I’ve really been enjoying this blog hop topic, started by Cathryn at Two and Half Horses. Reading everyone else’s posts, seeing what their horses looked like when they bought them compared to where they are now… who doesn’t love progression stories?

With Presto, there isn’t much of a story. The horse I bought was in this format:

Technically Presto was a lil’ sperm that was frozen in France, imported, stored here for a few years, then shipped to Texas, thawed out, and put into my mare. I even got to see the swimmers under the microscope when they were thawed. Who knows, maybe one of the ones I saw was him. Pretty weird little fairy tale, right? Now THAT is a sight unseen horse purchase.

We’ve been through way more than is normal in the past 18 months (omg guys he’s just a few days away from being 18 months old, can you believe it???) but he is so much freakin fun. Even when he’s having a tantrum. I remain quite pleased with how he’s maturing, despite the fact that he looks like a llama/giraffe/moose hybrid about 90% of the time. I see a nice horse in there, and I hope I’m right.

Of course, Henry’s story is probably fairly well-known, at least partly, to most of you by now. He too was a sight-unseen purchase, but at least he actually existed when I bought him. I had kind of been looking (online, via facebook) at a horse at a farm in Arkansas, when the owner told me about another gelding that she had available for even cheaper. I was looking for a resale project, so cheap was important. This one had been sitting in the field for about a year, and had been a bit brain-fried before that, but before that he had done a hunter show once. Believe it or not, that made him less green than most of my horses have been. His name was Jerry, and he was a 6yo TB. It just so happened that a friend of mine from Dallas was headed up that exact farm that very afternoon to pick up a mare that she had bought, and the owner said that if Jerry went on the trailer with the mare, he was mine for $900. All I had seen at that point was a few pictures and a short video, but I liked his pedigree (I’ve always had the best luck with the Danzig line) and I just had a good feeling about him.

I sent the money over to her via Paypal, and she rushed him to the vet to get a current coggins, then he essentially unloaded from her trailer and onto my friends trailer, to make the trek to Texas. My friend brought him to her farm, and I drove up the next day from Austin to get him. Quickest, most impulsive, least-strings-attached horse purchase ever. Also not at all the way that I would recommend anyone else buy a horse.

I really didn’t even know what he looked like until I got him home that night and pulled his blanket off. He was SO FAT, and he was hairy and scruffy, but he seemed intelligent and had a good brain. Jerry soon became Henry… new start, new name. The first few rides showed me that he was very willing, but indeed seemed pretty brain-fried. It took months for me to really be able to put my leg on him without him exploding, and I ended up riding him in a hackamore for a while to basically “start over” with the concept of a bit, since he wanted to constantly curl up nose-to-chest at any hint of contact. He was always very honest though, and wanted to do his job.

We started in the jumpers, working up to 3′. Then we ended up at a barn with an eventing trainer, who convinced us (didn’t take much arm-twisting, I’ll be honest) to come out with them for an XC schooling day. From there, it was all over. Henry LOVED cross country, and although I had evented for a few years in the early 2000’s, I had kind of forgotten how great it was until I found myself sitting on this horse. We did a little local eventing derby that fall, which he won by being the only horse with a clean XC, and then promptly signed up for our first horse trial at BN.

Everything was really a foregone conclusion from there. We both loved this game, and he was pretty good at it (well, the dressage part was sketchy on a horse that still wasn’t super keen about leg or contact – we did a lot of faking it). The next year we qualified for AEC at BN, winning the Adult Team Challenge and finishing 10th individually.

 

Omg, he was so cute. Also, undeniable proof that I have always leaned.

We’ve had a few setbacks since then (like that summer he fractured his leg) but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. This horse has been so freaking fun, and taught me so much. He made me fall in love with eventing again, and is trying his best to make me a better rider. For the first couple of years I was definitely the “teacher” in our relationship, but now it kind of feels like the tables have turned and he’s the one teaching me. At this point he is definitely the most educated and experienced horse I have ever had, by a mile.

As far as a resale project goes, he was obviously a massive failure. Not because of him or anything he did, but because of me. I fell in love with him, and at this point I owe him more than I could ever possibly repay. He will never be for sale. When we started eventing, I never ever thought we could go above Novice, or that I would even want to go above Novice. Training was such a distant dream that it may as well have been the Olympics. Those jumps made me want to pee myself. So to be solidly cruising around T, and maybe eyeballing Prelim at some point… it’s mindblowing to even consider. He’s been such an opportunity for me in so many ways, to improve myself and my riding.

These days he doesn’t look much like the horse I bought, at least on the outside. He is considerably less hairy and more fit, although that goofy face has stayed the same. I think his brain is a lot happier now, too. The heart though… that’s always been kind and genuine, and still is.

I hope that we’re still toward the beginning of our journey, and that I’m lucky enough to enjoy many more years and surpass many more expectations with this horse. Either way, he’s been the best surprise of my life.

Most of the time when we get rain in Texas, it seems to come in one big deluge and then it’s bone dry again for a month. Over the past week we’ve gotten a few inches of rain, but steadily, a little bit every day. I am loving it.

Our previously rock hard and crunchy brown pastures are lush and green and perfectly soft again. It rains just enough every day to keep the ground springy instead of making it slick. It’s so rare to have this many days in a row of perfect footing… usually it’s a day or two between soggy and hard. Plus the weather has cooled down significantly, with highs in the lower to mid 80’s instead of 95-100. This means I can go back to riding in the afternoons again, giving me more time to spend at the barn.

On Monday there had been a pretty hard deluge just before I got to the barn, and I arrived to find lots of puddles on the driveway. Eventers: what do puddles look like to you? Miniature water jumps, right? I know I’m not the only one…

So I decided this was the perfect time to continue Presto’s water education. First I tied him in the arena while I did a bareback dressage ride on Henry (that’s totally a thing) which caused a fairly hilarious but short lived temper tantrum.

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye during some canter-trot-canter transitions just in time to see him very angrily pawing just before he tried to lay down in protest. Sure kid, go for it. That doesn’t work so well when you’re high-tied, even if you are a baby giraffe. He finally resorted to just standing there looking pissed.

Once he was done being a moron, I ponied him down the road with Henry.

I guess he’s seen enough water by now to not be impressed by it anymore, because he walked right through all the puddles. He tried to roll in one of them, but I didn’t let him, so he just stood there and pouted some more. He’s in a very angsty, emo, pouty, “life isn’t fair” phase right now. It’s kind of hilarious.

The only bummer about all the rain is that the horses aren’t getting turned out at night, since there are so many random pop-up storms. Day turnout is only about 8 hours. I’ve been taking the opportunity to shove a ton of extra hay into Presto (who eats hay faster than any horse I’ve ever seen in my life) but he still just looks growthy as hell. Definitely growing again. Also his butt is getting really hairy already. Why are all my horses total yaks?

It seems like most of the country is getting rain right now… what’s it been like in your neck of the woods? Are you drowning or is it feeling more like Fall? I hope everyone in the path of the hurricane is able to get somewhere safe!

 

I dunno what has happened lately, but considering that I own exactly ZERO donkeys, my life sure does seem a lot more donkey-centric than it should be.

First of all, Presto lives with a couple mini donkeys. They’ve been his pasturemates since he came to this barn, and it’s actually worked out pretty well for him. He doesn’t seem to see them as “equals” so he’s not attached to them at all, and they can’t really inflict any damage on him when they’re playing.

If you’re asking me, though, these donkeys… they’re kind of jerks. Bob, the bigger one, is a biter, and in a sneaky way. More than once he’s snuck up behind me and grabbed my pocket, or my shirt. He’s persistent, too, and tries to insert himself into the middle of whatever I’m there to do. It’s not that easy to tie a rope halter on the distracted yearling when you’ve got a miniature donkey doing his best shark impression right at waist-level.

Then there’s Dudley, the smaller mini donkey. He tends to try to steer clear of Presto as much as possible. Probably because Presto has decided that Dudley is really fun to chase, and I’ve seen him out there running Dudley’s fat ass in circles on more than one occasion. But Dudley is also a master escape artist, and if I don’t chain the gate shut behind me in exactly the right way, that little shit will be out of the pasture and GONE in 2 seconds flat. One morning I got to chase him around in the dark for 20 friggin minutes until I could get him cornered.

Then there’s Henry, who has no regular contact with donkeys, yet is somehow ridiculously obsessed with him. The few times I’ve let him sniff noses with the mini-donks at the barn, he’s been… um… very attracted to them. Henry thought he was definitely a stallion, and those donkeys were the prettiest things he’d ever laid eyes on. Luckily he pretty much never sees them in his day to day life.

Then, this past weekend, Henry had a complete and total meltdown over some donkeys. After we were done XC schooling I hauled him over to my friends place nearby, so we could stay the night. We turned him out in the paddock next to a couple horses and donkeys, and Henry proceeded to lose his marble (there’s only one in there, I’m pretty sure). The horses came up to the fence to say hi and Henry completely ignored them, staring past them toward the donkeys. Eventually those two finally wandered up to say hi to him as well, and Henry was OMG SO EXCITED ABOUT DONKEY FRIENDS.

Then the donkeys quickly lost interest and wandered away, and Henry’s meltdown began. He was running laps and screaming as if we’d just taken away and murdered all of his friends in the entire world. They were all of 30′ away at the time, mind you. He ran himself up into a sweat, so finally I had to just lock him up in a stall before he hurt himself. All these donkeys around and the Biggest Ass award goes to Henry. Clearly he is not mature enough to handle donkey neighbors. He didn’t give a shit about any of the horses, but he spent all night on-and-off pacing his stall and screaming for those donkeys. What. Even.

All of this drama seems to, OF COURSE, have triggered an ulcery reaction in Henry, who picked at his dinner the past couple days in a way that Henry never ever does unless his tummy isn’t happy. Great, just great. I think this time I’m gonna try to get the injectable omeprazole and see how that works… anyone used that yet?

Henry is officially banned from donkeys forever.

And all this wet weather has caused a leak in Presto’s outside stall, so he’s in the main barn for a while, which means I don’t have to deal with the donkeys when I go get him out of his stall. Fine by me, I’m about donkey-ed out at the moment. Horses are dumb. So are donkeys.

Nothing like making riding plans for both days of the weekend and then checking the forecast only to see 90% chance of rain both days. Luckily for me, they were only halfway right.

The main objective of the weekend was a jumper show on Sunday, which Trainer and some of her students were going to. She told me to enter the three Prelim-height classes, which left me going “Ugh, I have to learn three different courses, really? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.”. Which shows just how far removed I’ve now gotten from my h/j roots. But at least I wasn’t feeling dread about the height or anything… maybe that’s progress? Then she texted and said “Funday at Pine Hill on Saturday too, if you’re in!”. You will never ever ever have to ask me twice about a funday at Pine Hill. Yeah we had just been there on Monday to XC school, but we got cut short because of lightning. There were a few more things I wanted to school, so hell yeah, let’s go hang out with some friends and finish what we started.

I think Henry is liking this “XC school once a week” kick that we’ve been on. Three weeks in a row and he’s thinking that finally I’ve figured out the secret to a happy life. He’ll be sad to realize that this was only a temporary stroke of luck.

After a couple warmup fences we headed to the same Prelim downhill drop/bending line thing that we did last week, but this time we had to do the 4 instead of the adding 5. That meant I had to keep his stride open down the steep hill but still reeeeeally keep his balance back so we didn’t literally die over the log pile at the bottom. We managed to get it right on the first try, which we’ll totally pretend was due to skill and not to the fact that when we started I was like “Okay Henry we’re doing that drop line again, and we need to get 4 this time.”. I’m 99% certain he understands.

After that we jumped the Time Warp combo again, smoothing out the curve and also leaving out the extra stride we had put in on Monday. Those Prelim combo’s, man… they are forward.

From there we went to the crater again, with the log pile down into the crater, around the blind corner to a skinny. Henny’s got that down pat almost to the point of being cocky about it.

After that I asked if we could go to the boat… it’s a table that literally has a boat on the front face. This jump had caused a ton of trouble at the spring recognized show, so I was curious about how it rode. The jump itself isn’t bad, but you basically come blasting out of the woods and have to make a REALLY sharp turn to the right in order to catch the table. I can see how it would be easy to skirt right past it when you’re going Prelim speed. I basically had to set Henry on his butt and square the turn out of the woods so we could get straight to it, but we popped over it fine.

I have to be honest, I didn’t feel like I was riding particularly well that day. Some days all the distances just come right up, no problem, and I mostly execute what I’m supposed to do, and my brain actually feels like things are firing and my body is responding correctly. This wasn’t one of those days. I felt kinda floppy and discombobulated and my eye was  off. BUT… it’s good to know that even on a day where things aren’t clicking as well as they can, we can still answer the questions. Henry was definitely stepping in and making up for my shortcomings, which is good to know that he can still do at the bigger fences. Granted, I would also really like to have fewer non-clicking days so that Henry’s job is a little easier.

After the boat we went to the water, which I had to do twice because the first time was just a bit sticky and underpowered. I was on such a roll with the water for a long time, but I think since my horse is so good about water, maybe I’ve gotten a little more complacent. I still have to ride in a bit more aggressively. We went up to the bank combo after that and kinda the same thing. First time through was just kind of flat and blah, so we had to do it again. I think it didn’t help that by this point Henry was pretty hot. The humidity was killer, and he just doesn’t handle it. But also… I wasn’t helping enough.

 

We had a really big group with us (because FUNDAY) so they got some video. Thanks guys!

Afterward we hung out and ate food, and Henry went back with me to a friends house so we could stay the night there and hit the jumper show the next day, since it was nearby. And then they cancelled the jumper show, which is fair because it definitely DID rain on Sunday.

But hey, at least we got to enjoy one nice day, and another fun XC outing. Things are feeling pretty decent in the XC department (at least, ya know, when I’m not riding like a sack of potatoes) so we definitely need to focus on the showjumping. That’s for sure our weakest phase at the moment. Hopefully this rainy weather will go away and we can at least get some lessons, because the fall shows are OPEN and it’s time to start sending entries in!

Very serious, very important post for Friday, guys. I need to decide what Presto will wear for FEH Championships. We have the option of halter or bridle for yearlings, and he’s shown in both now. I can’t quite decide which one is my preference.

The halter is a Kavalkade Ivy, black with a unique shape, white stitching, and chrome hardware. I have a black leather with chrome hardware lead shank that goes with it (not in the photos, obviously). I do like the simplicity of a halter, as does Presto. It gives me a tad bit less control when it comes to handling, but not enough to where I think it makes much of a difference.

 

His bridle is dark brown with dark brown stitching, very plain and simple, from the Lund Saddlery eventer series. It’s a bit tight at the crown/brow but totally workable. With this I’d be using a dark brown newmarket shank like this, or I could use reins. He can sometimes get a bit chompy in the bit, but with how distracted he’ll be in the ring, I doubt that would be an issue.

I’m pretty torn. They both have their pros and cons, and I can’t really decide which looks better. His ears look freaking GIANT in both. Oh wait, that’s because they are.

If it makes a difference, I’m wearing a black polo/helmet/gloves with khakis.

Which would you pick?