I dunno if she really intended for this to be a blog hop or not, but Olivia asked “What would you do if a long-lost distant relative died and left you a zillion dollars?” and this is a fantasy world that I cannot resist. Mostly because I think about it regularly. In excruciating detail. Even though I do not play the lottery or have any uber-rich relatives, nor am I ever gonna wrangle me a sugar daddy. But a gal can dream right?

First, I’m going to assume that the amount I have to spend is infinite, because although her post was titled “Millionaire Me”, she said “a zillion dollars”. And I can blow through a million or ten in a heartbeat, so I’m taking that “zillion” literally here.

Step 1: buy a farm. This 115 acre eventing facility in Aiken, for a cool $1.8 million, should do just fine. The price actually seems really reasonable, all things considered. Gallop track, two barns, cross country courses, and a log home? Sold.

As soon as the ink is dry on that deal, my ass will be on a plane (first class, of course) to go horse shopping. First thing a girl needs? How about an experienced and yet very forgiving 2* or 3* horse to show me the ropes through Prelim and 1*? I’ve never owned a schoolmaster type in my entire life, but I would love to have something very experienced so I could learn from it. Let’s go ahead and see what that’s about. Bonus points if it’s a mare.

The second horse I’m buying is a good broodmare by Heraldik. They’re hard to find these days, but since I have a zillion dollars, I’m sure it’s not impossible. As soon as the mare gets here I’ll do a few embryo transfers using Leprince des Bois, Upsilon, Ramiro B, and Contenda. Maybe even Sea Lion. And Cevin Z and Diarado and Diacontinus. Shit, better hire a breeding farm manager, we’re gonna have a lot of recip mares and babies. Also I may as well buy a nice Mighty Magic mare while I’m in Europe so she can keep the Heraldik mare company. Look at me, thinking ahead.

You know what, lets throw in a world-class youngster for my trainer, too. I wouldn’t mind having a VIP owner’s pass at LRK3DE or Burghley one day. I’m picturing something like Astier Nicolas’ Alertamalib’Or (his Mondial du Lion 7yo winner from last year). Guess we could just go to Mondial du Lion and let her pick out which one she wants. Because ZILLION DOLLARS.

Clearly we’re gonna be in Europe a lot, may as well buy a house there too. Somewhere around Namur, Belgium, I’m thinking. In the middle of everywhere I want to go and near a main train line. Perfect.

Henry and Presto would benefit from all this money too. Aside from their beautiful new farm, I’d be flying in the best farrier I could find, getting monthy chiro/acupuncture, weekly massage, maybe a nice solarium in the barn, a pool so the horses could swim for fitness, a nice salt water spa to soak their legs, why not throw in a PEMF blanket, etc. Henry would still get to show and do cross country and pack my butt around, until he decided he didn’t want to anymore. And since he’d be living on a farm with XC courses, he could have way more fun way more often.

I’d definitely have to buy the two miniature donkeys that Presto lives with now, because I can’t imagine him going anywhere without Dudley and Bob. They’re a staple.

May as well go ahead and buy a fancy air ride trailer while I’m at it, too, to haul all these creatures around. And all new totally custom tack with all the upgrade options I want. Which means navy piping EVERYWHERE.

Better make sure there’s a big closet in the house, I’m gonna need it for all the breeches and custom boots and helmets I’m buying. It’s gonna be like a Stacie situation up in there.

I think I’d also want to start an OTTB retirement program, so maybe a whole separate farm for that?

Yeah even with infinite dollars I feel like I’d be broke pretty quickly.

The XC schooling trip this past weekend also marked several exciting “firsts”. The first time Henry has been in the new trailer. The first time both boys have been in the new trailer together (and thus, the first time I’ve hauled the trailer “fully loaded”). It was the longest haul so far with the new trailer, with horses in it. First time testing out and using all the new accessories we put in the tack room. And of course, the first time using the new camera system.

The timing of the trip ended up providing plenty of opportunity to thoroughly test out the camera system. I loaded up at dawn, and with all the doors and windows closed, it was still pretty dark in the trailer. Dark enough for the camera to be using it’s night mode. The picture is definitely grainier, but it’s still plenty clear and light enough to see what the horses are doing. I was worried it might not be. No issues there.

The sky lightened as we rolled along into the rising sun, and soon the camera switched itself over to regular day mode. The picture is pretty darn good in this mode, and I didn’t have any issues with buffering or dropped signal as we drove – both common complaints that I’ve heard about wireless trailer cameras in general. The picture stayed really perfect the whole time, and I could clearly see what both boys were doing at any time.

Like when Presto ran out of hay and started pawing, and Henry got mad at him. Or when Henry blamed Presto for a particularly bumpy part of the road and kept pinning his ears at him after every bump. Or when I felt some weird bouncing and checked the cam to see that it was just Henry being Henry, bucking in the trailer. As one does.

He has a lot of feelings. Most of them are rude.

Anyway, I made a short video of the monitor so y’all could see the streaming quality. Henry was even kind enough to choose that moment to poop.

 

So far I’m super happy with this camera setup. It was so nice to be able to just quickly flick my eyes to the camera if I felt something weird, or check on them when we stopped at lights or stop signs. I could see that they were both happily munching their hay (or not) and I didn’t have to worry that someone was in trouble. That security alone makes the camera priceless, especially when you’re hauling a baby and/or you’re a really freaking paranoid person by nature. And for Henry, who has a hard time handling heat, I could check and make sure his respiratory rate looked normal and he wasn’t getting hot and sweaty. 10/10 would absolutely recommend a trailer camera system to anyone. It takes the hauling anxiety way down. This is the one I got, although there are a lot of options on the market. I can’t vouch for how they compare.

Speaking of sweaty, the fan seemed to help keep Henry a bit cooler, too. It’s a small fan, so it’s not putting out a spectacular amount of air, but between having the roof vent open, the screen on the head window open, and the fan on, Henry was getting a pretty darn good breeze back there. He stayed a lot cooler than he normally would, for sure.

The saddle racks also survived their first mission! They stayed put and so did my saddle and the pads. I love these Saddle Boss racks, they’re the only ones I’ve ever had any luck with as far as actually holding the saddles and keeping everything stable. It was so still that even the half pad and square pad on top of the saddle didn’t budge. There’s nothing worse than opening the tack room door and seeing your stupid expensive saddles SPLAT on the floor, so I’m definitely happy with this purchase too.

I still have some organizational things to tweak, but otherwise really happy with everything so far. The trailer pulled great, fully loaded, and the boys seemed to have a pretty comfortable ride back there.

Omg y’all. This baby horse, he is too cute. I cannot handle it.

So, as I talked about in yesterday’s post, the real purpose of this trip was to be an XC school for Henry, dipping our toes back in for the first time since Chatt. But I brought Presto along too, which of course means two different sets of adventures – one for each horse. Since you already got to see Henry’s part, now it’s time for Presto’s! His is a little more… entertaining. More dramatic. Less professional.

My original intention was to leave Presto back at the stalls with some of the other horses, ride Henry, then come back and get Presto for a quick in-hand session with my trainer and a short pony around the field. Presto was not keen on that plan. As soon as we started leaving the barns he pitched a yearling tantrum and I was pretty sure that he was either going to climb up or jump over the little metal gate that serves as a stall door at this facility. Clearly he was Not Okay with being left with a 4yo OTTB as his babysitter, and those gates are not exactly a safe, solid barrier behind which you can let a baby horse work through his tantrum. This was not the appropriate time or place to address his anxiety, so, Plan B: take him out with us.

He walked and trotted next to Henry while we warmed up, then I pawned him off on whoever was available to hold him while Henry and I cantered and jumped. Presto was pretty concerned the first couple times I handed him off and then cantered away, but he got less and less anxious about it as the schooling wore on and he realized he wasn’t being abandoned.

Presto walked through the water (although there wasn’t much water in it – mostly pea gravel and puddles) with us, and then after everyone jumped through there we went over with the group to the ditches. Presto thought those were kinda scary. His first leap across was nothing short of hilarious.

The second attempt was still careful, but much less dramatic.

After the ditches we headed over to the bank complex and walked up and down the little bitty one. Those are no big deal, he seems to understand the concept of stepping up and stepping down pretty well. He might even be better at the stepping down part than Henry is. Of course, he did travel in a step-up trailer a lot when he was a baby, so that might be why he understands the concept so well. But at moments like this, I can get glimpses of his future, and it’s pretty exciting.

So he conquered water, ditches, and banks: the holy trinity of cross country. Check, check, and check.

After that I hopped off of Henry and had Trainer watch me trot Presto in hand. I’m trying to figure out what I need to do to help him get the best trot possible in the show ring. At his FEH show he was quite BLEH, trotting flat and quiet like a hunter and then just breaking to a disorganized canter. It helped that he was a little amped here, and I’ve been experimenting with running more “knee high” myself to get more of the same action from him. As soon as she had me shorten the lead rope and keep him closer to me, we got the last little bit of change that we needed. Such a small simple tweak, but this is why I needed eyes on the ground. Hard to handle the horse and see what he’s doing at the same time.

It’s definitely A LOT taking both of these doofuses to something like this. Many thanks to the ground people that held my baby horse for me, and for everyone else’s patience while we played with the baby. I hope he was entertaining at least. The extra great thing about this venue is that the stalls are at the front, near a semi-busy road, and the XC runs next to a railroad track. He got to hear traffic noise AND trains while we were there! Didn’t give a shit about either, btw, which is good because I’ve been on a couple horses that had absolute meltdowns about that train. It was certainly a productive day for his little brain, with all kinds of good “experience points”. Hopefully by the time he gets to his first real XC schooling, some of this stuff will be old hat!

It’s possible that I’ve said this once or twice (or a few hundred times) on this blog before, but Henry is the best horse that has ever walked on this earth. He is pure gold, through and through, and I officially nominate him for sainthood.

On Saturday I loaded both boys up and hauled out to MeadowCreek Park. Henry was going to XC school, and Presto was tagging along to have my trainer help us tweak his in-hand trot. We have not even so much as looked at an XC fence since Chatt, 7 weeks ago. In fact, I have only jumped Henry once since then – last Wednesday. We jumped maybe 6 fences.

I thought there might be a whole lot of rust to knock off, but Henry, as he does, slipped right back into Professional mode as if Chatt happened last week instead of almost 2 months ago. He was a little TOO gung-ho at the first couple fences, so we had to dial it back a notch and remind him that not everything needs to be jumped at 450mpm. (He says that’s bullshit, btw)

We had Presto out there ponying with us, so when it was our turn to jump we handed him off to a ground person, did our fences, and then went back and resumed babysitting duties of the yearling. The fact that this horse can go from badass XC horse and then flip the switch immediately into Uncle mode is pretty impressive. He does both jobs flawlessly. Although I think he probably prefers the XC part.

After our warmup fences we strung a few together to make a mini course, just a few Training fences. Henry was so happy to be out galloping that he wasn’t sure if he really wanted to pull up after the 3rd one. He’s run that T course at MeadowCreek a couple times now, so he knew where he was going, and he was not keen to stop so soon. Pretty sure he would have just gone on and jumped around the whole thing if I’d let him.

From there we went to the big mound, where we jumped through the Training way first, and then circled back and jumped the Prelim way – an upright skinnyish fence, up and over the steep mound, to the skinny chevron at the bottom of the hill. We’ve never jumped this Prelim combo before but Henry locked right on to both elements and was really super, just skipping right through like it was a gymnastic. That’s one of my favorite things about this horse, he retains everything, always picking up right where he left off even after a break. It’s almost like he’s… seasoned… or something???

From the mound we went to the water, and again Trainer had us jump the Training route through first (which we’ve done like a million times) and then circle around and jump the Prelim route. Prelim had an upright skinnyish rolltop, bending line to a big log down into the water, bending line to another log out. Again, no problem for Henry. He was super rideable and looking for the jumps, but not being rude about taking me to them, and letting me put him a little bit closer to the base.

From the water the group headed over to the ditches, but there wasn’t really anything bigger set up over there so we just ponied Presto over. Same thing at the banks – we’ve done every route several times, so no point in doing it again. Considering Henry has only been back in work for a couple weeks and it was his first XC school, we just let him be done with that.

It was so great to be back on my best boy and out there doing what he does best. And the fact that he could do that job while also babysitting his brother… I’m so proud of Henry. He never ceases to amaze me.

Pictures tomorrow of all of Presto’s adventures. He had quite the day, too!

Even though I’ve had the new trailer for over a month now, we just now got around to installing some of the stuff I bought for it. And when I say “we” I mostly mean the SO because if you hand me a power tool, something will probably be broken within 5 minutes. I’m really good at breaking things. It was literally my job for the first part of my career.

The most important new toy for the trailer is the camera system. I just assumed that this would be a huge pain in the ass to install and get working, because that’s my general experience with electronics and technology, but it was actually the easiest thing of all. We wired it up (ok I watched and held things), mounted the camera, turned it on, and voila. The receiver in the truck found it immediately and the picture quality was quite a bit better than I expected. Deciding exactly where to mount it took longer than any of the other steps.

I played with the camera both in the daylight and in the dark, but the first maiden voyage with the boys in the trailer will be tomorrow. Fingers crossed that it continues to perform well, because I’m pretty pumped about having “eyes” in the trailer.

The next major thing was installing the saddle racks. I wanted the fancy Saddle Boss ones, and of course the brackets didn’t really fit anywhere on the walls. We had to get a little creative and mount the brackets to wood, then mount the wood to the trailer. More laborious, and required 3 trips to Home Depot (don’t even get me started), but they’re in now and they’re really good at… holding saddles.

I also added a fire extinguisher, a whip holder, and still need to figure out where to put the TrailerAid bracket. I also had to buy a new roof vent dome for the big vent over the tack room because the whole thing just broke in half and blew off when I was taking Presto to that little hunter show a couple weeks ago. No, I wasn’t driving with it up! The sun had baked it to the point where it just couldn’t take anymore. Luckily the new dome was cheap, and relatively easy to install. While we were up there we oiled all the vent mechanisms to make them easier to open and close.

Assuming everything stays functional (please let me just go a while without breaking anything) I think we’re pretty much set. I still have a few things I want to put inside the tack room, or re-arrange, but the cameras and saddle racks were the two things I really needed in there ASAP. The rest isn’t nearly as important.

Funny story – we got a nasty, threatening notice on our door the other day from the neighborhood association (no, it’s not an HOA) about the trailer being parked in our driveway. Apparently it’s ok for the people down the street to have a swingset and above ground pool in their front yard, but it’s not ok for me to park my horse trailer (which is nicer than half the cars on the street) in our driveway for a few days while we install things. Asshats.

I’m loading both boys up bright and early tomorrow morning to head out for XC schooling. Well, Henry is XC schooling. Presto is riding along and then we’re going to work with my trainer on tweaking his in-hand trot. That kind of stuff is hard to work on by yourself. I feel so much better having the cameras installed in the trailer, so I can keep an eye on both of them while we’re en route. Between the fans and the cameras, I think those boys have a fancier ride than I do!