I’m not really sure how it’s Wednesday already. These things just happen like *poof*.

I feel like we’re back in our groove a bit more over here now. We had our first jump lesson since our break (our first since like… mid-June I think actually) and Presto was legit kind of feral. We just did some small jumps, with a turning exercise that meant he had to rock back and pay attention. He wasn’t a real big fan of either of those things, he was just real excited to be doing jompies again. We’ve got another lesson on Thursday so hopefully that one is a bit less exciting.

Presto does look and feel really good though. I think the break combined with a lot of the strength work we’ve been doing has got him filled out in all the right places. Plus, ya know… age. Getting close to 6 and half now, like a legit big boy. Since his break he’s been doing a butt-ton (scientific measurement) of poles in all of his rides particularly at the walk and trot. Like lots of poles. Over and over.

At first he was really inconsistent through them, not really self-regulating his effort. Now he’s a pole master, and I’ve been able to make them a bit harder. My favorite exercise is putting him on a circle at the trot, walking right before the poles, and then picking up the trot again right after the last one. Over and over. We’ve been able to move the transitions closer and closer to the poles, to the point where he’s walking like AT the first pole now, and he’s keeping a nice marching energy the second he comes down to walk. Then same thing on the other side – crisp step up into trot with the same power and energy that he had over the poles. This week we started playing with it a bit at the canter too, cantering up to it, walking through, and then picking up canter again. His walk-canter is pretty good but the canter-walk isn’t quite there yet. He was trying though!

Yesterday we went over to Majestic to trot and canter some hills. It took until the 3rd hill for him to stop bucking his way up. Which like… Henry bucking is funny because it’s not really bucking, its just leaping that has no real chance of unseating you. Presto bucking is not funny because he’s a big athletic mofo that corkscrews his entire body when he bucks. I’m less confident about my ability to always stick that.

In other news he completed his re-vamped flu shot series for his FEI passport last week, so that got sent back to USEF for hopefully final approval. And we entered the August Ocala show that’s in a couple weeks. It will likely be hot so we may end up just doing a lope around the Modified, but with the show schedule options and our goals toward the end of the season (and the fact that we had to scratch Stable View), we felt like he needed to hit this one. I’ll prob enter a CT the weekend before at a schooling show so we can at least do the dressage test (it’s test C, which means his first long court test) and jump around something at height.

In other news, I have some stuff for sale! If anyone is looking shoot me a PM on any of my socials or you can send me an email through the contact page here.

This week the younger three kiddos got to move out to the big field with Rihanna and Rue! Very exciting occasion. And I mean really really exciting. Stampede-worthy, you could say.

Our method was to move each mare and foal pair into a stall on the big field side of the barn, and then open the stall doors into the field so that we were kind of ripping off the bandaid all at once rather than separating and upsetting them over and over. As soon as we opened their doors, they were off.

It was pretty funny to see their approach to their new freedom. Andy and Vee immediately took off for the farthest reaches of the field but then split in opposite directions, both galloping big laps. Chanel and Rhett did some very reluctant hand galloping (anything more seems uncivilized, she says) but mostly preferred to trot around like little Valegros. Peyton, who is normally the herd nanny and the strictest mother, forgot herself there for a minute and absolutely TOOK OFF around the perimeter of the field.

Poor Lucy, who is used to always being the center of her mother’s world, was trying her absolute best to keep up. I can say with confidence that Lucy has never run so fast in her entire life. She screamed the entire time, thinking she was being abandoned, but Peyton did finally slow down and let her catch back up.

Vee did a pretty good job of trying to get Goldie/Rihanna and Blue/Rue involved in her shenanigans but their efforts were half-hearted. Well… Goldie trotted half a lap and then flat out resisted completely. Rue wanted in, but Blue wasn’t really having it, and Rihanna decided she was done after the first lap.

Andy and Vee went around for quite a while, both just happy to stretch their legs and go for a run. After a few minutes the others mostly just tried to stay out of their way.

It didn’t take long though for everyone to settle in. There was no real drama between the mares, probably because they all lived together before they foaled.

They’ve slipped right back into their previous hierarchy and habits. Vee is the boss, Peyton and Chanel pair off a safe distance away from Vee, and Goldie and Blue pair off far away from Vee.

The foals haven’t interacted enough for me to figure out yet who’s gonna be top dog, but Andy is definitely at the bottom of the totem pole. Maybe because his dam is so alpha, he’s always learned to just submit. I get a feeling that Lucy or Rue might end up on top.

Aside from the first bit of shenanigans, I don’t think any of them have hardly lifted their heads from the grass yet. The smaller turnout they were in before had grass, but not as lush and beautiful as this bigger field, so they’ve all been really enjoying stuffing their faces, babies included. It’ll be fun to see how their dynamics play out over the next week or so!

Oh, and this new field is directly across the driveway from Presto, who is absolutely DELIGHTED by his new neighbors.

Happy Friday!

We’re pretty much back to full swing around here after Presto’s summer break! Over the past two weeks we’ve worked our way back up to mostly “normal” rides (have been keeping them a bit longer on the hacking and shorter on the working, since it’s been hot) and I think Presto is delighted to be back in his program. He requires ATTENTION and was real salty when he didn’t get it.

We haven’t been able to make it for a lesson yet, which I’m really itching for at this point because I had some things on my list that I really wanted to chip away at over our summer off season. Mainly getting him quicker off the aids and improving my leg position in the dressage saddle. I’ve been working on both at home, but ya know… a keen eye would help a lot. Maybe this week? We’ll see.

We’ve continued doing lots and lots of poles, too, particularly raised poles at the walk. Presto is not the best at poles (they require focus for longer than 2 seconds but are also boring – the ultimate Presto conundrum) but he’s gotten a lot better and I’m seeing and feeling a difference in his hind end strength. That’s a naturally weak area for him so I think going forward we’ll continue to incorporate lots and lots of raised walk and trot poles into most of our rides.

Last week Holly was in town, and we jetted over to Majestic one morning for a nice long hack. Presto was dying for a change of scenery I think, and was very happy to go exploring. Holly rode Henry, who is such a dolphin right now that he even managed to dolphin his way up a tiny upbank at a walk. Never change, Henny.

This week I think will finally be the week that all the babies go out together in the same pasture. Everyone is big enough and well-socialized enough in herd dynamics now. That should be entertaining at least, and I’m sure the “littler” kiddos will be happy to find themselves in a much larger pasture.

The only other interesting thing that’s happened is that last Friday one of my crowns (the tooth kind) fell out. Just… fell right out while I was chewing a sandwich. Granted, that thing is like 18-19 years old so I guess it had quite a good run. I haven’t established a dentist here in FL yet though so it was great times trying to get an appointment booked that wasn’t like weeks or months from now. I got something for tomorrow, thank goodness, but we gotta go through all that new patient shit before we get to the crown. Hi hello yes I have an exposed root canal nubbin of a molar just CHILLIN IN THE NUDE in the back of my mouth, if we could fix that asap it’d be really cool. Chewing sucks. The most annoying part though is that is so freaking expensive to fix tooth stuff and it’s not even a fun thing. Being an adult is dumb.

I’ve been on a real hot streak for corny Foal Friday titles, and while most of you are probably groaning at the cringe, I’m not upset about it. If you can endure my lame titles and make it to the foal pictures, at least it’s worthwhile?

This week I figured I’d do an update on Rue, since I haven’t taken pics of her in a while! She’s now 4 months old, and BFF’s with her pasturemate Rihanna. Rue is also absolutely stunning.

I don’t mean pretty. I don’t mean cute. I mean STTUNNNNIIINNNNG. She’s beautiful.

And, as you can see, she’s very very gray already. She’s finished her first foal shed and is just kind of a slightly rosey grey now. My guess is she’ll be pretty white by the time she’s 2! She’s already much grayer than Percy, her 2yo full brother.

As far as her temperament and personality go, she’s got that careful vigilance that so many of our jumper bred foals tend to exhibit. She’s smart and pretty brave, but she’s also alert and careful… qualities that make a good showjumper!

She’s sensitive, but not overly so, and she’s a big fan of having her face rubbed!

And if you’re wondering whether or not it’s even possible for her to take an awkward picture, have no fear… even the beauty queens aren’t perfectly poised all the time.

Happy Friday!

I might have done a thing (I wonder how many of my blog posts have started out with that exact phrase…).

At some point last week I was looking at Presto’s forelock and lamenting about the fact that the ends are so bleached and faded. He’s got a lot of bangs, always has, and they’re always orange at the tips. And then I just suddenly had the most overwhelming urge to dye them.

Now, I know what you’re thinking… “Who in their right mind would do such a thing?”. We all know I’m not in my right mind and never have been, so that’s a silly question. I dunno man, what can I say, sometimes the intrusive thoughts win. So I pinged the group chat with my trainer and a couple friends and asked what color Presto’s bangs should be.

Bless em, they’re used to me just saying and doing the most random shit, it didn’t even faze them. I have a whole rainbow of semi-permanent fashion dyes because I do weird colors in my own hair, and I happen to use a line that is vegan, non-toxic, super gentle, safe for dogs, etc. So I was like screw it, I’ll just throw some of my own dye in there. Trainer voted for pink but given how orange our starting point was, I didn’t think it would look very good. Blue fades to green and I really didn’t want him stuck with a green fade, so blue was out. Of my favorites that really only left me with purple… plus it fades to a warmer pinker tone, which is more tolerable than green or orange.

So ya know… I grabbed a latex glove, got my bottle of hair dye, and off we went on an adventure.

The good thing about semi-permanent dye is that since it’s the consistency of conditioner, it’s easy to glob it in, make sure all the hairs are saturated, and you don’t have to worry about mixing up bottles or liquid dripping or anything like that. I literally just squirted some into my hand, ran it through his forelock, then rolled up the forelock, pulled the glove off my hand and flipped it around the hair, and then looped a hair tie around it. It needs to process for at least 45mins and heat helps, so I just rode him with the glove wrapped around his little top knot. Very stylish. Tres chic. Lord only knows what the neighbors think of me by now.

It ended up staying in for about an hour and a half by the time I groomed and tacked up and rode, and it worked great. As soon as I pulled it down I just started cackling endlessly because I mean come on. It’s impossible to not be amused by Presto with a purple forelock. By the time I rinsed the dye out and towel-dried his forelock a bit, I was pretty certain this was one of the better ideas I’ve ever had.

It coordinates well with his punk rock vibe, honestly. You gotta admit he pulls it off.

The semi-perm dyes fade pretty fast, especially with sweat or lots of washing, so once I decide we’re done with it, no big deal, we can fade it out. Granted, he could technically keep it for however long I want, because he always shows in a bonnet (at least for dressage) anyway.

So far the only “public” person to see it was the Arion rep, when she came to check his saddle fit. She looked at him and went “did you dye his forelock purple?”. Me: “yes, indeed, I did do that.”. Her, chuckling: “That’s rad.”.

I find it endlessly entertaining and very fitting. Purple forelock is Presto’s summer vibe for sure. He may have started a TikTok trend… a couple other people have already done their horse’s forelocks too. If this is my legacy, I’m totally here for it.