. I noticed that the judge for my ring was someone that is kind of notorious for never saying anything particularly positive. I think her scores are always pretty fair (if a bit on the stingier side than some others) but I’ve ridden in front of her like 4-5 times and have yet to get a positive comment. Superb. Nothing like an early morning soul-crushing.

I got on to warm up and Presto was a wee bit wild. He really wanted to spook at something but we put him to work pretty quickly so that he had to focus on that instead. He stuck his tongue over the bit at the first part of our warmup – something he’s never done before – so that was a new one. We raised the bit a hole and he didn’t do it again but come on man, no new tricks. Overall he felt decent… he did kind of give me the feeling that if I really went for it in the canter lengthenings I might find myself seated on a kite, so the decision was made to just be conservative and aim for a relaxed obedient test.

And that’s pretty much what we did. I hadn’t ridden that test in like a year, and only ran through parts of it the day before, so part of me was like “boy I hope I remember this test” and the other part of me was like “boy I hope he keeps a lid on the fireworks”. So it was conservatively ridden, but mostly accurate, and he did everything I asked him to do with minimal fuss. I came out of the ring and me and Trainer both were just kinda like “yeah sure, not bad, could have been worse, wasn’t brilliant”. She figured it was high 20’s, I thought it might be around a 30 from that judge. But I guess she was feeling generous because we got a 26.4, with no score lower than 6.5, four 8’s, and a 10 (our first!) for the halt.

I mean there’s still not a single positive comment on there, but I’ll take it. Even the remarks on the back just said “some nice moments”. LOL. I had to laugh. Compliments just aren’t something that judge does, apparently. That’s my best score from her so far though. Either way it put us second in a decent-sized division of mostly pros and a few solid upper level horses. Gonna be honest, I do enjoy starting off near the top after the first phase. Thank you Presto for making the judges like you on the flat.

We had show jumping in pretty short order after that, and no time to really walk the course. We walked over and watched a few rounds just to learn the course, then I went back to the trailer, changed out my tack, had a snack, and soon enough it was time to head back over to showjumping warmup. We didn’t do much in there, just popped over a few jumps and headed over to the ring.

Presto jumped well, but I did not ride well. I was just disorganized and went a little fetal at one point. He had the rail at fence 2 (mostly because I think he was kind of staring off at XC and not paying much attention) and then I just… outright missed a couple times. It wasn’t my cutest effort. And it caught me a little off guard tbh because at this point cantering around a 1m course with him usually feels like something we can do in our sleep. I think I got a bit lackadaisical about it and needed a bit of a “hello, wake up, ride the horse ya dumbass”. I am out of practice y’all. I also realized later that I didn’t take time to visualize riding the course in my head, which I always do, and I think that was part of my issue. Luckily we’d had enough of a gap after dressage for the rail to only drop us from 2nd to 3rd.

Either way, that phase was done, and I went back past my trailer to put on his XC boots and my vest. Then it was over to XC warmup where we had to wait a bit for them to work through some people ahead of me, then we did some forward and back at the gallop, hopped a few jumps, and went to the start box.

The course was pretty straightforward, a fair Training I thought. I think the most complex part was the water – a rolltop with 5 straight or 6 bending strides to a drop into the water (if you rode the 5 straight you dropped down at a bit of an angle) and then turn right in the water and jump a kinda-skinnyish wedge out. The coffin was 2 strides to 2 strides, there was another downbank combo in the woods by the road, and a trakehner towards the end. Fairly standard for the level.

Presto tackled it with his standard vigor. Ok, perhaps there was too much vigor at the down bank to the water. I got him there on a little bit of a gap and rather than pat the ground (ain’t nobody got time for that, he says) he went COWABUNGAAAAA and leaped into the water like a deranged hippopotamus. Don’t worry, I bought the photo series. It’s iconic. Just me out here flying the newest airline, Air BongoBoi.

When we landed I was entirely on the buckle of my (very long) reins, and we were like almost in the middle of the water. It was a relatively absurd effort on his part, but he seemed most delighted. He definitely tested my rein-gathering skills as I had to quickly swing a right to head to the skinny.

Otherwise it was pretty uneventful. My eye needs to tune back in to the cross country pace and distance… it’s been too long since we last jumped at speed and I kept getting him a bit deep. He didn’t care but it sure annoyed the shit out of me. I’m kind of sad there’s no pic or video of him jumping the open oxer though, he galloped down to that one beautifully and really pinged off the ground there. To his credit, he feels great. Definitely my happy boy again.

We finished 14 seconds under time for a double clear, which moved us back up the leaderboard to take the win. I was admittedly disappointed in my own performance… I felt like I rode a bit crap, honestly. Presto gets the credit for that particular blue ribbon. But clearly he’s back to business, we confirmed that part. Now I need to get myself back up to par!

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First and foremost with the fun stuff: RRP announced acceptances for the 2024 Thoroughbred Makeover last week – Argo and I are officially “in”!.

Granted, I think pretty much everyone gets in. Still though, it’s the official beginning of the journey, so that part is fun and exciting. Of course, Argo got his SI injected last Tuesday and then had a few days off, then a light ride on Friday, then I was gone all day Saturday taking pics at FHP, then it rained buckets for 36 hours straight, so… he’s not done much in the past week. That’s fine though, having a little break here and there is good for them I think. Someone remind me I said that when I’m getting on three wild horses today. Patreon members, if you need your Argo fix you’ve got his latest training vlog up on your dashboard.

Henry has also had some time off, because he was quite certain he broke his whole leg. In reality he got some deep scrapes on the outside of a hind pastern (my guess is maybe he got his foot stuck in the fence when he was rolling or something) and – being the absolute stoic boy that he is – was incredibly lame. It was fairly dramatic and pathetic. But he’s had a week off too, letting those close up and heal. We’ll see how he’s feeling today.

But those two taking some time off meant that, for the first time in a long time, I was down to just one horse to ride for most of the past week (and this, friends, is also why it’s totally justifiable to own several horses).

The highlight of Presto’s week was getting to go to jumper rounds on Wednesday. Here in Ocala there’s a Jumper Rounds series hosted by some eventing barns from January through April. They rotate through which farm is hosting (there are three hosts this year) – one each week – and they have set heights at set times on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. You show up during your height’s time slot, you jump a round or two, you pay by the round, and then you load up and go home. It’s probably my favorite thing about season. Yet somehow, despite going to several Jumper Rounds days last year, we never made it to Overlook Farm. Last year we seemed to mostly hit Will Coleman’s and Clayton Frederick’s (that’s just how it worked out timing wise) but this year so far we’ve only been to two, and both at new to us places – the failed one at KEP where we never made it out of warmup because of Ulcer Boy, and now this one at Sara Kozumplik’s.

Originally we were planning on going over to Majestic that day for their jumper rounds (there were three schooling jumper shows on the same day within 20 minutes… bless Ocala) but last time we went there they ended up running almost 3 hours behind. Awesome for them because they had so many entries, but we didn’t really want to risk that happening again because we all had other stuff to do that day. The weekly Jumper Rounds series at the eventing barns are more lightly attended, and we all seem more efficient at getting ourselves to the gate/in the ring more quickly than the shows where a lot of h/j people are there. No shade. I think we all just want to go home.

The plan was to just pop Presto around a 1m class and see how he was, since this was our first time back in a show environment since ulcer treatment. I had an entirely different horse than I did at the last attempt. He unloaded chill and remained chill the entire time. No spooking, no antics, just my normal boy. Well ok he did spook a little bit in the ring at the GIANT potted plants at one end, but it was fairly minor and honestly he’s right, they’re creepy. I rolled in around 1pm and was rolling back out again before 2pm. Chef’s kiss. Really pleased with how he was in the brand new environment, it was a good litmus test for making sure he’s back to feeling like himself again.

On Saturday I headed out to Florida Horse Park to take pics and video of some sale horses for a client. Naturally Florida decided to cry all weekend – and when I say all weekend I mean ALL WEEKEND. It started raining around 5am on Saturday and didn’t stop until the wee hours of Monday morning. Everything is incredibly saturated at the moment. Saturday wasn’t too bad, mostly misty rain in the morning and then got heavier as the day went on. I managed to get some pictures without my camera getting too wet, including some of friends and their horses since I was standing there with a camera anyway.

That was my first time taking riding pics with that camera, I just got it about a month ago. The timing is different from the camera I was using before, so I’m gonna have to hone that in a little bit.

This was also the first recognized show where FHP required pinney numbers in all three phases. I know a few people whined about it (including some pros that I found incredibly disappointing in their comments), and sure it does detract a bit from your pretty outfit or whatever, BUT. I gotta say, at a show running over 600 horses through on a minimum number of volunteers, being able to actually see people’s numbers all the time seems like a big quality of life improvement. No yelling across the warmup, no frantically squinting at bridle numbers trying to find someone or figure out who they are. And on more than one occasion while standing next to warmup I heard someone call out “Heads up number ____” and prevented more than one potential crash. It might be annoying to wear a pinney for all three phases but I’m 100% certain that 1) if the UK can do it, so can we. 2) if it improves the experience for staff and volunteers, lets do it 3) if it helps make the warmup ring a little safer, that’s an added bonus.

Plus, like… think of it as a reason to get yourself a fancy new pinney or two to coordinate with your jackets. I was glad to see everyone comply and that the whining was largely kept to a minimum (and mostly limited to male professionals… go figure).

Anyway… dismounting from that particular soap box.

Yesterday I spent scheduling some social media posts for clients this week, updating websites, editing show photos, and putting together the breeding data for the Grand Prix of Eventing in Aiken in a couple weeks. Basically I was trying to get a little bit ahead of the game, because this week’s schedule is nuts. Tomorrow I’ve got the YEH symposium in the morning and a lesson in the afternoon and possibly a farm visit from a supplement company. Wednesday is the schooling HT at Majestic. Thursday the farrier will be here, I’ve got to get the dressage arena set up, and then I’m working at WEC, and then on Friday Peter Gray is coming for lessons! Oh and then XC schooling on Saturday. I feel like I’m forgetting something but god I hope not.

I hope everyone else has a good (or at least warm and dry) week wherever you are!