I think anyone who has a baby horse probably spends a lot of time thinking in reverse. As in, X is The Big Thing, and then everything gets planned backwards from X. What is X? Starting under saddle, of course. That’s kind of the holy grail moment that we’re working towards with babies, after all.

Where “X” exists on the calendar really depends. It depends on the person, it depends on the horse, and of course, like anything with horses, changes in circumstances can also cause X to move. When Presto’s dam, Sadie, was a baby, I fully intended on starting her at 3.5 years old. However, let me tell you what’s worse than a 2yo filly with a whole lot of smarts and not enough mental stimuli to occupy said smarts.

NOTHING. LITERALLY NOTHING IS WORSE THAN THAT.

My formerly very sweet filly got bored, and when she got bored she got creative, and when she got creative she went through a decidedly wicked phase that resulted in more than one vet bill. Freaking fillies, man.

So I moved up her timeline for starting under saddle, and she went to the cowboy a few months before her 3rd birthday. She didn’t work too hard, but her brain was 100% occupied every single day with things that were new and fresh and different. She came home a changed horse… not even the sweet filly I had before, but a genuinely happy and more confident horse. She needed direction and purpose.

After she came home we spent that whole first summer mostly just hacking and trail riding. Her first “off property” adventure was a trail ride with a lot of other horses, at a place she’d never been. I swung aboard not knowing what to expect, but she was foot perfect and led most of the way. She absolutely loved it, and thrived on having something fun to do. Bonus: spending all that time hacking turned her into a pretty chill horse. Not only did she get exposed to a lot, she also learned how to just be a riding horse without a lot of pressure or demands or heavy expectations. Her body had time to strengthen and develop and acclimate to it’s new job before her work got harder. I fully believe that this is one of the biggest contributing factors to her fantastic work ethic.

Having been through this already with Sadie, I’ve got Presto’s X set in the spring of his 3yo year. He’s a March foal, so basically sometime around his 3rd birthday is what I’m aiming at. Of course, I’m flexible on that. If we have to move it up or back for whatever reason, then that’s what we’ll do. But he will likely go spend 60 days with a “cowboy” (maybe even the same cowboy) just like his mom did. From there we’ll spend several months hacking and trail riding, then he’ll do a month of dressage basics with a pro, followed by having the winter “off” to let everything soak in before starting a more formal training schedule in his 4yo year.

Of course, he’s just edging in on 18 months old, so we’re talking yet another 18 months in the future before any of this happens. This is where we start thinking in reverse. What do you fill that time with? How “prepped” do you want the horse to be before it’s started? When do you introduce what things?

Some people just leave them totally alone. I have no problem with that. I totally see the appeal and the benefits. It’s just not my preference. I made an effort to leave Sadie mostly alone aside from what she really needed to know, and feel like that kinda backfired on me. She wasn’t the type of horse that that approach worked best for, and I don’t feel like Presto is either. They’re smart, they like to learn, and they seem happiest when they have regular interaction. With Presto I’m keeping him more occupied and staying more involved on a daily basis. I try to picture it as if I’m building a house… how solid can I make that foundation? What’s going to help form him into the best horsey citizen that he can possibly be, later in life?

There’s a lot of stuff he already does. He crossties, straight ties, loads, hauls, stands for the farrier, stands for baths (I mean there’s a lot of glaring, but he stands), wears a bridle, knows the basics of lunging, knows what “whoa” and a cluck mean, stands for grooming and fly spray, ponies off another horse, wears boots/bandages on his front and hind legs, knows how to walk/trot/stand in hand, has done some in hand trail obstacles, and has been to a few horse shows.

Right now we’re doing some round penning basics… not much since he’s so young and I don’t want him tearing around on a small circle, but he knows how to yield the front/hind end and back up using body language, and lower his head from poll pressure. We’ve had a couple “rope” lessons with me running a rope all over his body, around his legs, under his tail, etc. We’ve started dabbling in “walk” and “trot” voice commands. He’s a lot like his mother in that most things are almost too easy, because he retains the lessons very quickly. Even with keeping his sessions at 15 minutes or less, after a while you start feeling like you’re running out of stuff to do. Properly torturing a yearling requires some serious creativity.

There’s still a lot I want to teach him before he’s ready to be started under saddle though. I want him to already wear all of his tack comfortably, of course. I want him to long line. Shoot, maybe at some point in the future I’ll even sit on him or teach him about mounting. I guess it depends. I figure that wearing tack and long-lining are things we can play with when he’s 2. I definitely want to keep taking him to shows, too, be it FEH classes or otherwise. The more the better.

A big goal for the fall/winter is hauling him off property just to pony with Henry. I want to take him to show venues and walk him through the water, up and down the banks, and across the ditches. He’s already done this once and we both thought it was fantastic. I’d also like to take him to some local parks to trail ride, let him experience terrain and whatever spooky things might be waiting in the bushes. Aside from the exposure, I think it’s really good for his body. The long walks help him build some muscle and fitness, and the varied footing and terrain helps develop his bone and soft tissue. Plus he’s getting the chance to learn to manage his own feet, without the guidance or hindrance of a rider.

For another horse/owner this schedule might not work, but learning more about Presto and his brain over the past few months has really helped clarify a longer-term plan for him. That’s not to say that it won’t be modified of course… in fact I’m sure it will, but we’ve got a rough outline in place at least. Either way, I’m sure it’ll be fun.

Last year when Presto was very sick and spent those few weeks at the vet clinic, I spent most of those days right there with him. I wasn’t really doing much… I would hold the IV bag sometimes, or go get his vet if he seemed particularly uncomfortable. Mostly I just watched him and rubbed him and spent time with him, but I felt a strong pull to just be there. Those weeks were so up and down, so touch and go, and so… well… ominous.

Why did I feel such a strong need to just be there? It took me a while to really figure it out. When he first checked in at the clinic I don’t think anyone actually expected him to live, and the whole first couple weeks were really damn sketchy, every single day. While I wanted so badly for him to make it, I was well aware of the fact that the odds were stacked against him. I know this sounds crazy and like I’m anthropomorphizing here, but if his life was doomed to be short, I wanted him to at least feel like he was loved, every single day that he was here. At that point it was the only thing I could do for him, so I clung to it.

Are horses really capable of feeling “love” as we know it? My first inclination, from my admittedly skeptical side, is to think of course not. That’s silly right? But then again maybe I’m not giving them enough credit. They understand a lot more than I think most of us even realize. They’re perceptive. They’re intelligent. Their minds are creative enough to dream. Love, though? I don’t know. I guess first you’d have to define what love really is, and that’s tricky enough. I would venture to guess that the definition would vary, depending on who you ask. Is it attachment? Affection? Caring? Kindness? And who’s to say that horses would even define it the same way we do.

Example being: think of what it means to be “cared for”. A human might see a horse that is well groomed and in good weight and describe it as being well cared for. But that well groomed healthy horse might be pretty unhappy emotionally. We see those kinds of things manifest themselves all the time in their behavior. So would that horse agree with our “well cared for” assessment in that case? Probably not.

I do think that horses definitely understand attachment and affection. They have very strong herd instincts after all, and are social animals by default. It’s easy to see horses form bonds with each other, and sometimes with their humans. Just like dogs, I think that some of them are more intelligent than others, and some build connections with humans more easily than others.

I also definitely believe that they know when people are approaching them with kindness and caring, versus when they aren’t. It would be naive to think that a creature that communicates almost solely by body language – down to the tiniest details – wouldn’t be able to pick up on that. Horses and humans are able to form some pretty incredible relationships, and have been doing so for thousands of years.

Yes, these are the types of random ponderings that keep me up at night.

I find myself looking at both of my boys sometimes, wondering if they have any idea how loved they are. Do they have any concept of it, or are they just happy as long as they’re getting food and have some companionship? Hell if I know. But if they do, if they can perceive what it means to be loved, I really hope they know.

I think my favorite part about foals and young horses is seeing their personality develop as they learn and gain confidence. And if there’s one thing that none of Sadie’s babies have lacked, it’s personality. Is there some kind of genetic component to being a goofy little shit? Because all of them are. Manny especially.

Presto’s newest half brother is almost 4 months old now, and boy is he something. It’s almost time to take his advertising pictures and formally list him for sale (if he was a filly I don’t think Michelle would ever let him go), but in the meantime he’s just been running and playing and acting a general fool. He is brazen, super curious, and always in the middle of everything, especially if people are involved. Sadie’s babies have all shared these qualities. They definitely aren’t the kind of foals that hide behind their moms or seem indifferent to humans.

One of Manny’s favorite things is playing with his oversize soccer ball, which he won’t let the other foal, Mari, play with. It’s his. He’s not a sharer. She’s not really sure that she wants to play with that death ball anyway, because she is far too sophisticated for such nonsense. Manny definitely IS NOT.

I see a lot of Presto in that last picture. He was doing the same thing to one of his donkeys the other day (sorry Dudley).

Manny also recently discovered that he can jump, and boy can he ever.

True to typical Manny form, he does it with excessive panache. That video kind of sums up both babies perfectly. Manny: WHEEEEEEEEEE! Mari: Dear God WHY?

It’s so funny how they’re both by the same sire, and yet so very different. Living proof that the dam, and especially her temperament, have so much impact on the foal. Even more so than the sire, really.

Manny is also a big fat chunk. Like… CHUNK. He doesn’t look much like Presto. Typical Sadie, throwing the sire’s type. Manny is so round with a lot more natural topline than Presto, who is way leggier and rangier and more refined. Manny has about 25% less thoroughbred blood, so it makes sense.

I hope someone I know buys Manny so that I can keep comparing them as they grow. It’s just so fascinating to see all the similarities and yet all the differences between them, with how Sadie is throwing her temperament but the foals look like the sires. Surely somebody out there wants a fancy hunter/hunter derby prospect? He might even come with his soccer ball…

Farriers, man. Finding a good one is harder than finding a vet, trainer, husband, unicorn, or Holy Grail. Sometimes it seems as if the combination of good communicator, reliable, skilled, and open-minded are things that can’t coexist in one person.

I feel like Henry is not all THAT complicated to shoe. He can definitely grow a lot of toe, and he’s crooked, and sometimes he likes to trot right out of his shoes, but… he’s very easy to work on and I stick to a religious 5-week schedule. Presto is even simpler: a barefoot trim on the same schedule. I know that being a farrier is a hard job, but really important. I always pay. I don’t hover. I’m flexible. I don’t expect miracles. Just a good job. I feel like that’s pretty reasonable?

When I moved to my current barn almost 2 years ago, I was at a farrier crossroads anyway. The one I’d been using was just getting way too busy to come out for my (at that time) one horse anymore. I hauled Henry off property to him a couple times before it became clear that I was going to have to try something else.

So I switched to the barn farrier, which was massively more convenient. He was out every couple weeks anyway, and in the area a lot, so it was always easy to just write Henry’s name on the board, leave a check, and voila, the horse would get done. I liked that farrier fine, he seemed willing enough to listen to my input when I had small issues. For the most part it was fine.

But over time, Henry’s toes just got longer… and longer… and longer. His heels got more and more underslung. I felt like the length of his hind toes was possibly contributing to Henry’s SI soreness last year, to which my vet agreed, and we discussed some changes with the farrier. It got a little better, then worse again, and we had another talk, after which it got a little better, and then worse again. I like the guy as a person and wanted to give him a chance to fix things, so after Chatt we had one more big talk, and Henry got done again. The next week he did Presto.

Aaaaaand they both looked fairly terrible fairly immediately. Henry’s right front especially (the more crooked one that tends to flare to the inside) was resembling a ski slope, and within 3 weeks his feet were growing over the sides of the shoes and both fronts were so loose they were rattling. Even more frustratingly, Presto suddenly looked like he had 4 totally different feet. Presto’s feet have always been nothing less than exemplary. Seeing him so unbalanced was the straw that broke this camel’s back. That farrier relationship just wasn’t working.

Farrier breakups are the worst. Even when it’s not personal, it’s personal.

But, I had the name of someone else that some of my friends have switched to and been very pleased with. I called him up, explained my situation, and he stuck my horses on his schedule for a few days later – a Saturday morning, no less. If you’re trying to woo me, that’s how.

He spent quite a while on Henry, checking and rechecking the balance from every angle, taking off as much foot as he could, a little at a time. Way more foot than there should have been available to take, considering Henry was done 4 weeks ago. Way way way more. Although we weren’t able to get everything perfect on the first go-round (I know it’ll take a while to fix this), Henry already looks and FEELS so much better. The forging and interfering stopped immediately, and he feels freer through the front end.

After Henry was finished he moved on to Presto, who was so good he earned a few gold stars from both of us. I just stuck him in the crossties, went and sat down a little ways down the aisle, and the farrier went to work. The worst thing Presto did the whole time was take his foot off the hoof stand a couple times. The farrier was quite impressed and asked me if I was sure he was just a yearling.

We’re on the schedule again for 5 weeks, which puts us a week out from FEH Champs, which is exactly the timing I wanted. Fingers crossed that this new guy is Mr. Right Farrier and works out long term. I haaaaaaate farrier woes and farrier breakups and farrier dating.

Also this guy ended up being $50 cheaper for both horses than the old one. I dunno what kind of black magic that is, but I’ll take it.

I don’t typically do book reviews here because I generally find them to be uninteresting, but this book… I just had to write about. Mostly because I need everyone else to read it too so that we can discuss. Who’s in for book club?

Tik Maynard’s new book, In the Middle are the Horsemen (on Amazon here or direct from Trafalgar Square Books here), is not your typical how-to equestrian book, the kind that tells us all what we should do and think and be when it comes to horses and horsemanship. Rather, it’s more of one man’s story about his journey – how he set about learning, what he learned, what he’s still learning, what he’s done right, and what he’s done wrong. In one word, the book is very relatable, especially to me.  I’m not going to write a summary of the book, you can read about it online if you want details like that, but rather I want to talk about the general undercurrents of the book and some of the main takeaways that I had.

I really bought it because a) it’s written by an eventer, and I will buy pretty much any book that supports a fellow eventer, b) it’s described as more of a memoir, and I have been on a hell of a memoir kick lately. Tik was at Chatt while I was, and even had a book signing, which I totally meant to go to, but I got distracted by ponies and somehow missed the whole thing. Whoops.

In the Middle are the Horsemen covers a period in Tik’s life where he set off to be a working student for a wide variety of different trainers – from a dressage trainer, to eventers, to showjumpers, and even a Texas cowboy to explore the worlds of “natural horsemanship” and colt starting. He worked for a lot of big names, and he even got fired a couple of times, which Tik openly talks about. From there it evolved to how Tik eventually struck out on his own, then together with fellow eventer (now his wife) Sinead Halpin.

What made his story so relatable for me is that Tik and I have had sort of similar backgrounds, albeit his on a much grander, far more intelligent, and dramatically more successful scale. I too was a working student, first for a h/j trainer and then an eventer, I too have met my fair share of failure along the way, and I too have had a lot of interest in learning about the “horsemanship” aspect of training – pouring over books and videos to try to understand how to communicate more effectively with horses. Like Tik, I have spent many hours thinking about (and probably way overthinking) all of it, trying to figure out how it all fits together. Clearly he has been markedly more successful at that than I have.

Obviously he’s also a writer, historically of magazine articles and now a book, whereas I also do magazine articles as well as this very amateurish blog. He talks a lot about being a writer, coming up with what to write about, hard topics that he’s tackled, and some criticism he’s faced as a result of what he’s written. He also talks about the importance of writing about his mistakes and misjudgments, something that I think a lot of fellow bloggers can identify with.

Aside from just being relatable, Tik’s writing style is fantastic. There are so many little quoteable gems in the book that I think half of it would be yellow if you tried to highlight them all.  The words flow easily, nothing feels forced or overworked, and most of all it seems very honest. He reflects on what went wrong as well as what went right, and what he learned from both. Learning really is the consistent theme of this book from start to finish – discussing everything from what he thinks it means to be a good student, a good teacher, a good rider, and most of all, a good horseman.

Tik manages to do all of this without coming across as though he’s preaching at or lecturing the reader; his humility is evident beneath his words. Tik’s thirst for knowledge and desire to find answers is contagious, and the book continuously left me reflecting on my own life and my own journey with horses. It’s the kind of book that you find yourself still thinking about in the shower, or in the barn while you’re grooming your horse, or while you’re out for a run, even weeks after you’ve finished it. It’s the kind of book you feel like you need to get everyone else to read so that you can all talk about it together.

When I started In the Middle are the Horsemen I was really just expecting a good story about how a professional eventer got to where he is today, but it ended up being so much more than that. Tik’s story is one that I feel like everyone can identify with, on some level, and I think that anyone who is interested in being a better rider, trainer, or horseman – regardless of discipline – should definitely give it a read. If nothing else, it will make you think. For me personally, it’s been a long time since a horse book has effected me this much, on a visceral level. It makes me want to do better, to be better, and to learn more. Any book that can leave you feeling that way, inspired, is worth buying.

P.S. Not gonna lie, one of the first things I did after finishing the book was go to Tik’s website and look up his colt starting rates. Presto, you wanna go to Florida in 2020?