It occurs to me that I haven’t done any review posts in quite a while. This is because review posts are work, and I am lazy. But since we’re ankle deep in mud and it’s raining again as we speak, I figured maybe now is the time, especially since we’re going into the gift-giving and list-making season. However, while I know that I promised review posts to a lot of people on a lot of things, I don’t remember what or to whom. So here’s a list of all the stuff I can think of that I have that might be of interest. If there are things on here that you want reviews of, let me know and I’ll bump them to the top of the list. And let’s be honest, I’ll probably never get to the rest of it… so speak now or forever hold your peace.

Noble Outfitters Ringside Backpack

Equiline Alice show coat

La Valencio breeches

Devon-AIre Signature breeches

PS of Sweden 3 point breastplate

Book: Modern Gymnastics by Jimmy Wofford

Book: World Class Grooming

Harcour crystal gloves

Jeffers tendon boots

Dressage Sport Boots

PRI Eventer pad

Airowear Outlyne body protector

Dublin River boots

Lister Star clippers

Total Saddle Fit calfskin leathers

Kastel merino wool 1/4 zip sweater

Lorenzini/Schockemohle Titanio stirrups

And anything else that I’m forgetting, of which I’m sure there’s a lot. Once I get to play with my Samshield more I was thinking of doing a GPA Speed Air vs Samshield comparison – any interest in that as well?

I’ve got a bad case of the want-to’s. I pretty much always have a bad case of the want-to’s, but now that my show season is over my schedule just seems so… open. After a year like this one, where it’s felt like I’ve been gone more often than I’ve been home, it’s strange and oddly deflating to have nothing to do. I feel a little aimless, especially with the rain wreaking havoc on my ability to actually ride my horse on a regular basis. It was nice to have a break for a couple weeks, but then I got that old familiar itch. I’m not the only one that gets the itch, right?

I keep seeing things pop up here and there for a jumper show, a dressage show, a combined test, a schooling HT, a clinic, open schooling days, etc. Every single thing that pops up elicits a “Ooooh I wanna do that!” response from me. Doesn’t really matter what it is, I just want to do it.  Henry is probably really glad I don’t have a truck yet or who knows where he’d be right now.

I pretty much resisted everything (or just plain couldn’t make it work) until the Hawley Bennett clinic popped up. I’m already signed up for a Buck Davidson clinic in December, which I’m super ridiculously excited about. I usually don’t do clinics though… hard to justify the money when you’re perpetually on a tight budget.

However, I think that some of my “show” budget should really be allocated towards the “education” budget if I have any semi-realistic notions of moving up in the near future, so I’m gonna skip the little schooling shows I had planned for the next two months and opt for this instead. And in my defense, the Hawley clinic is super reasonably priced – too reasonable to pass up, really.

And with that, it appears that the off season has now become clinic season. Somebody bring Jimmy Wofford somewhere close-by and let’s make it a trifecta.

Some of you might remember the Hamer & Clay ornaments I bought as Christmas presents last year. Beka got one as part of her blogger Secret Santa, which pretty much sealed the deal on her being my internet wife.

They were a HUGE hit, really cute, and super affordable. They are my new go-to favorite present for barn friends (so um… all my barn friends… forget what you just read and act surprised when you get an ornament) and my friends with dogs. Because who doesn’t love having their favorite furry friend turned into an awesome keepsake? This year I’m buying one for myself too, because somehow last year in my ornament frenzy I forgot to do that.

Kelsey, the owner of Hamer & Clay, can do just about anything you can dream up. Any colors, any kind of special features, markings, tack, glitter, rhinestones, horses, dogs, even fish… you name it, she can do it. And they’re all STUNNING. All I did was send her photos, specify details, colors, etc, and she absolutely nailed every single one.

I’m very excited to hear from Kelsey that Hamer & Clay is officially open for the season. Not only is she open, she’s offering my readers 15% off orders over $25 with coupon code alwaysbeaunicorn when you order through her Etsy shop. Interested in ordering? Here’s what you need to know:

PRICE LIST:

Equines
Equines with riders: $22.00 ea
any pose any discipline, one horse, one rider

Equines with wreaths: $22.00 ea
any pose, any style of wreath, or stall door.

Equines with bows: $20.00 ea.
one horse, one bow, or simple adornment.

Other Quadrupeds
Cattle, swine, deer, moose etc.
Quadrupeds with wreaths: $20.00 ea
Quadrupeds with bows: $18.00 ea

Household Pets
Pets in a wreath: $18.00 ea
Pets with a bow or simple adornment: $16.00 ea
Pets au naturel $15.00 ea

Everything Else:
Above is the standard list of items offered. The shop is run on a fully
custom basis, and I would be happy to work with you on anything else
you don’t see listed above.

THE FINE PRINT:

Hamer & Clay is a small home based business with one sculptor. Ornaments are made one at a time for the consignor per their specifications

All orders placed and paid for before December 10, 2015 are guaranteed to arrive before Christmas.

Orders are a first come first serve basis. New orders may be waitlisted depending on order volume.

All orders can be monitored via a link provided with your invoice number.

Hamer & Clay prides itself on customer satisfaction, and will do everything within it’s abilities to ensure you get exactly what you envisioned. (or as close to our abilities as possible)

Standard shipping rates apply to all orders:
-All ornaments are shipped via Canada Post/USPS unless otherwise specified. Ornaments are wrapped in tissue, gift boxes and bubble wrap, they are packed securely and carefully.
-All ornaments damaged during shipping are eligible for a full refund or resculpt or both. ** Photos must be provided for insurance purposes
-Ornaments can be shipped as gifts directly to their intended recipients, wrapped free of charge. Discounts will still apply.

Shipping rates:
Canadian Customers: add $15.00 flat rate shipping for all shipments within Canada
USA Customers: $13.50 ground (4-10 days) with tracking. PM for express rates.

So go forth, readers, support a great small business, and buy all the ornaments! Don’t forget to follow Hamer & Clay on facebook to see all of her ornaments and get business updates.

I’m sure some of you heard about the crazy flooding in Austin. Yes again. Yes we just did this in May, too. The rain on Friday was absolutely insane… almost 8 hours of straight solid downpour. Austin looked like this:  Rainfall totals looked like this, which… keep in mind, we got a good 8-10″ last weekend too: Luckily the barn was on the lower end of the rainfall spectrum at around 8-9″, but still. EIGHT to NINE inches, on top of what we already had last week. We’re at almost 2′ of rain in the last month. 2015 is within a half inch of being the wettest year ever on record, and that’s with two rainy months left to go.  I should have bought a boat instead of a trailer.

Very little riding has happened since Greenwood. Very little riding might be happening all winter. We officially live in a swamp.

In less depressing news, my Lorenzini’s arrived and I was able to squeeze in a quick ride on Thursday night. These things are super gorgeous, there’s no doubt about that. Those Italians, man… they’re artists.

Maybe some day I’ll get to ride in them enough to form an opinion as to their performance.

The only actual fun part of the weekend was Halloween. As the unofficial weirdest couple amongst our friends, the SO and I are the natural choice to host a Halloween party every year. It’s really just a bunch of adults sitting in our driveway, eating and drinking, whilst wearing costumes and handing out candy to kids.

I usually do some kind of theme costume with my dog, and since Quinn is with us now I decided to rope all three dogs into my ensemble.  Poor dogs. Quinn was a good sport about the helmet though.

The Childeric arrives tomorrow… hopefully it dries out enough to where I can actually ride in it before the five day trial period is up!

The blog post from one of the Chronicle’s staff writers that I’m sure most of you have seen by now mentions my “When does control become abuse?” post in a backhanded kind of way, calling it a hastily written personal attack. Eventing Connect also published a post today in which the author (who posted many blog comments on my original post, if you care to go read them) says that it’s a witch hunt for ML. Look guys… let’s set a few things straight here so we can get back to the real issues at hand.

First, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Yep… surprise! I’m a blogger! This is a blog! I’m not a journalist. I don’t write articles. Blog posts are OpEd pieces at best. Shocking revelation, I know. I’m not bound by the same politics that the news media is, so I stated my uncensored opinion, the history behind why I have that opinion, and what I think the problem is (notice I said the rules are the problem, not the rider). The post was not hastily written – I spent several days outlining my thoughts, researching, thinking, writing, thinking some more and writing some more. I didn’t post it (5 days after the second incident occurred) until I was 100% ready to stand behind every word I said. We are now 3 weeks post-Boekelo and 2 weeks post-Fair Hill. That’s light years in the world of social media, news, or journalism. The general news media can churn out articles in hours. For one person who blogs as a hobby, nothing about it was hasty.

This is much bigger than just one person. I do not care about Marilyn Little herself. My agenda is not a witch hunt. She was the catalyst for my post, absolutely, because it was the instance involving her and her horses that launched this whole train of thought for me in the first place. If I hadn’t cited her in the post, no one would have understood what the hell I was blabbering on about. But if you think the post was meant to attack her, you aren’t reading it all the way through. It’s about the fact that a horse went around a cross country course at a 3* event with blood dripping from it’s mouth. That it was seen and photographed by spectators in said state. That our current rules are such that the horse was not pulled up – and depending on how you interpret our very vague rules – the way all of this went down is totally legal. That this can happen repeatedly with no consequence. That in fact, when you look more closely, many of our rules (not just in the “abuse of horse” section) don’t really make a lot of sense or are very very vague when you look at them from a horse welfare point of view. And that our sport really can’t let things like that happen, because then it looks like we’re condoning it. I found all of the photos and an already very lively discussion on a European website – somehow they were off and running with this days before we were, and the view of American eventing in general was extremely poor. To be honest, in that moment it felt very hard to defend the thing that I love so much. If you’re focusing on ML or her bit choices here, you’re missing my point entirely.

I will ask you this – even if you DO believe that it was nothing but a “hastily written blog post attacking one specific rider” – does that make my questions any less valid? Does that make the issues at hand any less important? Criticize me if you want to, but let’s not lose sight of what really matters here. The issues are still the issues. The fact that others are trying to downplay the real issues is, to me, extremely disappointing.

I won’t apologize for saying what I felt I needed to say, and you can absolutely bet that I’d say it all again. My opinion hasn’t changed – we need to better define our rules so that things like this don’t happen. To those who have been supportive, which is the vast majority of the general public and eventing community – thank you. To those who haven’t – thanks to you too. We might not agree, but in our disagreements I always learn something (even if it’s just that I’m 100% dedicated to what I believe).

Now, for those who are actually interested in doing something instead of just talking in circles and pointing fingers:

I am looking to put together a small group of people to help draft and submit rule change proposals to USEF and FEI regarding our current rules about visible blood. If you are interested in being a part of this, are familiar with eventing rules, have strong written communication skills, and are willing to make yourself available for a few online brainstorming sessions/discussions, please contact me. Either leave a comment here that gives me some way to contact you, contact me on facebook (my blog’s fb page link can be found in the sidebar) or go to the Contact Page in the menu bar to send me an email. I think we’ve spent quite enough time talking… time to put our money where our mouths are and try to make some good come of all this.