Today marks day 318 of Sadie’s pregnancy! We are oh so very close to the “viable” mark of 320 days, thank god. 340 days is average, she went 330 last time, so either way… it’s coming soon. 320 is the point at which we can all breathe a small sigh of relief – one less thing to worry about once we make it past that point!

Sadie has had some changes to her shape and her udder but nothing is looking too imminent yet. We’ll see if she follows the same pattern as her first foal, as far as her milk production and waxing before foaling. She hasn’t started trying to tear the barn down yet so I’m guessing she’s not that close. Uncomfortable mare equals angry mare equals destruction of property.

I don’t think she looks quite as big this time as she did last time either. Of course, Merlin was a baby elephant and this one should, in theory, be a bit smaller. One of Michelle’s other mares, Lissa, is also at 318 and there for a while I thought she looked quite a bit bigger, but now I think Sadie has caught up.

The closer we get to 320, the better I feel. As in, before I was 51% anxious, 49% excited and now I’m more like 52% excited and 48% anxious. I think I’ll breathe a lot easier once baby is here and healthy, but making it to 320 helps a little.

I sent in my check to audit a Future/Young Event Horse clinic in Dallas on March 4-5, so I’m gonna go ahead and bet all my money on that being when she foals. Because let’s be honest, I was tempting fate by going to that anyway, and going so far as to send a check probably sealed the deal. But if you haven’t already placed your official baby bets for the contest, don’t forget that the deadline is 2/28!

Our favorite local eventing venue Pine Hill is putting on a “Friends of Ellie” (Ellie is the facility owner’s special needs daughter) benefit derby in May. They put out a call for division sponsors (my check is in the mail!) and also asked for donations for raffle items. I love a raffle, and I think I’m in a good position (being a public loudmouth) to help get some stuff donated, so I thought I’d get a general opinion on what kind of things everyone likes to see in a raffle?

Tack and equipment, gift cards, baskets, lessons, alcohol (I know you people), non horse-related items, etc? What kind of stuff makes you want to make it rain raffle tickets? Anyone who’s helped organized a raffle, what items have been really popular? Help me get a better idea of what I should try to pursue for donations!

If you have something you’d like to donate or know of a business that might be interested, please let me know (you can email me through my Contact page!). I was mainly trying to drum up raffle items, but the show is also looking for division sponsors, and sponsors get ad space in the program if they want it. Win/win.

This event benefits four different local charities that are all, well… friends of Ellie (hence the name), and by extension, friends of Pine Hill (you can read about them on the link above) so it would be great if we could raise some good money for them. Pine Hill has been a mainstay for eventing in Texas for decades; everyone behind this is Great People.

Despite a fairly ominous looking forecast, we didn’t get rained out this time! It was ridiculously humid Sunday morning before the wind picked up though. I was sweating balls just from getting dressed and had sweat dripping into my eyes in dressage warmup. Ah, February in Texas.

I got on for dressage and had surprisingly little horse. Like… I was kicking him. Henry! Kicking! I actually regretted not putting my spurs on. But he warmed up really well and came into a nice connection pretty quickly, with good trot work both ways, some lengthenings, and a little lateral work. We did a few medium walk to free walk to medium again, trying to prevent that anticipation he sometimes gets, then just chilled til it was our turn. He was being so good I didn’t even want to canter, lest I ruin whatever magical unicorn juju we had going on.

And what do you know, he went in the ring and was actually quite rideable, obedient, and kept a steady connection. Pretty much everything was better than last month’s test. It actually took all the leg strength I had to keep him cantering. What horse is this? I have no idea. But he scored a 30.5, which would have put us in second if we weren’t going HC. Whaaaaaaaat??? The judge even said he was “obedient”. Pretty sure that’s a first.

After dressage I had less than half an hour until stadium so I quickly changed tack, put my spurs on, grabbed my whip (because remember I thought I had no horse… HAHAHAHA spoiler alert), and trotted back down to warmup with just a few minutes to spare. As soon as we got in there Henry leapt into a canter and was SUPER AMPED. We jumped each warmup fence once then headed up to the ring, just in time to go in.

Aaaaand I was sitting on a keg of dynamite. As soon as the whistle blew it was high ho silver and Henry was off and running. Like, literally, he dragged me to the first 3 fences. I regretted the spurs/whip and instead wished I had brought my Dr Bristol. Someone was very cocky. We got so close to the base of 3 that he pulled the rail there, but that was finally enough to make him think that perhaps he should take my opinion into consideration. The rest of the course was still a bit quick, but he listened. Mostly. I think with the SI injections I got my badass horse back but kinda lost my brakes. Back to the Dr. Bristol next time for Mr. Sassypants.

Then we had 4 hours til XC.

We had talked to the TD beforehand and explained Henry’s current issue with the Irish bank. Since I was already running HC, she gave me permission to skip it if I wanted to (yay schooling shows!). I figured I’d decide when we got to it.

Henry didn’t realize it was XC time until a horse zipped past him in warmup. Then he was suddenly quite awake and raring to go. I had opted to take off my spurs, lest we end up somewhere in Timbuktu, but he was definitely feeling forward as we hopped over a few warmup jumps. He marched over to the startbox, occupied himself with licking the box while they counted us down (it wouldn’t be Henry if he wasn’t doing something totally weird, right?), and then we were off and running.

I don’t have helmet cam footage because I lost my charger cable. Just add that to the comedy of errors already accumulated from yesterday’s post.

We popped easily over 1 and 2, then he really clicked into gear and hunted down the bank combo – the train car to the double up bank then bending 4 strides to a skinny on top of the hill. I gave him a big “good boy!” and a pat, and he dug in galloping again.

We flew over the skinny rolltop at 6, jumped the brush fence at 7, then he saw the Irish bank and I immediately felt him hesitate. Maaaaybe I could have booted him off it if I really wanted to push it, but he’d been rolling along so well up to then that I didn’t see the point in ruining what we had going. We already know he needs to school that question more, so why possibly create an issue for no reason? I let the jump judge know I was skipping it and we kept going.

There was a long gallop through the woods (which was half Henry spooking at the bushes and half him being SO HAPPY to be galloping. I was laughing.) then we came out of the woods, he spotted the water, and he was positively jubilant. He really loves water.

After that was the huge ramp that used to freak me out so much, which we easily jumped out of stride. Take that, stupid giant ramp that used to make me crap myself! Then through the crater at the time warp, more galloping (and spooking) through the woods to the angled feeders. He was totally lock and load at both. It was like as soon as he saw the jumps he went “OMG I FOUND IT!!!” and he was On It. All I did was get him on the right line and hang on. If horses could smile, he’d have been ear to ear.

Then we weaved around some trees to the corner, which we’ve never jumped before but have heard everyone talk about how it just doesn’t jump well. Henry spotted it and took me straight to it, no problem. I don’t think I could have missed it if I tried. After that it was just one more gallop stretch, over the last brush fence, and through the finish!

Yeah, we skipped the Irish bank (which IMO is a really hard question for the level on a “move up” course… alas no one asked me…), but I don’t really care. Everything else was total clockwork, he ate it up, and nothing looked big. We’ve jumped off the Irish bank before, and we’ll do it again… just… not until Henry really understands how to do it properly. Plus, even though I went watchless we came in 10 seconds under optimum, so our pace was right on. Henry pranced back to the barn and cooled down quickly.

I needed a confidence booster to feel like we belong at this level, and that’s what we got. It was our first XC run since Coco last JULY, and it was so freaking fun to be back out there again. I was thrilled with his dressage, fine with stadium (ok I need more whoa but the jumps looked small, so I’ll take that), and super happy with XC.

Henry is fit, he’s happy, he’s sound, and he’s jumping better than ever. What more could you ask for? WE DIDN’T DIE!!!

Buuuut my truck’s trailer lights DID die. They shorted somehow, and we were kinda stranded. Trainer hauled Henry (in my trailer) back to her barn since she’s near the show venue, and now Henry is “vacationing” there until my truck can have the wiring fixed (happening today, hopefully). Sigh. I broke the tent and the truck and managed to lose my helmet cam charger all in one weekend. Never a dull moment.

So, I’m still not actually home from the show yet. As of this moment I’m sitting in a trailer repair place, waiting for my truck to get fixed so I can haul home. Long story. We’ll get there. But if the formatting/pictures in today’s post look weird, it’s because I’m typing this on my phone. Bear with me.

Overall it was a SUPER productive show and I’m really pleased with how things went. I’m hoping the show photog will have pics if I drag the actual show recap out til tomorrow. I have video of everyone in the world except for me (Blogger Laura offered to video but I told her I didn’t want evidence of my shitshow, then my horse was freaking amazing. Go figure.) so let’s hope the photog comes through.

ANYWAY… 

We headed up to the show on Saturday. Trainer and I were hoping to be able to get out there Friday and school Henry down the Irish bank (of death, that he cannot for the life of him figure out), but it rained and was too wet. So instead we decided that I’d just run HC and we’d lunge him off the bank on Saturday. Sadly, that was a no go too since it was still too wet in the woods. So instead we opted to lunge him down the banks in the front field where it was dry enough. Not what we really needed, but better than nothing.

And he was still a bit of a reetee about them. It took him a few tries (again) to remember to NOT PUT HIS FEET ON TOP OF THE LOG and instead to just jump over it and down. He ended up figuring it out, and after a couple hops down the prelim drop into water, we let him be done. Brain hamsters were a-spinning. Not the prep we really wanted, but it was all we could do and something he really needs anyway.

Then I bathed Henry, walked my XC and stadium (you know Trainer has been jacking your jumps up too high when Intermediate SJ doesn’t look big anymore), got all my stuff set up, and put up my tent. During which I got impatient, tried to cram something where I shouldn’t have, broke a tent pole, and got shards of plastic embedded in my finger. But a quick google search confirms that for $10 I can buy a replacement pole, so it’s ok. It held together well enough through the weekend. Just slightly… uh… bent.

Here’s where I should back up and explain that when I entered this show, I forgot the SO was going to be out of town at a work thing. Our dogs are high maintenance (and Stewie is an ankle biter. Literally.) so I decided to take them to the show with me. All three of them. With a horse. And just me. By myself. And we camped in a tent. All four of us. Yes I’m a moron.

Wrangling them during the day was pretty freaking tedious. I was trying to get lots of stuff done, yet one dog is so excited about life that she can’t even handle it, one dog hates everyone but me, and the other dog just wants to lay in the shade and be a corgblob. But all 3 of them turn into huge whiners when I leave them alone. It only took a couple hours for me to intensely regret my decision to bring them.

But somehow we made it work. Fun fact: 3 dogs and a human fit pretty comfortably on a queen size air mattress. Luckily the weather was perfect; it got down to 65 at night, so we were all pretty comfy. Once all my chores were done and everyone was fed, I got the dogs all snuggied in, grabbed my Kindle, popped a Benadryl (better horse show sleeping through pharmaceuticals!), and we were all asleep by 9. 

And then, it was show day…