Yeah, um, whut? The meteorologists big fat failed on this one. It was 85 Monday, then a cold front was supposed to come through, drop us into the 40’s, it was gonna rain a little on Wednesday, then be back up in the 60’s again.

In case is anyone is unfamiliar with the southern half of Texas, it basically doesn’t snow here. And if it does, its a very very light dusting that doesn’t stick yet the entire city shuts down anyway because people here freak out even in regular precipitation. You should see the widespread panic when they call for anything frozen – last year people raided the grocery stores just because it was supposed to get down to 20 degrees, with NO precipitation. Like there was no bread left at Walmart. Every 5 years or so we get some white stuff that actually hangs around for a few hours. In all the time I’ve lived here (21 years) I’ve managed to scrape together enough snow to make a snowman (albeit a sad tiny one) a grand total of 3 times.

But I can’t remember it ever snowing, really SNOWING, without it being forecasted like doomsday for at least a few days in advance. The weather guys didn’t jump on this until  it was happening, and then they said it wouldn’t accumulate since it’s been so hot recently.

South Texas is WHITE. All the way down to Houston!

I’m sure it’ll all be gone by mid morning but for me this was a fun little unexpected treat. I was driving home from the barn when the first big snowflake hit my windshield and I was like “WTF was that? Is it… is it SNOWING? Nooo… OMG IT IS! TAKE A PICTURE EVERYONE HOLY CRAP!”. Texans. We don’t ever see these things.

And what had I been doing at the barn? Trying to let my horse run around and stretch his legs, since that “little bit” of forecasted rain on Wednesday turned into a 36-hour soaking. Which, for the record, I am also 100% ok with because the fields needed it. But despite not having been out for 2 days, Henry was uninterested in participating in shenanigans. He rolled, he grazed under the fence, and he snorted a lot, but he never left a slighty peppy walk despite my encouragement.

 

Until, of course, I ran a few steps away from him. Then the game was on.

Yep, I was the crazy person trotting around the ring in tandem with my horse, giggling madly the whole time. Serious work that us eventers are up to right now, guys. Maturity level off the charts. This went on for a lot longer than it should have.

And then it started snowing, and then I got home and Elf was on, and now Texas is all SNOWY, at least for a few more hours.

I may or may not have listened to Christmas carols on the way to work.

I’ve talked about professional horse show photographers on this blog before. What makes a good one, what makes a bad one, why it’s a total a-hole move to steal their pictures, etc. I am, to my very core, a big fan of good equine photography. Not so much the pictures of a human standing next to a horse in a pretty field, wearing a flowy top or a dress or something (they are super artistic and lovely in their own right, but I would literally rather die, that is just so not me), but good ACTION shots or even the occasional show candid (because if you take a picture of me petting or smooching my horse there is like a 100% chance I will buy it bc I LOVE HIM).

Although I am a lover of great photos, my show budget is very small, and my budget for superfluous show-related things is even smaller. As much as I would love to pre-order an All Images package at every single show – and video of every phase from the show videographer, while we’re at it – it is just not in the cards. At $30ish a pop (which I think is reasonable, all things considered) for a digital image from our rated show photogs, they add up fast, so usually I have to end up narrowing it down to my absolute favorites. I am always guaranteed to buy at least a couple though.

Mostly that’s because I really love pictures. Long after the day is done and the adrenaline rush of competition is over, you can look back on the photos and remember how much freaking fun it was. To me these photos are memories, which I find to be dang near priceless. I love having nice, professional quality shots of Henry’s progression as an event horse, and I love when I come across them while looking through a photo album or when they pop up on my facebook memories. It never fails that I find myself smiling all over again. Having tons of video stills or iphone photos are important too of course, for the sake of quantity/ease/blogging, but nothing can replace those beautiful high res professional shots of The World’s Best Horse (possibly biased, but probably not).

I also feel like, especially in the age where every teenager is holding a Nikon or a Canon (and no disrespect to them AT ALL, because some of my favorite photos were given to me by that crowd, and I treasure them greatly), it’s our responsibility to keep the show photographers in business. They are a dying breed, and I for one will be extremely sad if/when the day comes that they can no longer justify staying in business. They work hard, standing there all day in the heat or the rain, taking pictures of everyone and trying hard to capture that perfect moment. Not to mention all the time uploading, sorting, and editing. I might not be able to afford to buy them all, but you can bet I’ll buy whatever I can and I will thank them profusely (perhaps borderline creepily) when I do it. And possibly apologize, if they had to endure photographing a particularly shitty ride on my part.

What do you guys typically do when it comes to show photos? Do you have a friend or spouse to take pictures for you, or do you purchase from the official photographer? If so – all of them, or just a couple? Unless you’re one of those people who doesn’t really care much about the photos or can’t justify the money, in which case you’re killing me with sadness but I get it.

Not quite done Christmas shopping? Wait a little too late to order something custom? Did you forget to buy something for yourself too? Stumped on what to get for the person that has EVERYTHING? Maybe we can fix that today.

First, if you forgot something amidst all those Black Friday sales, or if you’re just not quite done shopping, keep an eye on Riding Warehouse’s 12 days of savings. Every day something is on sale – Ariat, Professional’s Choice, Dublin, etc. And since RW is super fast about packing and shipping (and shipping for orders over $50 is free, or $5 for 2 day!), you can rest assured that whatever you order will get here in time.

But what if, amidst all the holiday chaos, you’ve forgotten to Treat Yo Self? I mean, I personally never forget that part, but theoretically it could happen. If you’re finding yourself in need of a nice new Pretty for the new year, head on over to Lund Saddlery’s latest Kickstarter. Not only are there NEW PRODUCTS up for pre-order (dressage bridles, bridge breastplate, the Eventer series, etc) as well as current favorites (BUY THE CALFSKIN LEATHERS – TRUST ME), but everything is discounted from the regular pricing and shipping is free! Not to mention that your dollars will help fund the development and launch of Lund’s next big project – badass, affordable tack trunks and lockers.

Now, as for that super annoying friend who makes you say “they have literally everything, what the heck can I get them?” – I ask you this… but do they have socks with their horse’s face on them? Odds are, probably not. Do they need socks with their horse’s face on them? Um hellyes who wouldn’t. I got mine from Etsy shop TipsyTz, which is currently on vacation, but there are LOTS of other sellers on Etsy that can make you some custom printed socks (look for dog ones!) for an extremely reasonable price with a quick turnaround.

And last but not least – did you mean to order a custom gift for someone but lost track of time? My friend Nicole, who used to make custom bonnets under the company name of Firefly Bonnets (and broke my damn heart when she quit making them), has a few pre-made bonnets that she is offering for HALF PRICE. That puts them all between $25-60, a total steal for these bonnets which easily rival the quality of DLC. Check out my facebook page for more info on these – they will go fast!

Happy shopping!

Remember when Presto was so little and fuzzy and cute? Remember those inspection pictures where he looked like a respectably attractive tiny horse? Cling to those. Cling really really hard to those.

I wish I could claim that I had forgotten just how ugly baby horses can be, but trust me I am still quite aware. Sadie, his dam, was so freaking ugly for so freaking long that I was kind of worried there for a while that I’d accidentally discovered a new species of mule. Her 5yo year was finally the tipping point, when she decided to fill out, and her body finally matched up with her head and legs.

And because she was so ugly for so long, it’s not something I would easily forget. She did end up beautiful, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but wow. I got to be pretty expert at taking advantage of those rare “omg she looks like a real horse” days to get pictures of her before she inevitably looked super awkward again within 24 hours. I think a huge part of it is that she just kept growing, so slowly, and so steadily, for so LONG. My 15.2h, narrow as a fence post 2yo (that I was terrified was going to end up being teeny tiny) ended up a very big, very stocky, very solid 17h hippopotamare. It just took her a good 6-7 years to get there.

I think Presto is following his mother’s lead in the awkwardness department. At not quite 9 months old the kid is TALL, like he’s for sure going to be close to 15h by the time he’s officially a yearling (geez guys I think he’s going to be every bit as big as Sadie, but I don’t even want to string test him because denial), and he’s all leg. He is lanky and he is rangy and he is hairy and he looks a little bit like a giraffe and a mule made a baby and then covered it with the coat of a yak. I love him dearly, but he has entered that really not-at-all cute stage of baby horse awkwardness, and who knows when he’ll look like a real horse again.

I don’t know if his awkwardness is 100% genuine, or if it partly has to do with the fact that his condition still hasn’t totally caught back up to normal from being sick for essentially the first four months of his life. Either way, I still can’t help but be thrilled that we’re here. The weanling/yearling fuglies are a milestone that I was worried he might not ever make it to, so I’m okay with him not being the most attractive animal at the moment. It’ll get better. Hopefully he makes it back around to “pretty” a lot faster than his mother did (please please please omg please), but either way it’ll be a privilege to watch him grow and develop.

The vet wants to wait a bit longer to geld him, so for now the whole gelding and then moving him closer to me thing is on hold. I have 2 barns on the docket to go look at in the near future, but as of yet I just don’t know when he’ll be ready to move down here. It might end up being later next spring or summer. No worries though, he has little QH baby Murphy to play with and terrorize up in Midland. It just means Presto updates and posts will continue to be a bit sparse for a while.

USEA announced last week that there will now be a Central Championship for FEH and YEH, held at Texas Rose, which is only about 4 hours from us. I hold out zero hope for him being attractive enough to show in hand as a yearling (like, god no, who would want high res professional photos to commemorate THAT phase?) but maybe he’ll get a little prettier at 2. If he’s at all presentable I’d like to at least get him out there and support our FEH program, even if he doesn’t qualify for Championships. It’s great to have that option on the table now though, either way.

And just a few days after USEA’s announcement, EquiZone restocked all of their bridles. Which meant they now had a brown cob in the Ivy bridle. And if it went in with the other order from Black Friday, they would honor the super sale price. Soooo now Presto has a pretty bridle waiting for him if he decides to be attractive enough to show in hand. Stop judging me, it was only $65 with reins. That’s basically free. And if nothing else maybe the pretty, slightly weird-looking bridle will distract the judge from the gira-mule-yak that’s wearing it?

Guess who is Pro Level at standing in the crossties looking exhausted the whole time I’m grooming and tacking up?

He’s not tired or sad in the slightest, don’t fall for it. I’ve made the mistake of believing him a couple times now and he thinks both occasions were HI-LARIOUSLY fun. The first time was when he talked me out of a serious dressage ride and into a bridleless hack instead. He spent the whole time snatching bites of grass while I kicked him and kicked him and kicked him (to no avail) like a Pony Clubber. If a horse was capable of an evil laugh, he’d have been letting them fly the whole time.

Yesterday he was so committed the the facade that he kept it up all the way until we started trotting. Walking out from the barn to the field took forever, because he Literally Could Not walk faster than a 30 year old lesson horse. But again, don’t let that fool you, because on our second trot circle he squealed and dolphin leaped as we passed by a jump. He just can’t suppress ALL of his Henny, no matter how hard he tries.

This weekend I bathed him… a nice long scrub with the Espana Silk stuff (because the hair on his butt is so long and thick that he was literally hiding a pebble in it) and then a couple of spots with the fungus stuff, and then some conditioner for his tail. I got aaallll up in there, it took forever. It was a warm day, about 80 with a slight breeze, and he had been really quiet all day, so I decided to let him hang out by himself on the super lush grassy patch behind the barn while I put my tack away. We do this a lot. He never wanders farther than the grass patch, because he is a fat ass. Plus he was soooo quiet, right? And we’d just done a long conditioning ride, and no one else was around.

Yeah, I fell for it again.

I was in the barn, wiping down my bridle, when I heard a few suspicious footsteps. I walked out the back of the barn to check on him and he had decided to let himself into the arena, where he was in the process of plopping down for a nice roll. He couldn’t even give me FIVE MINUTES of clean horse. I was too late to stop it, so I just watched as he flopped around back and forth, waving his legs in the air and grunting.

He finally got up, shook himself off, and then spooked at his lead rope, because clearly it was a snake and OMG would you believe it was following him? This quickly morphed into a fancy, snorty Arab trot for two laps of the arena while I just stood there like

until finally he pranced into the round pen at the far end and went “well shit, I’m trapped” and waited for me to retrieve his muddy, disgusting, still-snorting self. Eventually I will stop falling for the “But Ma, I’m SOOOO tired!” charade. Maybe.

The good news is that we only have one more 80 degree day before a cold front rolls in, so maybe he won’t be able to fake it so much anymore.

Hopefully the cold front brings some rain with it, because it’s been a lonnnngggg time since we’ve gotten any. The ground is hard and I don’t like it. I popped into Dover on my way to the barn on Saturday to grab some Durasole and Magic Cushion, because a) somehow I’m out of both, b) I’m nothing if not paranoid. While I was in there I fell victim to the sale shelf. Normally it’s pretty easy for me to waltz in and just grab whatever essential item I need Right That Minute, because everything in that place is so massively overpriced. But this time the sale shelf (which I always make a quick stop at, because I am ever the optimist, but rarely ever buy anything from) had an array of goodies waiting for me.

They’ve had this cool “corner” jump cup in there for over a year now. It’s basically just a single jump cup that can hold a pole on each side, so you can use it on a single standard to create a corner. I really wanted it when I first saw it, but it was like $40. It was cool, but not that cool. Every time I’ve been in there it’s been marked down a little bit more and a little bit more, and finally this time it was $9. Okay, fine, you win, Dover. It’s worth $9 to me. They also had a jumbo size bran mash (Tropical flavor) marked down to $7. Henry loves those things, so I couldn’t say no to that either. Or the slightly discounted oily container of Stud Suds.

I’ve been going to town with the Durasole and the Magic Cushion on his feet (come on, rain!) but I’m not sure when Henry will earn the bran mash. Maybe when he stops lying to me about his mental state and then going for an unattended Prance’n’Snort around the arena. Just saying.