Y’all, I continue to believe that Gastrogard is a miracle in a tube. A really really overly expensive little tube, but ya know. At least it works?

Last Friday Presto went for his first XC school post-ulcer treatment. He was quiet, calm, well-behaved, and didn’t so much as blink or hesitate at anything. There were no shenanigans. There was no tomfoolery. He did snort pretty hard at the big blue ramp when we trotted past it in warmup (we’ve jumped that thing before, bro) but otherwise like… extremely low on Fuckery.

We hopped over some warmup jumps, and he was definitely forward-thinking and go-ey, but not being rude. I pointed him at the ditches and as soon as he locked on, he took me right to them. We popped over the small one, then the medium one, then the big one… no shits given. I just basically grabbed mane. He jumped the medium one on an angle, and then we came through the Novice half coffin and the Training coffin. Still – he took me right through, if anything he was more on the side of overly enthusiastic. Didn’t even so much as peek. Absolutely no sign of the hesitation or spookiness he was having pre-treatment.

Then we went to the smaller banks, were he proceeded to be quite professional about hopping up and down them all. Again, very ho-hum, in all the best ways. After that we headed to the water, and again he was like yes obviously I know how to do all of this I am SEASONED. He finished with a little course jumping over the roll into the water, coming around and hopping down the bigger drop into water, and then going back through to jump the rolltop in the water, then cantering out and down the bigger banks on the side of the hill. It was like… perhaps the most boring XC school we’ve had maybe ever.

It was really really encouraging, mostly. It’s like an entirely different horse. I feel like I have my super happy XC boy back. I chatted with my trainer about a plan, and entered him in the Training division for the schooling HT next week. I think it’ll be a good ease back into showing, let him feel really good about himself hopping around there, and hopefully come away ready to continue where we left off. He’s got another week and a half of gastrogard and sucralfate and then we’ll re-scope to see where we’re at and what we do next with regards to the ulcers.

Argo had a chiropractic/acupuncture appointment last week and the vet ended up working on him for quite a while. He’s kind of a funny horse to work on because he’s just so sedate and even-keel that you don’t get a lot of reaction from him, or if you do get one it might be a little delayed. It takes some times to figure out his “tells” in the bodywork. Smooth brain and all that. So she took her time poking and prodding and adjusting her way around, looking for specific problem areas as we talked about him.

She spent a lot of time around his SI, and went straight to that area first with the acupuncture needles. SI pain/wear-and-tear is so common for racehorses, and he does have a little bit of that trademark lack of muscle tone over his loin/slight hunters bump that can indicate SI issues.

She told me to let her know how he felt the next day when I rode him. My main takeaways were that 1) he went in front of my leg more quickly and stayed there without as much effort. He’s a kick ride kind of guy, but I wasn’t having to try so hard. He seemed more comfortable using his booty and moving forward in general. 2) He wasn’t landing as toe-first as he was before, and he tripped zero times. Like zero. It was a marked difference. Stumbling or being a bit stabby can also be signs of SI issues. Our conclusions were that yes, we were probably on the right track by focusing on the SI as the origin of a lot of his tightness.

So my next question to her was: do we continue to try to build up the area over time with exercises, adjust his shoeing, do more frequent body work and acupuncture, etc, or do we go ahead and inject it first in an attempt to provide immediate relief and then work on building it up correctly. She basically said that depends on what I want to do, but if it was hers she’d probably just cut to the chase and inject it, since it’s likely been a source of discomfort for him for quite a while. I agreed – I’d rather go a little bit more invasive/aggressive when trying to fix something that clearly isn’t new, in the hope that he’ll feel more comfortable sooner. So she came out this morning and injected his SI. We’ll see if it makes a difference for him, fingers crossed!

I did pop him around his first little course on Sunday, just 3 single verticals, maybe 18″. He was very ho-hum about it and even did a lead change when I asked. Super good dude.

Let’s see, what else… OH – guess who’s birthday it is?

Henry is 17 today, can you even freakin believe it? I mean, he doesn’t really act it, but… seventeen. He’s just as sassy as he was at 7, don’t worry about that part. He got some birthday cupcakes earlier – no ride today because he scraped his hind pastern yesterday and was quite convinced the whole limb might have to be amputated (he’s not gotten any more stoic through the years). Good job weaseling out of that one, old man.

It’s Tuesday and we meet again. I’m in a hurry today, what a surprise, so let’s get on with the updates.

It was a fairly productive week as far as the horses went… everybody got to go on a field trip! On Tuesday I took Presto over to Sweet Dixie to gallop, thinking it would be calmer there than at some of my other options. I failed to remember that they were running their weekday jumper shows, plus lots of seasonals are there, and it was absolutely COVERED with people. But, ya know… I was already there, so may as well get on with it. The jumper warmup and jumper ring were really crowded, there were two dressage lessons happening over in the dressage courts, and a few groups were out schooling XC. It was a lot.

Presto got a little bit excited about it, but for the most part he was quite civilized. Another clue that we’re on the right track with the ulcer treatment, I think. We did our trot, then our gallop sets, and at the end I trotted him through one of the waters and decided to see how he felt about the ditches. I fully intended to just let him walk up and investigate and then pop over, but as soon as he locked on to the ditch he picked up a trot and hopped happily over it. I turned him around and pointed him at the bigger one and same thing: he took me right across. Good boy.

On Thursday we had a jump lesson, which is where he got to debut the above BootsWithTheFurrrrr.

Side note for those boots: I got them mostly because after his trailer-leaping incident at Stable View Presto now has a scar right along the edge of where open front boots sit. I didn’t really want full furrr ones, because they’re a bitch to keep clean, and I found these QHP ones that just have the furrr around the edges. I like it way better. Plus they come in lots of colors… these purple ones are a near perfect match to my purple Calverro show coat. I’m gonna order some in black to keep for schooling so the purple ones don’t get beat up. (pro tip: you can use code presto for 10% off at Royal Equine… that’s where Argo’s teal brushing boots came from too!)

Anyway, back to the lesson part. We kept it really simple this week, as in we just jumped a vertical back and forth off both leads over and over, raising it as we went. It was nice to get to focus on nitpicky perfection with the rhythm, straightness, and tuning my eye back in a bit. I swear we jumped that thing what felt like 75 times and I managed to find a good one all but twice (both times I tried too hard to micromanage and got there deep and weak). Plus like… the jump ended up not small and I took away two things: 1) height does not deter me on this horse. Nothing really looks that big. 2) he’s still not having to try that hard. Just pinging right over like whatever.

Argie boy is back to work now that he got his shoe back on too (he went full on “my footie is broken” despite having a boot on during the two days that shoe was missing, hims is not the most stoic). We’ve been working more on poles and the quality of his transitions, especially from trot to canter and canter to trot.

It’s interesting having one that raced for as long as he did… all the ones I’ve had before raced for maybe just a year or two max. Having one stay in that job until they’re almost 8, it definitely does things to their musculature that is going to take a bit more time to undo. The strongest parts of his body are his shoulders and the bottom of his neck, which are not things we really want to be using now. He’s used his body in a very different way for his entire life up to this point, and I’m asking him to do something wildly different. He always tries to do what I’m asking, but with some things I have to be happy with 20% or 50% because he’s just not physically capable yet. As long as he tries, we can work with that. It’ll come, it’s just a matter of time and diligence. He’s really been wanting to stretch a lot lately at the trot though, so I’m taking that as a good sign! He tries hard to do the “right” thing most of the time.

On Saturday I took him to Majestic to XC school for the first time… Holly rode Henry (she jumped BN and N stuff, it was adorbs) and Hillary brought Tilly, her younger OTTB. Tilly is a pretty unflappable type, and that perfect stage of 4 years old where they’re still super agreeable and malleable and think everything is fun. I kind of had a feeling that Majestic might blow Argie’s mind a little bit, just because it’s so vast and so open and so busy. To be fair to him, he handled it a lot better than I thought. He got nervous and antsy a few times (mostly when large groups of horses appeared and then disappeared) but every time I asked him to get to work, he did. Like many Thoroughbreds, the best way to deal with anxiety is to keep him occupied. We flatted a bit, went through the water (he loves water), popped up and down some little banks, and finished by cantering a log.

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In other news, we swapped turnouts around a bit, and Henry and Tilly are now pasturemates. He can be a little weird with friends (he’s one of those that either gets murdered or does murders, there’s not a lot of in between) but he seems to get along best with mares. Tilly has zero alpha bones in her body, so it’s mostly like we gave Henry his own baby. So far they’re very good and handling it well, fingers crossed that continues.

We wrapped up January with 15 rides for Argo, 11 for Henry, and 23 for Presto. Two lessons (both jumping) and no shows (except the jumper show where I realized Presto probably had ulcers and aborted the mission in the warmup). Two vet visits (one gastroscopy, one vaccinations/coggins), one visit from the dentist (for Argo) and two visits from the farrier. Thanks white board for keeping track of everything for the recap. Kind of obsessed with that thing now.

It’s possible that last week I overcommitted to the point of driving myself right off the edge of sanity. I’ve had a couple blog posts half-drafted for ages with the full intention of running them as a “second” one during the week rather than just the once a week updates I seem to be managing as of late, but I haven’t had time to sit down and finish them. All that to say here I am, once again, offering you a weekly update.

Last week was mostly filled with copywriting, pedigree reports, consults, content creation, social media stuff, and a few days of working retail. I’ve been trying my best to keep my schedule mostly clear on Tuesdays (aside from riding) since that seems to be working out as the best option for a day off. And it just so happened that last Tuesday was the winter mixed sale at OBS. What better way to enjoy an afternoon than by looking at ponies you cannot afford?

The fun thing about the Mixed Sale is that – as the name implies – it has literally everything. Preggo mares, yearlings, two year olds, horses of racing age (HRA), and sometimes even stallions. These sales are a little more fun to me than the yearling ones, particularly because I like the seeing the ones that are 3 and 4.

Oh, also the other fun thing about any OBS sale is that there are always these ladies set up in a little nook near the cafeteria selling baked goods. Don’t sleep on the brownies, they’re fire. Bring cash.

Anyway, we did a little browsing at the walking ring while we paged through the catalog to look for anything that looked interesting on paper. There were a couple cute 2yos that came through, and a couple really nice pregnant mares. I thought our friend Sarah might lose the plot entirely and bid on one of the pregnant mares if her price stayed low (you never know with these sales, sometimes they go for a pittance, sometimes they go for way over what you’d think) but luckily the bidding went fast and she ended up expensive.

One of our vets was there too (she also has some racehorses) and when were oohing and aahing over the pedigrees of a couple in the HRA she was like “do you want to go look at them?”. No of course not. But also yes absolutely, lets go. So we trekked across to the other side of the barns to look at two in particular – a turf-bred colt and an Astern filly. The turf colt was not particularly attractive and had some physical issues. The Astern filly – true to every Astern I have yet seen with my own eyes – was gorgeous.

I thought Hillary might be in real trouble if that one went for cheap. She seemed to have a good temperament… the vet felt a couple potential issues upon a quick exam, then went to the repository to review her films on file. There were a few little things that might be iffy but also might not be. We went inside to the auction floor when it was her turn… ya know… just to see how much she went for. If she’d stayed under 3k someone in our group would have gotten her for sure. Luckily the bidding surpassed that and she ended up going for $5500. Still cheap, but not would-be-a-crime-not-to-buy level of cheap.

We stayed in there for a bit watching more horses come through, and towards the end this super leggy, awkward looking 3yo colt came in. His face looked so much like Presto, and I swear to you he looked me dead in the eye. I was like OH I LIKE THIS ONE. On paper I never would have picked him (and to be fair the growth stage he’s in at the moment is not cute) but they showed video of him galloping and OOOOOOOOO yes, that is my type. The gallop combined with his face had me on the edge of my seat.

And lord, I swear, I have never been so close to putting my hand up in the air at a Thoroughbred sale in my entire life. For a long agonizingly uncomfortable few seconds, he had no bids at the opening price of $1,000. My fingers were twitching. Finally someone stuck their hand up, and it went up to $1500 and then stalled again. My whole arm started twitching.

Thank GOD it picked up a little bit after that, and as soon as it passed 2k I was safely out of the danger zone. I mean… I could not have afforded him at any price (aside from the fact that you know what I DO NOT NEED? A THREE YEAR OLD COLT!) but can you imagine if no one had bid. Isn’t there an obligation at that point? Isn’t that how sales work? (I can feel all of you going no Amanda no it fucking isn’t – I don’t need your negativity, ok?)

Anyway. He went for $3500, which was still absurdly cheap, but past the limit of my own personal absurdity.

Despite our best efforts, our whole group did manage to escape the sale entirely unscathed. That was a close one. I did find the woman who bought Rebel and tell her to please contact me when he’s ready to retire (hopefully in like a year or two? RRP ’25 or ’26?) and she was super nice and sent me more pics of him and said she’d keep me updated on him. I love finding the good racetrack people.

The other fun noteworthy thing I did last week was that I finally had another jump lesson on Presto – his first one since we started ulcer treatment. I mostly wanted to get a gauge of where he’s at and how he’s feeling. And well… he feels fantastic. We kept everything small and simple for him, under 1m, but he really felt like my GoodGood horse again. I hadn’t even really realized how incrementally he’d gotten a bit behind my leg or a bit less enthusiastic over the past couple months, but last week he was locking onto everything and taking me to it like the Presto we all know and love. No bullshit, just doing his job that he loves. It felt like he’s back, which was fantastic.

I didn’t get any video or pictures, but hopefully this week we can go back again and then start looking at XC schooling. Hopefully we’re back on track now!

I truly intended to make another post last week but lol that didn’t happen. Anyway, we’re now 12 days into Presto’s ulcer treatment.

I decided I’m going to make something fun out of the empty tubes since the amount of money they represent is relatively painful and absurd. Stay tuned.

Presto has been surprisingly cooperative about his meds though. I thought he might be kind of a turd (I have no idea what could have led me to assume such a thing aside from almost 7 years of behavior) but I go out every morning at 5:30 to give it to him so it has an hour to percolate before breakfast, and he’s been quite good about it.

Well, ok. He did figure out how to open the door to the stall that adjoins his pasture.

I discovered this one morning when I went out to feed and he was no longer present in his assigned location. He had settled himself in on the other side of the farm with the mares, who welcomed him adoringly. Honestly, kudos to his quick work, because to find this level of chaos in the hour between his meds and his breakfast is admirable really.

Anyway, he earned himself a clip on the bottom of his stall door so he can’t open it anymore, but that doesn’t stop him from trying. And he’s checking it very regularly, because a couple days ago after I fed dinner I guess I forgot to re-clip it, because about 45 mins later I heard a commotion outside and Presto was in my backyard like “oh hey… whats up…”.

He completed his 10 days of hacking/taking it easy, so we’ll start flatting again this week and maybe he can get back to the jompies by next week. I do think he’s feeling better, so now we just have to keep him on that track.

Argie boy had a bit of a quiet week last week, with new shoes on Thursday and then a dental exam/teeth float on Friday. He’s got a little bit of an overbite and a slant, and he had some definite sharp points and hooks in there… he was starting to get a little rub from one of them on this right cheek. I’m glad we got that all done and squared away even if my wallet is like “bro wtf”.

I gave him a couple days off after that, but yesterday it was back to business as usual.

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We’re slowly but surely making progress. I appreciate that I can not ride him for a few days and get on without any drama and pick up where we left off, that’s one of my favorite handy qualities in a horse and a necessary one for an amateur mount IMO.

I also got all of our RRP stuff submitted last week, so fingers crossed. The site was making me a bit nervous there at the end, it didn’t want to attach my vet reference letter. We’ll find out in a few weeks if I got accepted!

Let’s see, what else has been going on around here…

Last Sunday we had a couple different content creation things happening at the farm. The folks from Noelle Floyd came out to film some video of the herd horses interacting for some future Tik content, and then a couple brands came out in the afternoon to get some Presto footage/record a testimonial from me about a product. I mostly just tried not to sound like an absolute dumbass but we’ll see if I accomplished it or not. They also got some footage of Strax and some of the babies to use for other stuff, so all these WTW animals are about to be Insta famous. It was fun though, I always like making connections with people that I’ve only really seen or known through social media.

This past Sunday I made my vet tech debut… my vet texted and asked if I would have any interest in helping with a PPE on a 4yo Thoroughbred (I’ve told her before that I’m always down for more side hustles for extra cash if she needs assistance). The day was mostly open and I’m deeply interested in vet-related things, so naturally I was in. Her comment was “when they told me it was a 4yo thoroughbred you were the first person that sprang to mind because I knew naughty behavior wouldn’t bother you.”. Thanks Presto for that reputation. Joke’s on all of us, the baby TB was a perfect angel and aside from all the running I had to do, I thought it was fun. We only had to reshoot two of the dozens of films, so I’ll take that as a success for my first time.

Yesterday was a fun mail day – Presto’s 2023 year end ribbons came! I wasn’t even aware that there were Area leaderboards and thus Area ribbons, so that was a fun surprise. In Area 3 we were 2nd for Training (he hasn’t done a Training since April, so way to hang on to that leaderboard kiddo) and 4th for Modified (he only did 4 Modifieds) and then for the National leaderboard we were 6th in the Training Master. He was also 8th nationally for Modified but I guess they only do ribbons to 6th.

I need to find something to do with his ribbons that isn’t just piling them up in the guest room. It feels disrespectful to the amount of time and energy and effort that went into obtaining them, particularly with this horse.

In other Fun Mail Day news, LOOK AT THIS SWEATSHIRT THAT SWEET STITCH EMBROIDERY MADE FOR ME.

It’s perfection. She can do any color sweatshirt and any embroidery/font/colors you want. It’s one of those things that would be a great gift or also just a fun splurge item for yourself. I had one made for Hillary that says Thoroughbreds at the collar and has her two mares’ names on the sleeve. There’s really no limit to what you could do with it… farm name, show name, breed… you name it. The owner, Betsy, is super creative too if you need ideas. Here’s a link to the listing. 10/10 recommend!

Oh yeah, in other news I have a new Riding Warehouse code as well – BRE10. Feel free to use it if you’re shopping with them.

I think that’s it for this particular news dump? I’ll leave you to process.

The astute observers among you may have noticed that my name was not in fact among any of the event results from this weekend. That’s because things changed drastically last week after my last post.

When I last left off, I was getting ready to take Presto to jumper rounds on Wednesday afternoon.

I did take him to jumper rounds. We did not actually jump anything.

Let me back up a bit and give some context to this story, because in actually I think it truly began months ago.

If you remember, around the time of the September Stable View, Presto started being inconsistently and randomly hesitant to jump down off of banks and across open ditches. We had that 20 at Stable View at the down bank, and I came home and had my vet out for a general exam and to check for any lameness. You may also recall that we found jack shit, and in fact he was quite incredibly sound (verified by her app which said his gait symmetry was perfect).

And then like two days later was when he did the foot bruise debacle that put him on stall/tiny pen rest for a few weeks. I brought him back and he’s felt quite amazing since then actually, as far as how he’s moving and jumping. He’s got more power and balance than he ever has.

But still, something has been just a little bit not quite right sometimes. The ditch/bank issue remained, he was still being randomly weird about them on occasion… maybe like 5% of the time. Honestly I thought I’d done something wrong and he’d stopped trusting me about it, and we just had to rebuild the confidence and expectation.

The Sunday before last we had a jump lesson, and it was really out of character. He jumped, but he was being pretty unrideable and rank about having to whoa in the lines. We ended up just doing a gymnastic, and though he finally settled, he ended the lesson with more of a concerned look on his face. Usually he finishes lessons with a “yeah I know, I am the most amazing horse that has ever existed” look on his face. We all noticed his mood and thought it was odd. But… horses aren’t machines and can have off days.

On the following Tuesday night I tuned into Ride iQ’s weekly Ask an Expert, because their guest was my vet, doing a talk on Equine Ulcers. She’s the one who’s done all Presto’s work, she did Argo’s scope when he first got here, she also does our chiro, etc etc. Anyway… there was a point where she was talking about unusual ulcer symptoms that she’s noticed in event horses in particular, she mentioned two things that snagged my attention.

1) they can sometimes be reluctant to jump down banks/across ditches (because of the motion causing the acid to splash the top of the stomach, she theorizes). She mentioned this as being a symptom in horses that have ulcers at the top of their stomach, which is uncommon.

and

2) be forward and yet also kind of perpetually behind the leg. This is Presto to a T, I dunno how many times in the past 6 months that I’ve described him as “the most forward and yet simultaneously most behind the leg horse I’ve ever ridden”. I just assumed it’s because I suck as a rider.

Those things were very much sitting in my mind the next day as we headed to the jumper show. We got there and Presto was clearly very unsettled from the moment he stepped off the trailer. Staring off into the distance with his heart pounding, being reactive, explosive, and just dramatically not himself. Even after 45 minutes of walking and trotting around the warmup, it did not improve. The horse can be a little ridiculous and silly sometimes, but not like that. He’s usually got 5 minutes of Fuckery in him and then he’s ready to carry on. My gut said something just wasn’t right, and I had a hunch that it was his stomach. I ended up not even leaving the warmup. I scratched, loaded up, and came home.

I called my vet on the way home and talked it through with her, and she agreed that we should scope him for ulcers. I scratched the show for the weekend and made a vet appointment instead. 

She came on Friday morning and god, y’all… his stomach is a mess. He has grade 2.5-3 ulcers on the top of his stomach (the notes on her report say “Areas of eroded squamous mucosa in the fundus, which is an unusual presentation.”. Honestly, does this horse ever do anything that isn’t unusual.

What’s interesting is that my vet said this is the fourth mid-upper level event horse she’d seen this in recently. She doesn’t yet have a theory as to why.

We talked over treatment options and she gave me a “budget” one and an “all out” one. There is no question, we are doing the all out. I’ll figure out how to pay for it, I’m not taking shortcuts with anything with this horse and his health. I also asked her what the heck else I can do to prevent this from happening again.

Mind you, I feed our horses in ways specifically meant to be stomach friendly. They live outside, get lots of forage, eat forage-first feeds, get alfalfa 30mins before their grain meals, get ulcergard during long travel, has a very regular schedule, a calm environment, etc. The horse looks fantastic, has a super shiny coat, is moving better than he ever has, and is super outgoing and enthusiastic. It’s not one you’d look at and be worried about, or think was high risk. He IS a competition horse though (and, ya know, a HORSE in general) and eventing is a stressful job for any horse I think. Even doing everything “right” in his life to try to prevent this, his stomach is still a mess.

She agreed that everything I’m already doing is what she would recommend. The only additional thing she said is to add Ulcergard before any XC school, in the chance that the acid splash from jumping down and across is contributing. His scope also did reveal that he seems to produce a bit more acid than usual, so she thought it might be worth looking at a daily preventative (she’s not typically a supplement enthusiast, but she suggested a few that have actual research behind them) to try to help give his stomach a bit more of a natural barrier of protection.

I haven’t really stopped beating myself up for missing this and probably never will. In retrospect I feel like this probably started with the June Stable View trailer incident, and really kicked off once his workload started to increase again. To be fair,  he displayed absolutely none of the real “traditional” ulcer symptoms. And he’s naturally kind of a spooky dingaling, so behavior-wise it’s hard to tell with him sometimes. That doesn’t stop me from feeling like a whole idiot. I know this horse so well, I feel like I should have cottoned on sooner than I did.

I’m very very glad we found this before we started our competition season but I still feel really guilty that he’s been doing his job with his stomach looking like this. This hasn’t happened overnight. It makes me think that adding an annual gastroscopy might be worthwhile to consider.

A few people have asked me why I opted to scope and not just treat. There are a few reasons. 1) there’s no point throwing money at a problem that may not exist. 2) If you don’t really know for sure what issue you have, you have no idea how to modify that horse’s lifestyle to make the changes required to try to avoid having the situation arise again in the future. Like… how the hell would I have known the ulcers were at the top of the stomach, or that he produces excess acid? 3) This is the most important one: Different types of ulcers require different medications/types of treatment. If he’d had ulcers in a different location, he would be on a different medication than he is now. If his ulcers had been better or worse, it may have affected what I do with him under saddle while he heals, how long I treat, and at what dosage. In the grand scheme of the cost of these medications and the well-being of the horse, paying for the scope is the cheap part.

So, if there are any takeaways from all this, I would leave you with these:

1) Listen to your gut. If you think something is wrong, you’re probably right.

2) Watch or listen to (if you have the Ride iQ app it’ll be up in Podcasts soon) that AAE episode. It’s incredibly valuable.

3) Do the scope. Just spend the money and do the scope. If there’s even a question… scope.