Well helllooooo 2019!

If you’re anything like me you went to bed last night long before the ball dropped, then woke up briefly after midnight to curse those “damn rednecks and their damn fireworks” and soothe some quivering dogs. Nah? Just me? Well ok then.

Anyway, now that 2019 is here, it’s time to think about what we want to do this year. I feel like last year went pretty well, with looser, lower-pressure goals that were more focused on the journey instead of very specific ends or accomplishments. I think we actually got more done in the long run, and I definitely enjoyed it a lot more. I still liked making goals, especially because by the time we got to the end of the year it was really fun to look back on them and see how much things had changed. It’s easy to forget how far you’ve come when you never look back on where you’ve been. So with that in mind, we’re going to make a few goals for 2019, but keep them pretty loose again, thinking more about the big picture.

Keep Henry happy – let’s be honest, at this point the horse owes me absolutely nothing. As long as he continues to enjoy his job, I’m happy to keep plugging along. But if he needs to take some breaks now and then to trail ride or ride bridleless or wander aimlessly around the field, then we’ll do it. His health and happiness are my #1 priority.

Moar Prelim – Assuming we continue on the same track, we’ll see how things play out as far as what we do and when and how. I’d rather err on the side of caution than push to do something that’s a bit beyond what we’re ready for, but I’m hoping to continue exploring our new level, learning, and making improvements.

Continuing education (unmounted) – I’ve made this a focus for the past few years, and it’s kind of like the more I get, the more I crave. I like the more formal educational opportunities (like auditing clinics, attending seminars, watching lectures, etc) but there are just as many less formal ones to be found anywhere and everywhere. I’ve devoted a lot of time to my spreadsheet of the bloodlines of top level event horses, it’s up to 15 tabs now with all kinds of information logged and tracked in it. To me it’s a little bit of a pet project, and it’s been really interesting. Everything is an educational opportunity if you want it to be.

Europe – alright for real, if I don’t get back to Europe this year, I’m going to be upset. I really want to see a few more stallions in person, especially Mighty Magic, and I’d love to tie some stud farm tours into another big event like Burghley, Bundeschampionate, or Lion d’Angers. To me it’s really nerdy and fun and fascinating and I freaking love it.

Be more positive/less self-deprecating – I mean I feel like this is kind of self-explanatory. It’s a tough one for me, because it’s much easier for me to see and focus on the things that went wrong or need work, and very much a conscious, continuous, concerted effort to be more positive-thinking. Even if it’s just shutting up and saying thank you when someone says something nice. It’s harder than it seems.

Volunteer – I have so much fun volunteering, and I think it’s really important to give back to the sport. I want to make an effort to volunteer as often as I possibly can. I don’t really have a set number in mind as far as hours, but if there’s a horse show happening and I’m available, I’ll volunteer.

End the year as a more educated rider than I began – I recognize that I’m in a phase right now where Henry is finally pretty “made” and I can really start to focus more on myself, both in and out of the saddle. After so many years of bringing up green horses on repeat, I find myself in uncharted territory for the first time in 15 years. Doing bigger and more difficult things than I’ve ever done before, or ever imagined doing. Challenging myself in ways I never thought I would. It’s uncomfortable and it’s awkward and the growing pains are real, and I LOVE IT. I’ve been given an opportunity here, and I don’t intend to waste it by feeling intimidated or afraid of failure.

Do some FEH – assuming he isn’t looking ugly as hell, I’d like to get Presto out to at least one FEH class again this year. I don’t really care how he scores or if he qualifies for Championships or not, although it would be cool if he did so I could continue to go support the new Central Championships. Mostly I just want to keep getting him out in the world and getting life experience, whatever that may look like, but it’s important to me to support to FEH program.

Get Presto more educated to the bridle – I don’t mean, like… going on contact or in side reins or any of that, he’s too young. I just want him to be totally comfortable wearing his bridle, and to be able to ground drive him with the long reins clipped to his bridle for steering, and have him be both good at it and happy about it. Just the very very very basics to prep him for what’s to come in 2020.

Get Presto gelded – The weather is really starting to piss me off with this. Seriously Texas, I just need like a 4-5 day stretch where we aren’t living in a mud pit but also it’s cold enough for the flies to be dead. Apparently that is a lot to ask, since I was literally spraying my mud-encrusted horses with fly spray yesterday. Reeeaaaaally hoping it’ll work out this month or next, because it has to. Once we hit March it starts getting hot again. And once he’s gelded he can start going out with other horses, instead of just his donkeys. I think he and Dobby will be GREAT FRIENDS.

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What do you have in mind for 2019? Are you making goals, or just going with the flow?

When I wrote my 2018 “goals” post, on January 2nd, I decided to eschew the typical goal-setting I had done before. Gone were the very specific “I want to go to X number of shows” or “Get X dressage scores under Y” or “qualify for X event/show”. Things that, while fine goals, sometimes just don’t happen due to things completely beyond our control. And also things, that, IMO, don’t really measure success accurately, or drive the kind of behavior and thinking that I’m trying to cultivate within myself. I wanted my goals to focus on the journey, not the destination, and I wanted to foster growth and learning. So I wrote: “Instead I’m going to focus more on doing things that a) make us better, b) enrich our relationship, c) are FUN. I’m not even gonna sit down and try to plot out a show season… we’ll go to whatever shows work out best, whichever and whenever those may be.“.

I’m a pretty intense person, really competitive and goal-driven, so this departure from the norm was very different from how I’ve typically operated. The guidelines for the goals were pretty loose, and they mostly focused on improvement. Let’s see how it all hashed out.

Improve the stadium – I’m giving this one a lukewarm checkmark. Stadium has solidified it’s place as our shakiest phase, but I do think it has improved, especially as we got towards the end of the year. I still make plenty of mistakes, and my horse is still not careful, but we’ve gotten more consistent, more confident, and I feel more educated about it now than I did a year ago. 

Do a couple Prelim CT’s – LOL well ok I guess we blew this one out of the water. Doing a full Prelim HT clearly wasn’t even something that existed as a possibility on my radar at the beginning of year, yet by year’s end we’d done those P CT’s I wanted (and ended up year end Reserve Champion for that series), some P jumper classes, a P/T horse trial, and a legit full horse trial at Prelim. We’ve still just barely stuck our toes in the water at Prelim, but that’s a lot farther than I’d ever have imagined we’d get this year.

More foxhunting – I got to foxhunt twice in 2018, which maybe isn’t as much as I had in mind, but it was what worked out. Still love it. Still want to do it more often.

Attend another big horse event – I reaaaaally wanted 2018 to be the year I finally got to go to Lion d’Angers, but due to scheduling conflicts it just didn’t happen. But I was able to take the money I would have spent on a France trip and instead plump up my fall show season, so in the end I think it worked out for the best. Someday, Lion, some day.

Get my volunteer hat – This was in regards to the volunteer rewards program at Pine Hill, where I do most of my volunteering. When you hit the 30 hour mark you get a Pine Hill hat, and I really wanted to prioritize volunteering this year, so I figured if I could commit enough hours to earn the hat, I’d be happy with that. Not only did I get the hat, I got the belt (for 40 hours) too!

Jump the stupid giant Texas Flag table at MCP – I didn’t get to jump the flag table at MCP, mostly because we only ended up schooling there once in 2018. I was about to mark this one in red when I read what I had written next to this goal: “It’s not really about the act of jumping the stupid thing, it’s about the confidence and ability that it takes to do it.“. Well, these days I would jump that Texas Flag table with no hesitation. It doesn’t scare me senseless anymore, and I feel confident that we can jump it successfully. So in that regard… maybe it’s a win?

Move Presto closer to me – That kid is as close as he could possibly get, since his pasture is like 30′ from Henry’s! 

End 2018 as a better rider than I started 2018 – I definitely feel like I learned a lot throughout the year, and came out the other side as a better rider, both mentally and physically. Taking the time to help my mental game has made a noticeable difference in my riding and my overall happiness. 

Keep running – I was doing well with this until summer hit, because I’d legit rather die than run in the Texas summer, and then shortly after I picked it back up this fall, I hurt my knee. The knee is still sketchy, so I haven’t been running, and this is normally my peak running season. I don’t really know what to do about that, because I don’t want to hurt my knee to the point that it’s a problem for riding. I’m hoping that with some “rest” it’ll get better and I can go back to my normal schedule.

Enjoy the journey – Boy fucking did I! I had more fun this year than I ever have, and I really took the time to soak in all the things that I love about riding and about having horses. We had a lot of fun, and I love every second that I get to spend with my boys.

As for a few fun 2018 stats:

• Henry did a total of 8 horse trials this year – 6 at Training, 1 P/T, and 1 Prelim – and 2 combined tests, both at Prelim. He’s already qualified for AEC 2019 at Training.
• Presto went to 4 shows this year – two FEH, one hunter breeding, and one in hand trail.
• The most popular blog post of the year was about Extreme Overjumping, it garnered 58,244 views.
• I traveled approximately 5,322 miles going to and from horse shows, give or take a few.
• Although if you count the shows I attended to work for the mobile tack shop trailer and not actually ride, tack on another 2,237 miles. Add the miles I traveled to go volunteer at shows and that’s an additional 866.
• Fun perk of all the driving – I got to listen to 17 audio books this year (my favorite: The Sun Does Shine, by Anthony Ray Hinton), in addition to 4 podcasts. As far as regular books, I read 59.

 

Hope everyone else had a fun and successful 2018!

This all started last week in a group fb chat, where we were brainstorming to figure out a barn name for Hillary’s new horse. I started putting the various suggestions into the GIF search bar, which led to some hilarious results. Hillary posted about the process, with accompanying GIFs of course, and challenged us to play the GIF name game with our own horses. Challenge accepted! Because the GIF’s for my boys were both hysterical and extremely appropriate. Who knew that GIFs could be such an accurate predictor when it comes to names?

For Henry, the first one that popped up made me laugh way harder than it should.

That’s a very happy vacuum snorting coke. And anyone who’s seen Henry’s cross country face knows that this could definitely be what he’s doing back in his stall before I come to tack him up. In fact, I often call him a coked out dolphin. This is pretty close.

The result from his registered name, He’salmostsweet, is just as appropriate. He IS sweet sometimes, but he would take serious offense at being called that.

His show name, Happenstance, returns a few different ones, but this is my personal favorite.

If those don’t sum Henry up perfectly, I don’t know what does.

As for Presto…

HAHAHAHAHAHA. Probably correct. I’m sure he’s got some terribly naughty idea brewing in that little baby hamster brain of his.

His registered/show name, Like Magic, is an accurate representation of his hair, if nothing else.

Who knew that GIFs were this accurate when it comes to names and personality???

Last week Henry got some annual vet maintenance, which meant a short vacation for him. That left me with plenty of extra time to torture dedicate to Presto!

First up was revisiting his ground driving/long lining skills. We’ve dabbled with this once before, very informally, with a couple of lunge lines on his rope halter. This time we upgraded slightly, as in this time I actually used real long lines. Still clipped to the halter though, because he’s just not quite ready yet to have them clipped on a bit. His outfit is a little goofy… he has to wear his very short little girth on the surcingle, otherwise it’s too big. And he’s also so freaking narrow and awkward that nothing stays in place, so the square pad is strapped to the surcingle, and then he’s wearing a cob size elastic breastplate to keep everything from sliding right off the back. Don’t ask questions, just go with it.

We started off with a little bit of long lining at the walk, just to remind him about the lines. He gave precisely zero shits. I moved around back to the ground driving position and flopped the lines around, tossed them up and down and over his back, and around his legs. Again, no shits given.

We stood under the covered for a few minutes while Hillary finished up with Inca, then ventured out to meander around and test the steering/brakes. A halter is obviously not ideal for steering, but he knows “whoa” so well by now that honestly he stops better from a voice command than he does from pressure on his nose. We walked around the arena, made some circles, changed directions, and walked over a pole. As long as he wanted to go where I was asking him to go, he steered great. Other times… well… not so much. If anything he is a little TOO sensitive, so once he started turning he’d basically just spiral back on himself. I had to get him used to the idea of turning for just a couple steps, or making a gradual continuous turn. For a big lanky baby, he is surprisingly agile.

We did succeed in making a few good smooth circles, and some successful passes over the pole, so we called it quits with that.

A couple days later was a jump day for Hillary and Inca, so I decided to tote Presto along to the jump field with us. The plan was to maybe lunge him for a couple minutes in the field, then have him stand there and be patient while Inca schooled and I set jumps. So far I’ve only lunged him in the ring (and when I say “lunge” with this horse, please keep in mind that I mean walk and trot for maybe 5 minutes), so I thought a little change of scenery would be nice, and he needs to learn how to put himself in park while I’m busy and/or while horses are working around him. I put his bridle on (this has been happening a lot lately and he is none too pleased with that particular development), put his rope halter on over it, clipped on a lunge line, and walked him out to field.

Once we got out there, Hillary went off to warm up and I put Presto on a circle around me. He was a little distracted worrying about where Inca went, so I asked for a lot of walk-trot transitions and changes of direction to keep him occupied. Then I realized that our little warmup gymnastic was totally something I could lunge Presto over, with a few changes. I moved a couple poles, put up some guide rails, brought the bounce in to make a little oxer, and decided to just try it and see what happened.

I’ve always bought horses that have never jumped before, so that feeling of not knowing how they’re going to do with it always makes me a little nervous. It’s like unwrapping a package and not knowing what’s inside. You just don’t really know how one will take to it, and how they will jump, until you point them at one. I mean… I know Presto’s parents, and I know he’s bred for this job, and I know his conformation gives him the ability to be correct, but STILL. As they’re going up to their first jump you’re always like “Oh god, please don’t suck at this. Please don’t jump like crap.”. I live in perpetual fear of the talentless or the knee-hanger.

Luckily Presto did not disappoint. He’s a little blase and ho-hum about it (that’s his general MO about most things) but I liked how he used his body over the little jump, and that he was tidy with his knees and smart with his feet. His natural instincts were good, he was very chill about it, and he seemed to understand the game. I was very pleased with both his aptitude and his attitude. Thank goodness!

So now we know how he moves and how he jumps, in it’s most raw, unpolished, uneducated form. I’m pretty excited about it, because I think all the raw material shows a lot of promise and ticks all the boxes. If anyone needs me I’ll just be over here impatiently waiting for him to grow up so we can polish everything up and get to the real fun stuff. Is he 4 yet?

I definitely got some really cool gifts this Christmas, including but not limited to:

as well as the usual money and gift cards. I LOVE money and gift cards, because I get to do a nice little Treat Yo Self extravaganza on someone else’s dime. Even if one of those gift cards is being hastily ordered at 7am on Christmas morning by the SO, because that is the kind of next level procrastination I’m dealing with here. That’s okay though, because I’m pretty sure the guilt of exceptional delay caused him to throw more money on the card than he otherwise would have. I will take that, please and thank you. I’ve already got a cart full of stuff at Riding Warehouse, including a year’s supply of fly spray and salt blocks, a pair of brown Samshield gloves, another pair of white Horze breeches, and the long-coveted green Motionlite coat.

My Amazon gift card is already half-used too, buying a new pair of casual shoes for work, because the ones I usually wear have a massive blowout. I have a very Homeless Chic vibe at the moment if you look at my footwear. Or maybe Horse-Poor Chic. Same thing.

From the cash I got, a large chunk of it went to the barn worker. I was going to give him a Christmas tip anyway, so it saved me a trip to the bank. He’s been working 7 days a week for months now, he’s definitely underpaid, and he always makes sure my boys are very well taken of. He deserved every bit of what I gave him. The farrier got his tip a few weeks ago when he showed up at 7am to tack a shoe back on Henry before a show. I had to hide it in his truck for him to take the money from me, but I succeeded. As far as the vets go, considering how much I’ve spent on Henry in the past 6 weeks between teeth, shots and coggins, and his annual injections, they’ve gotten plenty of my money lately (damn Henry feels AMAZING though). And Presto is getting gelded sometime in the next month, so there’s still more money coming to them.

Most of the rest of the cash is already spent too, upgrading to a new vest. I’ve been eyeballing a new one for most of the year now, and I finally used this as a good excuse to pull the trigger.

To back up a bit, up until a couple days ago I was still planning on buying the Airmesh. I already have an Airowear that I’ve been really happy with, and the Airmesh seemed like a good next step. I was kinda grumpy that it didn’t come in navy though, and I’ve never really stopped window shopping vests in the UK, since they have so many more options than we do. I found myself on Redpost looking at a helmet cover for my new Champion skull cap (you’ll hear more about that later. And the first person who asks how many helmets I have now gets punched in the throat.) and naturally I clicked over to the site’s body protector page.

I’ve looked into the Dainese brand before, because they have such a good reputation for their motorcycle safety equipment. A lot of the same technology that they’ve used in that market – especially when it comes to being comfortable, flexible, and lightweight – has been applied to their equestrian body protectors as well. Their most popular is the Balios 3, a BETA 3 approved vest that’s made from little hexagonal tiles of memory retention foam. In all of my online stalking of reviews and British forums, everyone seemed to unanimously agree that it was more comfortable, lighter, and breathable than either the Racesafe or the Airowear. To make things even more tempting, Redpost had the navy on sale. With the VAT removed, it was about half off of regular retail, which was too tempting for me to pass up. You can’t buy the Dainese in the US, so I took a bit of a leap of faith with it, but hopefully it fits and hopefully I like it! It’s definitely not like anything I’ve ever seen before.

Henry’s Christmas present was new blankets. Last week Horseloverz put the HUGs on sale, and at first I was going to order some for Presto for next year since he will definitely not fit in his current 72 by that point. But then I figured he’d probably fit in Henry’s 78’s next year, so why not give Henry’s old ones to Presto, and Henry could get nice pretty new ones! So he got a new navy sheet, blanket, and neck cover for a grand total of $130, and I’m happy because I don’t have to look at those ugly teal ones all the time now, since Presto isn’t blanketed much. Plus if he destroys those I won’t really care, since they’re already 3 years old.

As for Presto, well… he didn’t really get anything. He has everything a baby horse could possibly need, and since his current nickname is MOUTH, he’s been banned from treats for the foreseeable future. Hillary’s new horse moved into the pasture next to him though, and I can already tell that they will be great friends. As soon as Presto is gelded and Inca goes back home, they’ll probably end up being pasture mates. So there… I suppose he got a future friend for Christmas.

Hope you guys had a great holiday and maybe even got a few cool new toys, too! Tell me everything, you know I love horse stuff.