What a week it’s been, y’all. It feels like it flew by, there was a whole lot going on. Let’s do a quick recap of the most noteworthy bits…

Last Tuesday Hillary and I took Presto and Henry over to Sweet Dixie for a conditioning day. It was for Presto really, he needed to gallop and they have a primo hill… Henry was mostly tagging along for fun and so he could get to go somewhere and be a complete feral dolphin. He was delighted.

Presto and Henry were both feral, really. The guy mowing got a front row seat to the rodeo as those two morons yee’d and haw’d their way across the property. The boys were absolute delighted with themselves though, so we thought it was pretty damn entertaining. Henry always has quite the swagger in his step for a few days after he gets to completely fuck right off with someone. That’s my boy. Henry sat most of the cantering parts out since he’s not in the best of shape at the moment, and by the end of Presto’s gallops the hump in Presto’s back had finally settled down. They are ridiculous animals, but it’s never a bad thing when they’re both feeling good.

On Wednesday we headed down to Orlando for the night to see Bad Omens in concert. I am generally not a big fan of concerts because I don’t love crowds, or staying up late, or super loud noises, but I made an exception for this band because they’re my absolute favorite. I’d heard they’re stellar live and they for sure did not disappoint – best concert I’ve ever been to.

It’s been like 8 years since I’ve been to a concert I think (pretty sure Rancid was the last one) and man it did my soul a lot of good. Bad Omens absolutely cemented themselves as my favorite. It was also kind of nice to get away from the farm/horses in general and be a normal person, even if it was only for like 18 hours. The horses are a 24/7 thing for me since I live on the farm, and it’s been a real real real real long time since I did anything “away” from home that wasn’t with the horses or horse related. Being a normal human being for a little while was nice.

Anyway – fantastic concert, had such a good time, I was 100% absolutely feral the entire time and was hoarse, no regrets, will absolutely do again. It was Hillary’s first metal show and dare I say she liked it?

Oh yeah, and we stopped on our way out of Orlando and got a 10 pack of Chicken Minis that we absolutely annihilated, so what more does anyone need.

Then this weekend I had signed up for a combined test at the schooling show at Florida Horse Park. More practice in the ring is never a bad thing, and since we don’t have any other shows before Stable View, I thought it might be a good idea.

Presto was kind of a distracted dingaling in dressage warmup, which is weird for him. Normally that’s the place where he’s always best behaved and most focused. Our ring was running early so I didn’t do a whole lot, maybe 10-15 minutes, and it was super hot and I was already mega dehydrated so I was like screw it, let’s just go in. I was gonna vomit or pass out if I got much hotter.

Once Presto got in there he got right to work and was super good. Just a little bobble in the second half of the free walk where he saw a horse out running XC and was like “WOW CROSS COUNTRY” and stuck his head straight up in the air like a giraffe. The tension that created kind of carried over into the next trot transition too. Otherwise though, he was quite good and scored a 28.

SJ was… kind of easy to be honest. Or not EASY but ya know where it just feels like a non-event almost? We jumped four warmup jumps then went in the ring, did the thing, and were done. He was really good, rideable, everything came up nicely (except the outside 6-stride line which was riding SO TIGHT all day). If it had been less hot and I had been less dizzy we would have stayed and done a Prelim round but meh… we’ve got time for that on a day with better conditions. To be honest though I feel like we could have just skipped the Modified and done a Prelim round instead.

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That also makes Presto 5 for 5 clear rounds at Modified. It’s funny, he was a one rail kind of guy at BN and N, then started having like half clear rounds and half one rail at T, but as they’re getting bigger he’s jumping better. It prob has to do more with improved strength and rideability, but it’s neat to see that progression in black and white on his record.

It was a good day, and nice to get some laid-back practice where things feel quite easy and boring!

Sometimes when we go out to take foal pictures we bring “motivational” items with us to get their attention. Because, as anyone who has tried to photograph a horse knows, sometimes they just stand there like blobs and stare at you like you’re stupid. That’s not the best Foal Friday content.

It’s been a while since we’ve gotten the ball out, so for the last photo session we took the ball in the pasture with us, thinking that if we tossed it around a bit, that might be enough to get the babies trotting around for pictures. And it did work on most of them. Well all of them really, except one mare and foal in particular.

Bless him, he’s such a dude. Don’t get me wrong, when he gets the wild hair in him, he’s the one leading the pack, but he’s definitely not so easily stirred up by “scary” things or by his friends running around. He just spectated for this entire session.

Andy genuinely could not figure out what the fuss was all about. We brought the ball to him and tried kicking it all around him, but he wasn’t impressed with that either.

Hillary even tried to shoo him a bit. Also unsuccessful, he just walked slowly around to the other side of his mom.

In the end we gave up. While everyone else ran around and gave us some cute shots, this was the most athletic contribution from Andy:

Never change, kid.

As you probably figured out from the Foal Friday post, we weathered the hurricane just fine. It ticked a little more west than originally predicted, which worked in our favor here in Ocala, so we just had about 8 hours of wind and on again/off again rain. We had a few small branches down but otherwise that was it… didn’t lose power or anything. Very lucky, thank goodness, it ended up being a real non-event for us, which I will never complain about.

On Friday Presto had another training ride. I originally asked her to ride him a little bit because I felt like he was REALLY REALLY CLOSE to having some big a-ha moments but I just couldn’t quite be clear enough or have good enough timing with my aids to help him get it. This was her third time on him in the past few weeks, with each ride being very short and to the point – as soon as he shows signs of understanding, we stop, so I don’t think a single ride has been longer than 20 minutes. Presto is SO smart and tries really hard to figure out what you want, and he retains it really really well… Trainer and I both think that he genuinely likes to learn.

On Friday the skies absolutely opened up on them right when she got on though, and generally he is not a fan of getting rained on. He wasn’t the most please but he trucked right on through it anyway, and gave her some really good work. He’s getting so much stronger. And I can get on the next time and replicate the majority of what she showed him, so I think this was definitely the right move for where he’s at at the moment. Trainer rides for the win, it helps the horses so much.

On Saturday we came back over to her place, this time for grid day. There’s always some element of gymnastic work in her courses (bounces especially) but it’s been a real hot minute since we had just an actual grid day. Like… December I think. Feeling the difference in him through the grid now vs what he felt like then was a huge difference. In December he was still kind of having to think and work a lot through the bounce elements and I had to really help him keep the energy and power through the grid line.

This time he really took me through it with his own energy and I played more of a supporting role. He has a lot more power.

After we were done she had me get off and go stand by the oxer so I could get a full eyeball of how big it was, so that I wouldn’t be thinking anything on our courses looks that big. It’s a good tactic, because jumps in lessons always look small from on top of Presto… the perspective gets skewed. Props to the kiddo, he’s really been showing up and trying hard in all of our work lately. I do think he quite enjoys his job, even when it’s hard.

I also managed to watch Burghley cross country on Saturday, which is always a highlight for me. Burghley is my favorite event of the year, and it was extra fun this year since Mason was attending for the first time. As self-appointed President of the Mama’s Magic Way fan club, I was delighted to watch him hop around there like it was easy. What a cool freakin horse.

Also I feel like we gotta give props to Derek di Grazia for his course design there. Burghley has an reputation for making horses hit the ground, and I feel like it was truly awful to watch when CMP was designing. SO many scary horse falls. This year only one horse fell and it was not the fault of the course or the design at all, so it seemed refreshing. There were a lot of 20’s and missed flags,, and a few riders popping off here and there, which is as it should be at 5* level, IMO, but there was no mass carnage. I also liked that they pulled up TWO riders for blood near the end of the course, eliminating one and letting the other one restart after a vet had a look. Those are the right calls. XC still managed to be incredibly influential to the competition, but we didn’t have to watch a bunch of falling horses. They got Burghley right this year, I think.

On Sunday Hillary and I were braiding and grooming for the local KWPN inspection, which was… a day. A couple 3yo stallions who had never been off the farm, some foals (two of which really wanted to murder us), and some others to bathe and braid and groom. My cuticles are destroyed and I’ve got a foal hoof-shaped bruise on my shin, but we survived. I actually really like grooming, just not so much braiding.

Today is a Presto gallop day and then I’ve got an interview this afternoon, and tomorrow I’m off to Orlando for the Bad Omens concert! Busy week around here.

The hurricane did us the favor of lowering our temperatures a bit, which the horses are quite happy about, including the mares and foals.

I mean… their enthusiasm doesn’t last for long because they ARE still in the boring phase, but we got a few minutes of good shots this morning of them all looking a bit more alive than they have been.

And then there was Andy, who was completely uninterested in partaking.

It didn’t take long for them to run themselves out, and then they all stood there in various stages of snorting. Which is fine, because sometimes it makes for good pictures.

We’re getting very close now to weaning time, we’ll probably pull the two oldest ones here in the next couple weeks!

Well, we’re kicking it off early this year with hurricane season… Idalia is on her way!

Originally it was projected to go right over top of us, but the last few tracks have all wobbled it a bit to the west. We’re out of the cone now, although we’re gonna be on the side of the storm with the worse wind, rain, and tornado threat.

I spent the past couple days getting everything as prepped and ready as possible, so now we just wait and see how it goes. Tomorrow will be nasty! Hopefully we don’t lose power for any extended period of time, that’s my biggest concern.

I’ll log back in with an update as soon as I can once it passes, just wanted to check in and let you know to expect a bit of radio silence!