Newsflash, y’all: this kid can be a real punk when he wants to be. At least for a few minutes at a time, anyway.

I have to give him credit too, his moments of punkiness are 100% calculated and planned. Presto is not a reactionary horse in the least, he is a plotter and a planner, a mischievous little semi-deviant who sees himself as a bonafide rebel with a rad punk rock hairdo and an overactive sideeye. But on the inside, he’s 0% committed to being a Bad Horse. He’s easily swayed by his desire for snacks, and easily intimidated by authority, so usually all it takes to get him back in line is a growl or a swift correction. He is all bark, no bite. All hat, no cattle. All foam, no beer. Or I guess in this case: all mohawk, no… piercings?

I’m pretty convinced that he spends most of his free time brainstorming new schemes. You can usually tell when he thinks he’s struck gold, because he’ll have a particular little gleam in his eyes when I go get him. When I see that I’m always like “oh boy, here we go, what bright idea have you come up with today?”. Except his ideas are never bright. He thinks they are… right up until Reckoning time when I put the kibosh on that shit real quick. He’s just so bad at being bad.

The latest in his string of bright ideas has been experimenting with various turdly ideas during ponying. Clearly he’s gotten a little too comfortable with the routine, if he’s graduated into being a punk about it. When things are genuinely new, scary, or interesting, he’s usually a golden child. But we’ve been ponying a lot more lately, 3-4 days a week for 40ish minutes at a time. These are forward, marching walks out through the fields, up and down our hills. Presto used to have a hard time matching Henry’s pace, but as he’s gotten a bit stronger, his walk has gotten bigger and more forward too. Now that he’s not struggling to keep up, he’s got a little less to keep his brain occupied. We all know what that means.

The first bright idea was the Must Eat Now day. On that particular afternoon he spent the first half of our ponying session trying all myriad of ways to get snacks. The first attempt was just your standard plant-feet-and-yank-head-down approach, for which he got a swift smack on the butt and a series of extremely dirty looks from Henry, who does not take kindly to having his hacks interrupted by shenanigans. That having failed, Presto next tried to randomly exit stage right, throwing himself into the bushes and grabbing desperately at whatever greenery ended up near his mouth before I could reel him back in. One quick jungle extraction later, he spent the next 10 minutes plodding along politely, clearly pouting about his failure. And since his bottom lip is very square and juts out a good inch beyond his top lip, it’s extra amusing when he pouts.

Then out of nowhere he just completely disappeared from beside me and I looked back to see him fling himself down on one knee, grab a huge bite of grass, and pop back up again, all in one swift motion. Honestly, it was kind of impressive from a sheer athleticism and cleverness standpoint. So naughty, but really crafty. You gotta admire that. Of course, it can’t be tolerated either, so we spent a few minutes moving his feet (while I chuckled a lot more than I should have, probably) and reminding him that ponying time is business time, after which he promptly gave up and hasn’t tried it again since. He’s SO not dedicated to his rebellions, it’s actually kind of pathetic.

After another few near-perfect ponying sessions, he’d come up with his next scheme. This time he spent the first five minutes constantly trying to reach over and bite Henry. That in itself isn’t new, he usually manages to summon up the courage for a little nip at least once or twice per session. This time, though, it was constant. The end of my lead rope turned into a whacker, and every time that naughty little nose pointed our way he got a nice wallop. Of course, not being totally new to this game, he would quickly nip at Henry and then leap to the right or duck down to avoid the wallop. That was a new one. Granted, all I had to do was increase the range of my wallop, which really seemed to have him stumped. HOW WAS I STILL ABLE TO NAIL HIM, DESPITE HIS AMAZING ACROBATIC ESCAPES?

Baby horses are really stupid, guys. It’s hilarious.

So again, that game ended after a few minutes, and Presto trudged along looking defeated once more. I have no doubt that sometime in the next couple weeks when I go to get him, the gleam will be back and he’ll roll out his newest brightest idea. I also have no doubt that it won’t really be that bright, and we’ll go through the motions all over again. He is nothing if not entertaining.

Somehow I totally missed this blog hop when it was first posted by Feeding My Heart to the Hawk, but here I am sliding in on the deadline last minute, because what else is new?

Basically, she asked for a list of songs that pertain to us, our horses, and our riding.  I don’t already have a playlist that was built around Henry in particular or is tailored to us, and he’s such a friggin weirdo I’m not sure that I could come up with one that would be accurately cover all aspects of him. But what I definitely DO have, and have mentioned here before, is “hauling music”. Specifically, hauling-to-horse-shows music. The playlist is literally called Horse Shows, and it is tradition. I listen to it on the way to/from every show or XC schooling.

This started back when Bobby and I used to haul together a lot. I made us a playlist of songs, which kind of took on a life of it’s own over the years. Now it’s definitely more to my taste (when Bobby is involved there’s a lot of Lady Gaga… not really my thing, I am not that fabulous), but also with some really random stuff thrown in there. To me these songs are eventing, as I see it through my eyes. It’s adrenaline. Weirdos. Insanity. There’s really nothing civilized or posh about our sport. It’s fun. It’s gritty. Sometimes things go belly up and all you can do is persevere, then come back and try again. C’est la vie. That’s why I love it. This playlist makes me ready to get to the venue, get out of the truck, and Mother Effing Horse Show. But it also makes me feel like, even though nothing ever goes perfectly, it’s still always going to be the thing that feeds my soul. Challenges are part of the game.

If you fall pick yourself up off the floor 
And when your bones can’t take no more
Just remember what you’re here for

You live you learn, you love you learn
You cry you learn, you lose you learn
You bleed you learn, you scream you learn

So raise your glass if you are wrong,
In all the right ways. All my underdogs,
We will never be, never be, anything but loud
And nitty gritty, dirty little freaks

Tell me that’s not eventing and eventers.

It’s a weird collection, I’ll be the first to admit. From rap to country to pop to punk… there’s a little bit of everything. While I didn’t make the playlist with Henry specifically in mind, his influence is pretty clear. He’s definitely responsible for at least half the songs on the list. I mean…

Keep your eyes on my bum-bum-bum-bum-bum
You think you can handle this badonkadonk-donk

We’d definitely see eye to eye on our favorite rappers, too (the ONLY correct answers are DMX and Missy Elliot, btw. But also if you don’t know every word to Lose Yourself, what are you even doing with your life?). “Because I’m Awesome” by the Dollyrots would for sure be his XC song, and it does remind me of him 100%. “Boom” by POD is probably a little too accurate of how stadium goes though…

As for the song Could Have Been Me, by The Struts… that one is my own personal life anthem in all regards. Most of the songs on that playlist I feel like I don’t really have to explain… if you listen to them you’ll probably understand where my head is at. Maybe.

I do have another playlist that I made back when I was doing really long boring trot sets with Henry, getting ready for the 3Day. I still play it sometimes when we go for long walk hacks, if I’m in the mood for music, but now it’s mostly a running playlist. Still… also sums us up pretty well. That one is mostly rock, and generally more modern (with some Beetles and Wilson Phillips thrown in for good measure).

Those are mostly just songs that I like that are a little more upbeat and you can kind of get lost in for a while. Or songs about not being a quitter. Because trotting forever sucks.

To give further evidence of my weirdness, I also have entire playlists of late 90’s/early 00’s metal, or Texas/Red Dirt Country. Sometimes it just depends on the mood, ya know? That Horse Shows playlist though… that one is sacred.

I’m a big proponent of the “pics or it didn’t happen” philosophy. Even before the age of digital media I LOVED getting those little proofs in the mail and deciding which ones to get, filling out the order form, and then waiting a few months for the photos to arrive. Now that everything is digital (and so much easier – praise) and social media is so huge, pictures are even more important. I love having the memories and I love looking at other people’s pictures on social media. Not to mention that it’s pretty hard to be a blogger if you don’t have pictures. Boring.

These days, it seems like just about everyone has a fancy digital camera. Except for me, of course, because I’m not a very good photographer and don’t have the patience for it. Maybe that’s why I value good pictures so much? But I like that so many people are into it now, because the more people there are taking pictures of my horses, the happier I am.

To be clear, I will support the official photographer of a show every single time, 110%. If there’s someone on site taking pictures, standing out there all day, organizing and editing all that crap, you can bet I’ll buy at least one or two, guaranteed. Or literally all of them, like I did for both weeks of Chatt. #noregrets

But I always see other people, non-professionals usually, out there taking pictures too. Whether they’re just having fun with their camera, or practicing, or waiting for their wife/daughter/whatever to go by, there are cameras everywhere at shows. Sometimes the people shooting pics are teenagers that I know, and can seek out on Instagram. Sometimes it’s a show dad with nice equipment and a great eye (shoutout to Dusty!). Other times I have no idea who they are, and may or may not ever find out.

I’ve gotten several pictures from such photographers just because they happened to post a picture of me and someone who knew me happened to tag me in it (for real, how do y’all find these people? Tell me your secrets!). If it’s a good picture, I’ll buy that one too. No joke, I will buy every single picture that anyone takes of me, if it’s a good picture. I do not discriminate.

Granted, I know that this isn’t true of everyone, and this is why official photographers are generally none too pleased to have other people snapping pictures nearby. It’s a sticky situation, and I see both sides of things. Anything that threatens their livelihood is ultimately bad for anyone who doesn’t have their own personal paparazzi following them around. But the more pictures I have, the happier I am. Especially if the official photographers didn’t make the best choices about which jumps to stand by, or didn’t have the staff to cover very much of the course.

I’m always kind of torn on this, because on one hand I feel a duty to support and protect the official photographers, a dying breed. On the other hand, I want more pictures. Always more pictures. Sometimes they’re actually better pictures, too. I can’t help but feel kinda guilty about it though, despite the fact that I’m still giving money to the official photographers.

How do you guys feel about this? Will you buy All The Pictures, or do you limit yourself to just one or two? What are your feelings on unofficial photographers at events?

I’m obsessed with the new trailer. Like when I drive up to the barn every day and see her sitting in her spot, I can’t help but smile lovingly at her… that type of obsession.

But I am admittedly a little overwhelmed with all the possibilities here. I knew from the start that I wanted to put fans and a camera system in the horse compartment, but otherwise that part of the trailer is good to go. The other trailer was essentially just a horse compartment, so I’ve had a long time to think about things I wanted there. But the tack room… that big, beautiful tack room… there are so many possibilities, and a whole new world.

On one hand, I know what I don’t want. I don’t want that space to end up having a whole bunch of crap in it. I rarely show out of my trailer, I don’t need a full set of grooming equipment, sprays, ointments, extra tack or spares or whatever else. I don’t want to open that tack room door and be like good god why is all this shit in here. When I go to shows the vast majority of my stuff is in my tack trunk, and that’s how I want it to stay. Even if it’s organized, I still don’t want to have a bunch of crap in the trailer. Gridwall is out. Gridwall would inevitably end with me putting All The Things in there, junking it up, and making it into exactly what I’m trying to avoid. I do not want it to be a general storage space. I hate clutter, even organized clutter.

I also want to keep the floor relatively clear, or at least have it be quick and easy to shuffle stuff around to make it relatively clear. I ordered a little twin air mattress to take to shows if, for some reason (like extreme rain or cold), I don’t want to set up my trunk tent. That might happen one night a year, if that. Probably less. But the twin mattress fits perfectly into the length of the tackroom and the width of the door opening, so I want to make it easy to clear that part out and sleep there if I need to. I also want to feel like I can change clothes, hang out, or sleep in there without knocking stuff down or drowning in crap. Right now there aren’t saddle racks in the tack room, but they’re on order and I already know where they’ll go. That will be a decent chunk of space, obviously, but not floor space.

That said, there are certain things that I do want to keep in there, and ways that I want to maximize the space I do have. Some stuff HAS to live in there, period, and will come out when we get to shows – like the muck cart, buckets, little trunk of show-only supplies for stall setup, etc. So essentially the only things I really want on the floor are the things that will come out when we get to a show. Or things that are small, or that can be easily moved to the horse compartment once I’m parked and unloaded if necessary (the water jug, the traileraid, extra bag of shavings, etc).

I’ve already bought a few things, including but not limited to:

• two broom grippers to put on the wall, to hold the muck fork and the broom
• a folding step stool (which stores flush to the wall behind the blanket bar that I also stuck the head divider behind)
• various bungee cords and carabiners, because those are always useful. (these will go in the tray on the door).
• a small wall mirror (which goes… on the wall, obviously)
• a rug (floor, obviously)
• a hanging organizer (left wall, the big open space)

The trailer also has a built in clothing/blanket rack across one front corner, where I can potentially hang all kinds of stuff (currently I’ve only stuck a rain coat there). I also have 6 bridle racks, and the little leftover corner space behind the spare tire has proven to be the perfect holder for a folding chair.

All the other things I can think of that I want to keep in the trailer will fit in the hanging organizer that I bought. I’m not feeling much of a need to buy more crap to hang on the wall at this point, but maybe I’m not thinking it through well enough. Nothing on any of the trailer accessory websites is jumping out at me either. I think I might buy another fan just for the tack room though. Kinda digging those.

So, what are the most useful/favorite things that you’ve put in your trailer tack room? Or what do you wish you’d done differently?

Guys, I got actual scientific verification of Presto’s species. Let me set the stage for you…

I was sitting in Discount Tire on Monday afternoon, delighted to have found a National Geographic while pawing through the magazine collection in the waiting room. Can we all agree that National Geographic is the best magazine? They definitely have the best pictures, at least.

Anyway, I was thumbing through kind of mindlessly when a little blurb at the top of an article caught my eye.

I know that animal. That’s Presto!

National Geographic seems to think they’re extinct, but I definitely have one. It’s official: he’s a Girmoose.

Even the height part of the girmoose is starting to feel a bit too accurate. While Michele was here on Tuesday I asked her to help me measure him for a blanket. I can normally guess pretty well just by looking at a horse, but his proportions are so ODD that hell if I even know. He’s really long but really narrow. And yeah I know, it’s way too hot to even be thinking about blankets right now, but this is prime blanket-buying season and my favorite HUG sheets were on sale.

After we did that she asked me how tall he was now, and I said I dunno I stopped measuring him. But I also cave to peer pressure pretty easily, so we sticked him and… he’s freaking 15.2h. He’s grown an entire hand since March – so about an inch a month. What the hell, kid? Usually that’s how much you’d expect them to grow in their entire yearling year! If he would like to pump the brakes a bit on the height and focus on his topline, I’d be ok with that.

Surely that growth rate has to start slowing down at some point, right? RIGHT??? His mother didn’t do this, she grew really really slowly. He’s already as tall as she was as a 2 year old.

I ended up ordering him a 72 sheet. Really I wanted to order him a 70, he’s a few inches shy of that right now, but figuring he won’t wear it until Dec/Jan, I was trying to guesstimate what might fit by that point. But for some reason the 72 was $30 cheaper than the 70… so he might be wearing a bit of a dress. Or it might fit. Who knows. Trying to guess how big a girmoose might be in 5 months seems fairly hit or miss.

I also caved to a clearance sale and snagged him a pretty navy and hunter green scrim sheet for $20. I figured he can wear it at FEH Champs to keep the dust off and look fancy. Or to cover up all that kind of embarrassing sun-bleaching until the last possible moment before he goes in the ring. Whichever.

I’m not sure if the ponying on the hills is helping or if it’s just natural maturity, but he does seem to be filling out at least a little bit. Sometimes, anyway. He looks different every day. He’s almost as wide as a 4×4 now, instead of a 2×4. Of course, FEH Champs are still 2 months away, so who knows what he’ll look like by then. Fingers crossed it’s a little more horse and a little less girmoose.