Can I borrow a bag of money from someone? Like permanently? With no intention of paying it back?

I was doing my usual mindless facebook perusal on my phone yesterday morning when an ad posted in one of the OTTB groups caught my eye. It was long, but it was pure gold.

I cannot say YES enough. He totally fits me! Where do I sign up for this horse? Quirky, weird, opinionated, a total slob, and kind of annoying? That sounds familiar! He’s a bit robust for a track horse too, kinda like Henry. And then I saw the pedigree.

Ah, yes, double Danzig. That explains a lot. Henry is Danzig too. Plus there’s Roberto x 2, Fappiano x 2, Alydar, Lyphard, Herbager, Blushing Groom, In Reality… it’s been a while since I’ve seen a pedigree that I liked this much for eventing.

And then, to cap it all off, there was this picture included in his ad:

Add levitation to his list of skills!

I’m think I’m madly in love with Stevie.

One of my favorite things about Henry is that, in general, he’s a pretty agreeable type of guy. Sure, he can get super tense and curl himself up into a tiny up-and-down ball of horse like nothing else I’ve ever ridden, and clearly he will never enjoy having his legs scrubbed, but the word “no “isn’t really in his vocabulary. Really, he is the epitome of a Yes Man. Those yeses can vary widely, from the grudging and perhaps borderline dramatic “omg FINE” of Dressage Henry to the absolutely euphoric “ERMAGERRRDD YAAASSSSS” of XC Henry, but they’re all still overall obedient reactions.

So last night at my dressage lesson when Henry absolutely flipped me the proverbial bird and NOPE’d right over PLSDT (poor long suffering dressage trainer), all I could think was: “well this is a new one.”. The offending movement? Rein back.

This isn’t the first time we’ve ever done rein back. I mean come on, it’s a basic. Granted, we don’t work on it that much. Last night he did a few, grudgingly, and then at my next request after that he was disinclined to acquiesce to the whole backwards thing anymore. He stood there rooted, stiff-jawed, until finally his solution was to charge forward through my hand. PLSDT came to help and Henry just about ran over the top of him before he finally sighed, rolled his eyes (ok that part didn’t happen, but if horses could roll their eyes, trust me, they’d have been rolling around like that boulder in Indiana Jones) and took the requested 3 steps back.

My first thought was that my aids were incorrect and he didn’t understand, but PLSDT verified that they were accurate. My next thought was that he’s sore somewhere (even though he sure as hell felt fantastic for the rest of the lesson, especially in the canter directly proceeding the bird-flipping rein backs), because he’s only about a month away from his SI being due. That could certainly be part of it. But mostly I think it was because we started this at the end of the lesson, after a walk break where he thought he was already done, it was hot, he was sweaty, and rein back is hard for him anyway being that he’s a croup-high horse.

Either way, we definitely went home with some homework. He is no stranger to the “backwards” concept, because one of his strengthening exercises from his chiropractor/acupuncturist is backing short distances up a slight incline, which we do in hand regularly. He just genuinely had no interest in backing 3-5 steps at the end of our dressage lesson last night. So now, we shall rein back several times every ride.

$20 says today he reins back perfectly, like he’s never done otherwise in his entire life. Horses, amiright?

Before I get started with today’s post, I have to take a minute to thank Pam at Mango Bay for stepping in at the 11th hour and making sure that my facebook fundraising campaign for USEA Foundation met it’s goal yesterday. When we’re picking and choosing where to spend our money, it’s nice to know which small business owners give back so generously, in turn, to our sport. Pam/Mango Bay is among the best, and I think everyone should know that!

Okay, moving on…

 

Usually every year when the new FEI rule approvals roll out, I glance at them without much more than a modicum of interest. They affect the upper levels of sport, of which I am obviously a fan, but they generally don’t really affect ME, the lower level competitor. At least not immediately (because we all know trickle-down is a thing, and when things change at FEI they have a way of making it down the chain sooner or later). They’re usually pretty boring, either very tiny changes or matters of semantics. This year, though… this year a few things really caught my attention.

First, from the perspective of “fan”, the big HALLELUJAH from me came with the announcement of the removal of the dressage coefficient for eventing. The FEI states that this was “to address risk management issues through rebalancing the importance of cross country skills” which I completely 100% wholeheartedly agree with. For those who aren’t totally clear on how the coefficient worked, it weighted the dressage marks by 1.5, placing more emphasis on the importance of a good dressage score. Which, IMO, is definitely not what we should be doing in upper level eventing. Interestingly enough, Equiratings went back and looked at some 4* and championship results, and over the past 6 years there are FIVE 4* events and one WEG that would have had different winners without the coefficient. That’s cray.

The second thing that really caught my eye was from a rider/competitor perspective, and purely for selfish reasons. This would be the new restructuring of the star levels for eventing starting in 2019.

So basically the current 4* becomes a 5* Major, current 3* becomes 4*, current 2* becomes 3* etc. While my initial reaction to this was to wrinkle my nose up – after all, 4* is FOUR STAR and always has been, right? Boo, change. But SJ goes up to 5* level, so this kind of puts us more in line with them as far as star ratings go, which does make sense in my head.

And right there, at the very bottom of the chart, is the introduction of a new star level – the new 1*. If you read the original FEI rule change proposal, it states: “the introduction of a CI* at a lower level event of a XC at 1.05 meter level. This new category would allow a transition between national and international competitions in developing countries. The level can be used for the Pony championship as well as the basis for developing a Children level/category in Eventing.”. For us plebeians who used to think of the current 1* as a faraway, distant, maybe-someday-but-probably-never goal, the new introductory level could be pretty appealing and much more attainable… if you’re into paying lots of membership fees and higher entry fees to show at the “international” level, anyway. Brilliant in a lot of ways on the part of FEI, both to use this level as a stepping stone to the upper levels, and to bring more money in. Making a 1* just a little bit smaller opens it up to a whole lot more people/horses.

Over in the showjumping world there are two semi-interesting changes for 2018. First being a clarification to the rule about blood in the mouth… now it will read: Horses bleeding in the mouth (in minor cases of blood in the mouth, such as where a Horse appears to have bitten its tongue or lip) Officials may authorize the rinsing or wiping of the mouth and allow the Athlete to continue; any further evidence of blood in the mouth will result in Elimination. Which makes it match up with the other disciplines. I don’t like the rule, personally, but I can get on board with it at least be standard across the disciplines. Weirdly, no one from FEI called to ask me what I think. 😉 The second rule for SJ says hind boots can only be used for purposes of protection. That’s past due, IMO.

The major change for dressage, which I think is REALLY EXCITING (I mean it’s still dressage, but it’s exciting for them) is the removal of most of the collective marks. No more scores for paces, impulsion, and submission – now you’ll have one score that covers the rider’s seat, aids, and correctness. I think it has the potential (although granted I can see how it might not play out this way) to level the playing field just a tiny bit, which in turn could be really interesting. How much do I have to pay USEA to take the submission and impulsion scores off of THEIR tests?

Either way, I think it will be interesting to see how all these things play out in the long run. What do you guys think of the new rule changes? And more interestingly, how do you think these changes could trickle down over time into the lower levels?

 

Ah, Black Friday (and Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday). I have a major love/hate relationship with this whole thing. On one hand, omg consumerism at it’s worst. On the other hand, DISCOUNTS ON HORSE STUFF. I must say though, you would never, under any circumstances, catch me in an actual store on Black Friday weekend.

Luckily this is 2017, and we live in the glorious age of online shopping, which means I can do it all completely alone and in my pajamas. My favorite circumstances for any activity!

The hard part is resisting all the stuff I WANT. Because I always want stuff. If there’s one talent I have in life, it’s lusting after expensive horse things. Alas this is always a pretty tight time of year for me financially, with the holidays and then all the membership renewals, Henry’s big annual vet visit in January, truck and trailer registration stuff, moving Presto down here soon, etc etc etc. I do tend to keep at least a little bit tucked away for the occasion though, plus I try to get the majority of my Christmas shopping done all at once. Not to mention that a lot of these sales are a good opportunity to stock up on basic necessity items at a nice discount.

Out of those 183 sales that made it onto my list, I clicked on all of them. Every single one. Gotta verify, ya know? So I looked at a lot of websites and a lot of fun horse stuff. Yet it took me all the way til Saturday to actually BUY anything… a fact that I’m not sure whether or not I should be proud of, or sad about. I did a lot of cart loading and a lot of daydreaming, but I just couldn’t bite the bullet until then. And what was this magical, fantastical item that finally pushed me over the brink?

Yeah. Soap. People soap, at that. Because when Michelle and I were in Bruges a few months ago, I bought the most awesome soap at a little apothecary. It smelled so great and was just lovely to use every day. Now I’m on a really big “fancy soap” kick. And of course the SO also discovered and fell in love with my fancy soap, so now it’s gone. When I was perusing the artisan soaps at KJ Creations and saw “Trail Ride: Pine Needle/Tea tree” I was like OMG YES I WOULD LOVE TO SMELL LIKE AN ENCHANTED FOREST! And at 35% off, why not add a few more to the cart? Chamomile/Lavender/Orange? Hell yeah. Vanilla/Lavender/Patchouli? Who wouldn’t!

After that it was a slippery slope (bad pun fully intended).

I was digging the 35% off at KJ creations so naturally I tossed in some homemade Yum Yum Muffins for Henry (I love that the giant size bag of them is called the “Spoiled” size because boy is that ever accurate), and a yellow and blue hand-dyed Unicorn lead rope. Because unicorn. Also because cross country colors. Also because 35% off. Also because I’m clearly 12 years old. But KJ, a fellow Texan, is awesome and it was a good “small business” purchase that I didn’t feel guilty about.

After that I wandered over to the USEA site to see if any of their already-on-sale stuff qualified for the additional Black Friday discount. It did, which meant that this Ariat vest found a new home at my house for a steal of a deal. It matches my Ego7 boots! No regrets on that purchase either, because I’m obviously a big fan of USEA (side note: if you get US Eventing magazine, I’ve got two articles in the breeding issue!).

Then while I was scrolling through facebook I saw that Equestrians Against Normalcy finally released the first run of their game, and who the hell can even say no to THAT? I did restrain myself with only one Jump Off pack, though. For now. This one wasn’t actually a Black Friday related purchase since there was no special sale or anything, but I was like meh I’m already on fire from everything else, might as well buy this game too.

Then I came across the Kavalkade Ivy bridle, which I looooooooooooove but Henry does not need another bridle. Still, it was on sale for like $70 with rubber reins, so it seemed almost criminal to not buy one. I, in my ever infinite logic, was like “I know, I’ll buy one for Presto!” even though it’ll be at least another year before he really wears a bridle. Alas, they were out of cob size in brown, which took the wind out of my sails just enough for me to realize that buying a bridle for a horse that isn’t even a year old yet is kind of the definition of dumb. So I did the only logical thing I could think of and bought him the Kavalkade Ivy HALTER instead. It was so cheap. I have no regrets here either since I’ve been looking for a nice leather halter for him for a while anyway. And it’s kind of a dual purpose item, because when he inevitably breaks it, as baby horses are wont to do, I can use all the pieces to beat some manners into him.

I’m kidding.

Probably.

Either way, it will be reserved as his “in public” halter, and he’ll have to grow into it because the smallest size was cob. It’s cute, that’s all that matters.

I rounded out my path of Black Friday destruction with a big dose of practicality at Riding Warehouse. Partly because they’re my faves, but also because Henry is out of salt-on-a-rope, which to him is basically the end of the world. I threw a few of those in the cart, and the big ass 6lb bag of German Horse Muffins (see earlier note about spoiled), and the cool new cover-up pants with the Riding Warehouse logo. 

I also tossed in their cheap navy waterproof quarter sheet, because no matter how hard I tried (and I tried several times) I just couldn’t make myself pull the trigger on the Back on Track at any point over the weekend. Probably because it’s still hot here and I just couldn’t stop questioning whether or not I would actually use it enough to be worth it. So for now, $37 quarter sheet it is. Henry won’t care anyway, he’s got so many cookies coming. I also tossed in a few things for my blogger Secret Santa too, but those are top secret.

And now that all the Black Friday craziness is over, it’s Giving Tuesday! It’s always hard to pick which charities get the last bit of cash that’s left, but mine is earmarked for the USEA Foundation (link to my official facebook fundraiser – the Bill Gates Foundation will match donations (up to $1000) to nonprofits via official FB fundraisers today!) and Thoroughbred Charities of America.

Time for everyone else to fess up – what all did you buy this weekend? And/or what organizations are you supporting today (feel free to pimp them below)?

I formally propose a new 2.5 day work week with a 4.5 day weekend, because that was awesome. Who’s with me?

I’d like to sit here and say that I got a lot accomplished, but I really didn’t. Updating that massive Black Friday sales list (which I made the final update to this morning and swear to god I’m so done) took up a lot of my time on Thursday and Friday, but otherwise I was kind of just lazy. I haven’t been home much lately, and I very rarely get days where I have genuinely NOTHING to do, so it was a nice change of pace.

We didn’t have any Thanksgiving plans, which I’m totally cool with because it’s not anywhere near the top of my list of favorite holidays. We’re those shitty people that showed up at Boston Market specifically to get like 10 gallons of mashed potatoes, only to find out they’d just closed. No worries, we traipsed across the street to the grocery store and made it out of there AS they were locking the doors, with mashed potatoes in hand. Because really, mashed potatoes are the only part of Thanksgiving that I care about.

Otherwise I spent a lot of time hanging out with the furkids in between stalking sales and buying stuff (I escaped with relatively little harm done, but we’ll talk about that tomorrow once it’s all over). Grem seems to have developed a sudden affection for Stewie. Well… biting him, mostly. But then she cuddles up to him and he seems to not mind too much.

I also got to ride Henry totally uninterrupted for 6 days in a row. After day 4 he was looking at me like “oh boy… it’s you again…” so I think he’s earned today off. Plus it’s been pretty hot for him, to the point where I’ve been questioning my decision to do an Irish clip instead of a hunter clip. He grows SO MUCH hair that he’s standing out there borderline sweating in the 80 degree temps. But apparently a cold front is on the way, so if he can just hang in there a little longer, I think he’ll be a lot happier. Right now he’s just kind of dull and blah.

I DID finally go out to my jump field and move all my jumps around. I only had 2 set up before, and I had to get a little creative with jump materials, but now I have 6. It’s much closer to having a real course, anyway, and I brought home my 3 broken standards so I can get them back in serviceable condition. It’s kind of exciting to have a course set up again, although now it hasn’t rained in so long that the ground is a bit hard for my liking.

I also started (for real this time) putting out more feelers for pasture board situations for Presto. I’ve not had a whole lot of luck so far, but I do have one place to go look at this weekend. I was kind of hoping I would have more options than this, but this part of Texas is not cheap. I’ll keep looking though… I remain convinced that the situation I’m looking for is out there somewhere.

So even though maybe I wasn’t the most productive person in the world over the long weekend, it was a nice little break from work and all that other mumbo-jumbo.

What have you guys been up to with your time off?