Last Thursday I spent an inordinately long amount of time saying bye to Henry when I left the barn. I was flying out to Utah the next day for a family Christmas vacation, the first time I’d be out of town for Christmas since I got Henry in 2013. Two of the very specific instructions I gave him, as I bid him farewell, were “Don’t hurt yourself. And there’s a cold front coming, PLEASE DO NOT get sick.”. Surely you can see where this is going.

We left Austin on Friday afternoon, flying into Vegas and then driving the 2.5 hours to Cedar City, Utah. We found our Airbnb, got dinner, and went to bed. The next morning we were getting ready to head out and explore the town when my phone rang – it was the barn owner. We all know there’s only one reason for the BO to be calling you in the morning when she knows you’re on vacation. My heart stopped and my mind ran through every expletive it knew (which are many) in the split second it took me to pounce on the phone.

And of course, she said “Henry looks a bit colicky this morning, he just picked at his breakfast and now he’s laying down. He’s not rolling, but you can tell he doesn’t feel well.”. Pretty similar to what he did last winter after a cold front that necessitated them staying in for a day or two. I asked her to give him Banamine and walk him for half an hour, and I’d text my vet and tell him what was up. Last time the Banamine and walking fixed him right up, but I wanted the vet on alert just in case. He responded immediately and said no problem, just keep him informed.

The only thing worse than a colicking horse is being far away and thus unable to witness or assist in any way. I am NOT a very good hands-off type of owner, and I was panicking. So I paced the floor, waiting to hear back from the barn owner.

An hour later she finally called back, saying that he seemed to feel just fine now and was hanging out in the round pen, screaming for food. Times like these make me glad that Henry is such a big baby about pain… stoic, he is NOT. But in instances of a minor tummy ache it means that we catch it fast, which makes all the difference.

I asked her to leave him out as long as she could that day, so he could move around, and soak his dinner/give him a flake of alfalfa for a few days. Again, it’s what we did last time, and it worked, so why mess with success. She called me again late that evening and said he’d acted totally normal throughout the day and at dinner, seemed thrilled with hitting the alfalfa jackpot, and was tucked snugly into his stall with his blanket on. I relaxed about 20%, but not enough to let my phone out of my sight, and not enough to quell the panic at seeing “NO SERVICE” in the upper left corner as we went about our vacation weekend.

Luckily I never got another phone call and we did manage to have a fun weekend in Utah, filled with lots of parks and hiking. We hit Kolob Canyon, Zion, and Bryce Canyon over two days, and they were all beautiful. The weather was perfect, too, with just enough cold and snow to make it feel like Christmas, but not enough to make it miserable. We played some games, drank some hot chocolate, tromped through the snow… all the cool things you’re supposed to do on Christmas holiday.

Of course, I won’t officially relax again until we’re home (we don’t land back in Austin until tonight) and my own eyes have personally accounted for the dogs, cat, and Henry. That naughty horse. I swear he did this on purpose, pretty sure I saw a gleam in his eye when I was leaving. He is in SO much trouble.

We’re flying out to Utah today, so I’m taking a rare long weekend away from the blog!

Naturally I’m sick with friggin black lung or something, because it just wouldn’t be a family vacation if I wasn’t sick. No joke, I’m the person who once got chicken pox on spring break and food poisoning over Christmas. It’s my one talent.

Henry had a pretty light week, capped off by a bareback and bitless ride yesterday in which we played with our lateral work. I never would have thought that this horse would have a half pass, much less one that still exists when bareback and bitless. Sometimes he legit feels like a real horse with some real buttons. When did that happen?

I’m such a sap that it was hard saying bye to him. We’ve never been gone for Christmas since I’ve had him, and it’s become tradition to go out on Christmas Day and give him a nice mash. I have one waiting for him when I get home (because it was almost 80 yesterday and ain’t nobody want a hot mash when it’s already hot), and he has no clue what day it is, but still. Plus I won’t see him for 6 days, which is a lot when you’re normally riding and seeing your horse 6 days a week. But hopefully he enjoys his little vacation, and I told him to make good life choices while I’m gone.

I am kind of looking forward to having several days where I don’t actually HAVE to do anything though, and this will be my first non-horse related vacation in… I dunno… years? I mean, Utah ain’t got nothing on Bundeschampionat, but it’s a different kind of fun.

OH – and for everyone who liked the Henry glass yesterday, Michelle made a Presto glass too! HOW FRIGGIN CUTE IS IT???

Last but not least random thing for today: a quick screenshot of Usandro freejumping earlier, in case anyone was wondering if the pony got hops. Affirmative, he gots ’em. Once he’s finished with the quarantine and collection his owner is going to do a nice photo shoot for us so we have some current pictures to share for mare owners. And if you don’t own a mare but think you might want a Usandro foal, I know a few super nice mares (of all sizes) available for custom foals and can totally help make that happen for you. #enabler

I still have to pack and get everything set out for our dog sitters, because I’m nothing if not fantastic at procrastinating, so I hope everyone has a happy holiday, whatever that may be! See ya Tuesday.

The blogger Secret Santa gift exchange has become one of my favorite things every year since I started all this craziness. The equestrian blogging community is very diverse, but we all have one thing in common: our love for our ponies. Tracy is kind enough to coordinate this little shindig every year (which, I can only imagine that trying to coordinate bloggers is much like herding cats) and it’s fun to try to pick out stuff for someone else that you probably have never met, yet it still feels like you know them on some level from reading their blog.

I was kind of behind the eight ball this year and didn’t get my package shipped out to my SS until Monday (and forgot to write in the card explaining a couple of the items – fail) so I doubt it has arrived yet, but Olivia was clearly much more organized than I was. Which would surprise precisely no one that reads both of our blogs.

Poor Olivia, her first year participating and she got ME. I feel bad for anyone who gets me, I know I’m hard to shop for. She nailed it though, with a cute tote from One Horse Designs (I love cuss words, so this is super apropos), treats for Henny, and a toy for the dogs (or cat). The treats went into Henry’s trailer stash – yes he has treats in my truck, in the barn, and in the trailer, is that weird? – and Stewie has already started tearing the dog toy apart. The tote was put into service to carry my riding clothes to work, and it has gotten more than one chuckle. So, many thanks to Olivia, everything is awesome!

Presto’s Christmas presents also arrived from Europe. Yeah, I went back and ordered the bridle too. They got a brown cob in stock right after the sale ended, but said they would toss it in my shipment and honor the sale price, so who can say no to that? He may only be 9 months old, but he’s got some fancy strapgoods waiting for him. The halter might actually fit him pretty soon, it was quite adjustable so I put it down to all the smallest holes and it seems pretty close to yearling size. The bridle will just sit in the closet and wait for him to get older. Oh – and Riding Warehouse just started stocking this bridle, so for everyone who was asking me where to get it, now you don’t have to order from overseas!

Can we talk about this gorgeous glass that Michelle (Presto’s other mom) painted for me? HOW FRIGGIN CUTE IS THIS? She even managed to capture the crazy in Henny’s eyes! I’m a little obsessed with it.

And last but not least, some of you may have guessed that last week’s post about adults riding ponies/honies was actually going somewhere. If you did, you are correct! Tomorrow the pint-sized jumper phenom Usandro (Sandro Boy x Welcome Sympatico) enters a breeding facility in France to begin the process of producing frozen semen for USA export. There will be a limited number of doses available for sale here in the US for the 2018 season, and we’re excited to see how he crosses on the American mare base. I’m working on getting a facebook page up for him in English, and will keep y’all updated on when the semen arrives. If you’re interested in breeding to him, let me know and I can get some info to you ASAP! Merry Christmas, America, have some French pony jumper semen!

Horse people are weird.

Out of all the horses I’ve owned before Henry, I wouldn’t have called any of them excellent haulers. Most were fine, a few were turds (Sadie and Cruz, I’m looking at y’all), but most fell solidly in the average range. They would get on the trailer within a few minutes, with a little encouragement, and they might paw or kick a little, especially if the trailer wasn’t moving.

When I got Henry I was warned that he didn’t like backing off the trailer, but otherwise he was good. The day I picked him up we got stuck in traffic forever, and that horse rode back there without so much as a peep. For those first two years we didn’t really travel that much, but he got into every trailer I put him in without much complaint. I turned him around to let him unload if I could, although the few times he had to back out were definitely… not that majestic. After riding in Bobby’s Brenderup a few times, he started to get a lot more comfortable with backing out. It was like it just took him a while to get his brain to work in reverse.

When I got my trailer he had to get pro about it real quick, since a) we started hauling a lot, and b) it was a straight load. He always loaded great as long as I went in with him, so for a long time that’s just what we did. Then one day I whacked the hell out of my head in my rush to duck under the chest bar as he was loading, and I decided it was time he learned to get on that trailer by himself.

I’d like to pretend this was some grand horse training moment and I had to use some kind of skill to teach it, but here’s what really happened.

I tossed his lead rope over his neck, stood next to the ramp, and gave him a little tug forward. The first time he got about halfway before he realized he was alone, at which point he stopped and slowly backed out. We tried again, and this time when he got halfway I started clucking. He thought about it for a second and flicked his ear back at me, at which point I said “You get in that trailer!”. And he did. Because he’s Henry.

He’s been self-loading in my trailer ever since.

Yeah, I know. Wow at my fancy horse training.

The real test for his newfound skill was this past weekend when we took Trainer’s trailer to go foxhunting. It was as opposite of a configuration as possible – a step up slant load. There were also other horses in there, and Henry pretty much always hauls alone. There’s also a rear tack, so the loading space is a bit narrow. I led him up there and clucked, fully expecting him to flip me the bird, but after a second he stepped right on up. Huh, how about that. Isn’t it nice when horses make us feel like we’re some kind of competent horse trainer, even when we didn’t actually do a damn thing?

As far as traveling goes, he’s pretty good. A couple times a year he gets mad for whatever reason and tries to buck a couple times to express his displeasure (he mostly did this in Bobby’s trailer) but that’s pretty rare. He doesn’t paw, and he’s pretty chill. I’m exceptionally grateful for this, because we’re on the road a lot. Last week he was on a trailer 4 out of 7 days.

Having a horse that is this easy to travel with has been awesome, especially since I’m alone 99% of the time. It has definitely made me determined to get Presto to be this reliable and easy… hopefully he can train himself, too.

I’ve never named a Gadget of the Year before, but if I had, it probably would have been the Ultimate Hoof Pick pretty much every year. I love that thing a lot more than is probably normal. And this year I have a new contender that is worthy to sit side by side with that magical hoof pick!

I finally started consistently using studs on Henry this season. It’s been a good 15+ years since I’ve had to stud a horse on a consistent basis, so when I was putting my kit together I opted for a couple of cool things that didn’t exist back in the day. One of those was the Bionic Wrench.

I admit I originally got this thing because a) it looked kinda neat, and b) I vividly remember how much I used to hate using wrenches to remove studs. Especially if they were wet or muddy or had been torqued in there really tight. I lost a lot of skin off my knuckles. Plus I had to carry around a couple different wrenches because not all of my studs were the same size, and I inevitably always reached for the wrong one.

Clearly all of those things scarred me deeply, because I’m nothing if not a total cheapskate, yet I opted to spend the $25 on the Bionic Wrench instead of a few bucks on a couple of traditional wrenches. It was worth every penny.

Being able to grip each side of the tool and squeeze them together gives you a lot more power with considerably less effort. It’s much easier to get the studs tighter when you put them in, and much easier to remove them afterwards. The head of the tool grips all the sides of the stud, so there is zero slippage, and it can still grip the stud even if it’s covered in mud or turf. It fits any size stud, taking the guesswork out of figuring out which tool you need. For me this thing has been fantastic, making it much easier to get studs in securely and out quickly.

I also used it to tighten some loose nuts on a couple of my jump standards, and loosen a couple of stubborn, painted-over nuts on my horse trailer windows when we replaced the screens. Even if you don’t stud your horses, it can be a really useful tool to have around the barn. The amount of time, skin, and cussing it’s saved me definitely make it worthy of being my 2017 Gadget of the Year.