This story spans 12 years from the beginning all the way to our final resolution, so I’m not kidding, it really IS a saga. I’ll try to keep it as brief as possible and just hit the main important bits plus all the things I did wrong along the way (because those are the best parts of any story anyway, right?).

It all started in 2005, the year I decided I want to breed my own horse. At that time I didn’t have a suitable mare available, so a local Texas person that I knew through an online forum offered to let me lease Hope, one of her TB mares. Hope was your basic TB, nothing particularly amazing, but she was a good mover with a good temperament and I thought she would work for my purposes (full disclosure: if I knew then what I know now, I would have been more thorough and diligent and done a “custom foal” option through an actual breeder. Lesson #1.). The deal was struck and we agreed that I would lease Hope for the 2006 breeding season, with me paying all the breeding fees plus a monthly lease fee while the mare was pregnant and until the foal was weaned.

In late summer 2005 I went with the mare owner (lets call her MO) to an RPSI inspection to help her present her horses for breeding approval. Hope was a bit wired for sound that day and didn’t show her canter very well (unless you’re into Pepe LePew) but still managed to score just one point under premium. Pretty good for a TB mare, and I was happy with that.

I paid the stallion’s breeding fee in late 2005, and in 2006 Hope was bred to Westporte. The first try aborted between the 16 and 45 day check, but the second try was successful and in May 2007 Sadie was born.

Originally I had planned to take Sadie and Hope to ISR/Oldenburg for inspection and foal registration since, at the time, it was closer and easier for us to get to. But of course, the morning we were supposed to leave for the inspection, Sadie had a HUGE hematoma on her stifle. Not sure what she did overnight, but I wasn’t going to trailer a foal to an inspection with that thing. After talking with MO and people at ISR/Old, we decided to just present the mare the following year and having Sadie’s registration done then.

This was the biggest of all of my mistakes.

Once Sadie arrived in Austin after weaning, I had an increasingly difficult time getting ahold of MO as time passed. I couldn’t get straight answers about anything, and she no longer seemed interested in having Hope approved ISR/Old (even on my dime) so that I could have Sadie registered with them. Eventually I gave up and figured I would just take her RPSI instead, since Hope had already been approved by them and I wouldn’t need anything from MO. Of course, by that point I’d already missed the inspection in 2008.

Roll forward to the next year. Now it’s 2009 and I’ve got a really heinous-looking midget of a 2yo (seriously, she was maaaaaybe 15.2h then, she’s 17h now) but I loaded her up and away we went to RPSI. They inspected her, branded her, and issued me… a “certificate of pedigree”. Since they didn’t have DNA on file for Hope (which I didn’t realize), and since the filly was being presented without her dam, I had no way of proving that Sadie was actually out of the horse that I claimed she was out of. Considering I was now 4 years into this whole thing, not to mention ungodly amounts of money, walking away with a piece of paper where the entire damline reads “UNKNOWN” is a serious letdown. I knew exactly who her dam was, I just couldn’t prove it.

I kept trying for a while to contact Hope’s owner to try to get a DNA sample from her, to no avail. I began to suspect that Hope had met a not-so-great fate. Eventually MO threw out a feeble excuse saying that Hope had been stolen, which I don’t buy for even a minute. If someone steals your horse, you kick and scream all over the internet about it, you don’t keep mum. Sad to say, I’m fairly certain that Hope either died or was carted off to auction to make a quick buck. I still look for her online from time to time, but have not seen hide nor hair of her since 2007. Either way, I had absolutely no way to obtain DNA from her, so Sadie’s papers remained unchanged.  Next lesson learned – if you’re going to breed a mare, take a chunk of her mane or some tail hairs and store them away for DNA purposes the second that foal hits the ground. You just never know.

What are the implications of having a pedigree that says half is “unknown”? For a show horse, none really. Her papers showed that she was in fact RPSI registered (albeit in their “lowest” book) and that her sire was the Hanoverian stallion Westporte, so if I wanted to sell her I could at least prove those things. But if you want to breed a mare, her papers are really important. Having an “unknown” parent makes her ineligible for anything but the very lowest of studbooks, and in fact many registries will not even inspect mares with unverified lineage. She could produce RPSI registered foals, but her foals in turn would still have the same “lowest” status as she did.

While all these years were passing by, the Jockey Club seriously upped their game. They became much easier to contact and work with, and their online presence increased 1000 fold. So earlier this year when we revisited the topic of Sadie’s papers, we realized that the Jockey Club started doing DNA in 2001, earlier than I had originally thought. Hope was born in 2000, so the odds of them having a sample from her were 50/50, depending on when she’d been registered. Nervously, I emailed them to inquire and they responded that YES in fact they did have a sample from that mare! But I needed XYZ paperwork for them to release it. Next stepping stone: would RPSI be willing to go back and run the DNA and upgrade Sadie’s registration status? Another yes! With more paperwork, of course. Lots of paperwork.

I’ll spare you details here, but after all the forms and some impressively fantastic customer service and cooperation between JC and RPSI, we officially have a DNA match from the JC’s 2001 DNA from Hope to RPSI’s 2009 DNA from Sadie. My horse is now 10 years old and will FINALLY have the proper papers and registration status that she deserves… her papers are being reissued from Germany as we speak! It also means that Sadie is eligible for breeding approval with several other registries now, since we have a verified pedigree. Basically, her world (and value) as a broodmare just opened up tremendously, for herself and for her foals.

Thanks Jockey Club and RPSI for helping me finally bring this to a proper resolution! Everyone else: don’t be dumb like me. It could literally take a decade to fix it.

I was reading a post online this past weekend about how often people event their horses and how many times a year. Some of the answers varied widely, but most people came to a general consensus of less often for upper level horses, more often for lower level horses. Makes sense.

Bobby and I have spent a fair amount of time on the subject ourselves, particularly since his horse Halo is 17 this year and requires some special meds when he travels to prevent him from getting sick. Understandably, Bobby tends to be conservative with his schedule because of that. When we were sitting there looking at the omnibus, trying to plan for fall (because he always wants to show with me – stalker), he was a particularly annoyed that the 3 shows he really wanted to hit were all 3 weekends in a row. He’s not willing to do that. Neither am I, to be honest, considering none of them are a super short haul. Henry could probably do it and be just fine (I baby him, I know, but to me he’s irreplaceable), but I just don’t feel comfortable with it. Then again it’s not unusual to see the same people hitting every single recognized show in our area, week after week, so a schedule like that seems to work fine for plenty of folks.

Both of our horses are at Training level, so while it’s not a simple trot around the park so to speak, the fences aren’t super big nor are the speeds particularly fast. Last year when we went to Coconino the horses obviously showed back to back weekends, which we actually thought was super helpful and educational. You could come back the second weekend and try to smooth out the rough edges. Granted, two weeks in a row was definitely my limit, especially when flanked by a long drive. And no way I would have wanted to do that more than once or twice a year.

In h/j land, it’s not unusual for horses to show for many weeks in a row, and some of them 4 or 5 days a week. While a lot of people are conservative with how many classes they enter (most jumper folks I know will only do 2 a day max), there also always seem to be those horses that have racked up 15-20 classes by the end of the show. There’s one barn around here in particular that will enter just about everything. Gotta be honest, that really makes me cringe. I absolutely think there’s a lot of educational benefit to getting young horses in the ring more frequently, but I also think there’s a point at which training becomes drilling.

It also makes you wonder how long these horses will last if they’re on the road showing for weeks and weeks on end, almost non-stop. What really started out as more of an h/j problem has started to creep over to eventing too. Winter used to be the off season and “let down” time for a lot of horses, but now that so many people go to Aiken and Ocala for winter, some of them don’t really get much of off season anymore. Maybe a couple weeks or a month in a paddock, which isn’t much for an upper level horse on a busy show schedule.

So, what say you? How often are you comfortable showing, and (for hj people) how many classes a day do you cap yourself at?

Nope, no Sadie baby yet. She’d been making progress at the end of last week, and the last milk test on Saturday looked like things were finally going the right direction – pH was dropping, calcium was rising.

Then she suddenly became difficult to milk despite the fact that she’s never had a “flow” problem, and then Lissa’s baby was born and she officially lost her shit and turned into a crazed wannabe baby thief. If she’s trying to scare the shit out of me, she’s doing a bang up job. No idea where we’re even at right now, because honestly she seems to have gone… backwards. She’s going to the vet today just to check and make sure nothing is amiss.

But there IS an adorable new baby on the ground at Willow Tree Warmbloods! Lissa delivered a gorgeous colt yesterday morning – chestnut with 4 whites and a cool stripe. He got a teeny bit stuck and needed some assistance, but he and Lissa both seem none the worse for wear. He was up and at the milk bar relatively quickly and she’s being a great mom.

Sadie was being the REALLY CREEPY aunt – constantly staring and nickering at him. She actually had to be removed because she could not settle herself down. If she’d just Get To It already she could have her own, but nooooooo…

 

I realize that I am long overdue for a post about Henry – the poor, neglected star of this blog. We’ve been doing a lot of dressage at home since our January show (probably 75% dressage rides) in an effort to just… be better. I think once I realized we could actually survive Training level, I became more determined to suck less at it.

Our month of dressage bootcamp between the Jan and Feb shows paid off with a score that was 8 points better, which, as it turns out, is a fabulous motivator to keep working. Last week in particular we hit a big milestone when real sitting trot suddenly became possible. All of you dressage folks out there know the saying “the horse has to give you a place to sit” – meaning that in order to have a good sitting trot, the horse’s back has to be relaxed and lifting, not stiff and braced. A lot of horses have that right off the bat, or it comes quite easily to them. Henry is not one of them… he basically lives with every ounce of his tension stored in his back. I can honestly say that until last week, he had never really given me a place to sit, thus our sitting trot work has been minimal.

But Monday I sat a little bit in the haunches-in on a circle, and instead of a tense tight back, I found a soft relaxed one. So I stayed sitting, moved off straight again and then into some shoulder in and leg yield with still no resistance or tightening of the back. I pretty much just halted, jumped off, and shoved Henry full of carrots.

But… was it a fluke?

Tuesday was conditioning day (ERMAGERD GALLOP) but Wednesday it was back to dressage tack for the moment a truth. I warmed up as usual, then started some lateral work, then spiraling in and out, then changing the stride length in trot, then eventually starting spritzing in some sitting work. And honestly? I think it was the best dressage ride he’s ever given me.

Not only did he accept my seat, all of his lateral work improved when I sat and was able to use my seat bones more effectively. I still kept the sitting portions short and always rewarded with stretchy trot afterward, but… I’m pretty thrilled with him at the moment. Dressage has always been such a struggle bus, especially when it comes to tension.

The positive trend has continued. I dunno what, exactly, is responsible for the magical progress lately, but I’m not going to question it. Now we need to get back to dressage lessons (of which we’ve had none since, uh, August). Maybe we’ll finally be able to take some of the derp out of our derpsage???

I said some, not all. I’m not delusional. Let’s remember what horse I own.

Time to rename this network. Sadie’s not just a fat mare anymore, she’s an ANGRY fat mare. And she isn’t shy about hiding the fact that she’s uncomfortable. She’s taking it out on basically any non-living thing that she can get her teeth or feet on. Stall wall, fence, water bucket… whatever’s in her way is fair game. Y’all got a glimpse of it in my post the other day but that was really just the beginning of her rage.

This is exactly what she did before she had her last foal, so this behavior is apparently standard for pre-baby Sadie. But damn, girl is pissed. Not at people, of course, or her BFF Lissa, but inanimate objects beware.

She was really raging mad on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning and stayed raging mad during the day on Wednesday, so I thought for sure we were gearing up for go time.

But then she was only kinda sorta mad on Wednesday night, pretty normal yesterday, and just sorta mad again last night. Still no change in the milk test either. Come on mare, wtf? Although her milk definitely looks like real milk now, and her udder is quite full, and her vulva is giant (sorry, TMMI – too much mare information). Physically, she’s ready.

I give up on trying to guess what the anger means, too. It just means she’s an angry mare, apparently, because I still ain’t got no baby.

Going back through the overnight clips, I think this particular series is my favorite, where she tried to murder her feed pan.

Meanwhile Lissa is equally miserable but she tends to just lay there and grunt, or stand there and look pathetic and yet still totally beautiful. I’m starting to think they’re dragging this out on purpose because they’re drama queens.

Really this is probably all my fault, because I packed my go-bag on Tuesday and made all kinds of preparations to be gone for several days. Shouldn’t have done that. Horses can always sense when people are prepared, and they hate that crap.