On Saturday morning I loaded Henry up and made the 2 hour journey to Trainer’s place for a stadium lesson.

My stadium round at Pine Hill last month was fine, until I pulled too much coming into the final combination and tried to kill us both. I needed to work more on keeping a steady rhythm all the way throughout the course, and to remember to allow him to come forward out of the turns.

Saturday morning I woke up with a really gross cough, the kind where by the time you’re done coughing, it feels like your lungs have collapsed and you can’t breathe. I won’t even describe what I was coughing up. Let’s just say it was gross. I made it through the lesson, but I kept getting very winded. Trainer kept looking at me like she thought I might die, so she took pity on me and kept things fairly short.

We hopped over a few warmup fences first, and true to form I can’t stop messing with my canter if the fence is under 3′. Little jumps are the death of me. It’s like when they get bigger I know I don’t have any choice but to keep my leg on and keep coming, but my brain becomes overwhelmed by options when the jumps are small. It makes no sense. But I was kind of glad when she walked around and put all the jumps up bigger.

I have to give Henry a ton of credit, he was jumping really super. I think the SI injection was what he needed, because he was coming off the ground so much more powerfully and evenly. He’s got his trademark Henny bascule back. Trainer even said “THIS is the Henry I know!”. And it’s true, he does finally feel like himself again.

I had a little bit of trouble with wanting to chase him too deep to the red and white oxer the first couple times (Me, a life long gap-lover, looking for the deep distance? What?) but once Trainer got me to come out of the corner and just support the canter instead of trying to chase the jump down, it worked out beautifully. We ended on a short course (because see above about me not being able to breathe) and then called it a day.

I took him on a short walk through the XC field afterward and he was still jigging, so… obviously he was not tired after our lesson. I, however, was rapidly deteriorating. It was starting to become obvious that my cough wasn’t just a cough. More on that tomorrow…

This week has been a little bit awkward for me as far as riding time. The vet wanted Henry to have a few days off after his SI injection, so the earliest I could ride him was Tuesday. But I had an appointment on Wednesday and couldn’t come out, therefore I figured there was no harm in giving him a couple extra days. Instead of a “real” ride on Tuesday, I figured we’d go for a nice long bareback walk. (spoiler alert: BAD IDEA)

I should say, this is not unusual for us. I hop on bareback in his hackamore once every couple weeks and we amble around, trot a bit, and I’ll usually stop at the top of the field to let him graze a little. It’s relaxing for both of us. Um… usually, anyway.

I have to assume that someone is feeling mighty fantastic after his vet appointment, because I can’t blame anything else. It was almost 80 degrees on Tuesday, not particularly windy, and Henry isn’t typically the kind of horse to get wild after a few days off. I haven’t lunged him, aside from a few times to evaluate soundness, in years.

Yet, on Tuesday, before we even made it out to the field, I’d already almost eaten dirt three times. He planted all 4 feet and snorted at the round bale, danced past the same arena drag that is always sitting there, and LEAPED sideways because a human moved his arm. The next 30 minutes contained a truly masterful combination of spook, spin, leap, stop, squeal, snort, bolt, and passage. Very athletic. 10’s across the board for artistic marks.

Granted, now he’s missing a pretty giant chunk of mane from one of his unannounced pirouettes where I came millimeters away from becoming a lawn dart. Fairly certain that Depo-Medrol should be relabeled as Crazy Juice, because oh my god. Today I’m climbing back on for a dressage school, and the temperature has dropped 20 degrees since yesterday, so this could potentially be very exciting. If you never hear from me again, it’s because dressage finally killed me.

Am I the only one with a crazy pony right now?

Since Britt oh-so-masterfully provided Willow Tree Warmbloods with a fancy new logo

Michelle and I have been brainstorming about what all we want to put it on. I’m a fan of basically anything and everything you can personalize, and in this day and age that includes everything from hats to vests to tech shirts to jackets to polos to belts to socks to saddle pads to fly bonnets to coolers to banners to stall guards to stickers to decals to sunshirts. Just to name a few things. Not that I’ve thought about it.

So, um, obviously I can quickly spiral wildly out of control. Michelle isn’t much help here, because we both have the same OMG YES LETS PUT A LOGO ON THAT reaction when we find something we like. Someone needs to reign us in.

Michelle decided that we should start a list. Not a list with everything we can possibly think of to slather a logo on (which is what my list looks like), but a list that makes the most sense. I’m guessing I prooooobably don’t need 15 items of WTW logo clothing (or do I?) or a custom batch of Dreamers and Schemers socks (OR DO I???).

So, general public that probably has considerably more self control than we do, we ask: what are your very favorite logo’d swag items? What are your essentials when it comes to repping your barn or favorite business?

Since Henry got his SI injection on Friday, he was on stall rest for the weekend. And since free weekends are rare around these parts, I took the opportunity to head up to the h/j show in Waco to visit Luxe EQ… and to get fitted for my TUCCI’s, of course!

I’ve been ogling Tucci’s for years and somehow know a lot about them, but I had never actually tried them on. This is by design, because once I try something on, it tends to come home with me. Now that I know for a fact that I’m getting them, it was finally safe to try some on. It helps that I’m built very average… there’s nothing particularly odd about any of my proportions, and most things tend to fit me off the rack. In this case, the 39H (extra tall) were perfect.

They really did fit like a glove, which is very convenient… no full customs required. They were also super comfortable, especially considering they were brand new boots. I don’t think I realized just how much the sole in my Mondoni’s had worn down until I had them both on at the same time. Poor Mondoni’s. For $200 boots, they’ve really hung in there pretty well for the past 3 years.

So the Tucci’s (I ordered the Marilyn, no patent, with a navy top) are officially on order! Hopefully they’ll be here within a couple months… I am obviously in desperate need.

I also took the time to paw through all of the new stuff in Luxe EQ (one of my favorite things, it’s like Christmas only not as fun because I don’t actually get to keep any of it). Starting with the new Miss Shield, which wins the award for the best box I have ever seen in my life.

Not gonna lie, the box alone kind of made me want it. But box aside, I liked the profile of the Miss Shield… the brim was a bit bigger and wider than the regular one, but without being HUGE or ridiculous or overpowering like some other brands. It seems like it would work well on lots of different face and head shapes. There are some better pics from all angles on the website if you’re curious about the profile.

They’ve also got the new MaeLort waterproof backpacks, which seem to be the hot new thing popping up right now all over social media. This is the first time I’ve seen one in person.

Plus the new Winston colors. They have a medium blue coat now that is a super pretty, kind of French blue shade. I couldn’t get a good picture of it with my cell phone in that light, but here’s the stock photo:

It looks a bit lighter than that in bright light. It’s such a nice color, especially in the new Devon model with camel accents. Someone with a chestnut or a gray needs to buy it (looking at you, Hillary). And then of course there were all the new Winston sweaters. I was partial to the Ruby:

And approximately 9 million colors of TS sunshirts, because one thing TS really excels at is color choice (there were new breech colors too… I was oddly drawn to the Purple Heart ones). The new teal-sh looking shirt was pretty, although granted goes with nothing I own.

There were lots of pretty new show shirts from Le Fash and Cavalleria Toscana too, which I also failed at getting photos of. CT might have my favorite line of show shirts… they’re unique without being too crazy. And then of course, winning the outerwear game is Asmar. Loved this look that Luxe EQ had on one of their mannequins:

One of these days I’ll actually go in there when I have a little more cash to burn (ha!) and buy some of the things I’ve been lusting after for years. There’s just so much cool stuff living in that mobile, it’s dangerous.

But omg YAAAAAY TUCCI’S!!!