I was just thinking last week how sad it was that no one was really doing Blog Hops anymore… and here comes Hand Gallop to save the day, with a good one too.

“It’s fun to try new stuff and experiment with the latest goodies, but I’m curious to know what your every day tack setup is like.”

I love stuff. I especially love my stuff. Well most of it anyway. It’s taken me a long time to accrue a collection that I’m happy with.

Dressage:

Devoucoux Makila saddle – I love her. I love her so much. It seemed like it took forever to get here from Germany when I bought her on eBay, but she was worth it.

Total Saddle Fit calfskin leathers – I keep meaning to review these because I’m pretty “meh” about them, but they work.

Royal Rider flex irons – I think we’ve all heard quite enough about all my stirrups by now.

PS of Sweden Flying Change bridle – Another “love” item, especially with the blue Metallic Rock browband that now lives permanently on this bridle.

Nunn Finer Piaffe girth – finding the right dressage girth has been quite a journey… it took 5 different models of girths until I finally found one we both like.

Riding Warehouse logo dressage pad – a nice basic lighter weight everyday pad that was SUPER cheap, and I like being able to rep my favorite online tack shop in the process, so win-win.

Ogilvy dressage half pad – Henry likes his Ogilvy’s. I like my Ogilvy’s. Done.

Dressage boots – I don’t remember the brand, I bought them from SprinklerBandit. They’ve served their purpose perfectly, but I’m upgrading to these sooner or later. Because navy. He also lives in bell boots 24/7.

Bit – copper lozenge link loose ring.  That’s what he seems to like the most right now, so I go with it.

Jumping:

CWD SE02 saddle – I bought this used from France many years ago for a pittance and it’s been such a great saddle for me (and miraculously managed to fit every horse I’ve had pretty well). One day I’ll probably venture into the land of the monoflap, but for now this one is still trucking right along like a champ.

Schleese calfskin leathers – another eBay steal, many years old.

MDC S Flex irons – again,  I think we’ve all heard quite enough about all my stirrups by now.

PS of Sweden Olympic Revolution bridle – my favorite PS bridle. All the awesome features typical of PS but with classic, simple styling. It sports the Go Sweden browband… not because I’m a fan of Sweden in particular, just because it’s my colors.

PS of Sweden High Five breastplate – I always jump in a breastplate, personal preference. Usually the High Five but if I’m in a hurry sometimes I’ll use my Ovation.

random leather girth – I have no idea what brand it is, just that it’s leather with elastic on both sides, has a dee attached in the middle, and was $25 on English Tack Trader. All my favorite things.

Ogilvy jump pad – see previous note about Ogilvy’s. ❤

Bobbigee’s baby pad – I love all my custom Bobbygee’s pads.

Norton Boots – I usually put on his blue set of open fronts and hind ankles for jumping lessons, although sometimes he goes bare legged. In the picture he was bare legged because I was too lazy to walk to my car to get his boots.

Bit – He jumps in the same bit he does dressage in.

Conditioning work/hacking:

frankenbridle – my extra shitty Royal Sports head stall with a leather sidepull and fancy beta reins with blue rubber grips. It is one ugly mother effer of a bridle, but it works.

Otherwise he usually wears the same stuff that we jump in, but with the dressage boots.

Trying to take pictures of this horse alone is impossible, and I’ve learned he hates dress up. His attention span is about 3 seconds before he’s off hunting for food or glaring at me for changing his outfit yet again. The things we do for the sake of the blog…

Several of you expressed a desire to hear things from Bobby’s perspective, and well – be careful what you wish for, because here you go. Behold Bobby’s first ever guest blog post, and remember: you did this to yourselves.

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Confessions of an Epic Stepbrother (Gregory McGuire fans will like my play on words!) by Bobby

I have heard all the requests from my fans, begging asking for a blog post from MY point of view, and I’m here to deliver. FINALLY you all get to hear the real story behind Amanda, or as I refer to her (at the top of my lungs across the barnyard) “YO, CHANCE”  – which usually gets me the finger. Don’t be fooled by her quasi-friendly blogger persona… she ain’t.

There are just so many stories I could tell that show the other, untold side of our Bobby/Amanda adventures…

like the washed up two-time Olympian becoming our wannabe bestie and clearly wanting to be MUCH more with Amanda (not mentioning any nationality hopping names)…

or the story of how the ‘Course Walks with Bobby’ came about…

or Pimp cups…

or Plastic tack (WHICH IS FABULOUS YA’LL)…

But of all these delicious possibilities, I’ve actually decided to focus my first Tell All on the story of Texas Rose and Amanda’s big move up to Novice. Now she’s spoken of how bored she was at BN and pondered at great length the pros and cons of moving up to Novice at Texas Rose – she even had a couple blogs about it.  She made it sound like Texas Rose was her great decision, and hers alone. Well, I am here to tell you that’s BS.

First of all, I harassed her and harassed her to go to Texas Rose and she told me no, due to a wedding she had to attend.  It was a baseball themed wedding that was serving no cheese. NO cheese.  I repeat: baseball theme, NO cheese.

Second of all, Amanda has many nicknames for me, but her favorite is ‘Sandbagger’. It’s not my fault I’m basically unbeatable at Beginner Novice.  Knowing Amanda, the REAL motivation for moving up to Novice was for no other reason than to give justification to my nickname and to shame me into moving up as well.  She’s been showing Henry for a much shorter time than I’ve shown Halo, so mission accomplished… she’s that calculated.

Well, needless to say Amanda went to TX Rose so you can see who won that one, although I’m not sure if it was because of my persistence or if she finally acquired too many t-shirts and felt the need to show them off to people. Either way, I am the one that deserves all the credit for a successful move-up, not her. We all know she’s a shitshow when I’m not around.

On August 29^th I will go Novice at Corona – however, she threatened me with a throat punch if I am in her division. Why you so scared, CHANCE?

Hopefully the throat punch will come AFTER our ‘Course Walks with Bobby’ as I am not sure I can do head stands while coughing, and I wouldn’t want to let down my legions of adoring fans.

CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!!!  (HONK, HONK, HONK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Cheers, bitches! Until next time…

There are a few really big name riders/trainers coming to our area this winter for clinics, and I’ve been giving them a bit of thought. I’ve only done one clinic before, way back in 2003ish with Phyllis Dawson. To be honest, I really got nothing out of it. I don’t remember a single thing about it except for her telling me how much she hated Waterford bits (what my horse at the time was going in, because she pulled like a freight train and the Waterford was magic). That experience put me off a bit.

But now Henry and I have jumped into this eventing thing with all 6 of our feet and I have actual goals that include possibly another level beyond the one we’re at. We also don’t get super frequent instruction over fences, and almost never have XC schools with a trainer present (if we’re counting, we’ve had a supervised XC school a grand total of twice) so maybe we would actually get some useful tidbits out of a weekend clinic. Of course, my devil’s advocate side says we’d probably get just as many useful tidbits from a weekend XC school with one of our other local trainers, and I have one planned in July. There’s still something kind of fun about the idea of riding with a big name and the possibility of gleaning a little extra wisdom from their wealth of experience.

The thing I’m stuck on is – are they really worth the money? By the time you factor in the cost of the clinic, the cost to the facility, the stall, the gas money, the hotel, etc etc it would probably cost me as much as a recognized event. That’s not astronomical, but it’s not chump change either, especially when your budget isn’t exactly overflowing with extra cash.

I know that whether or not a two day clinic is really worthwhile depends a lot on who the clinician is, which has factored into my thought process as well. Of the ones that are coming down here, really only two interest me: Buck Davidson and Boyd Martin. From reading articles, clinic reviews, and watching videos, I’d probably lean more toward Buck (too bad because Boyd is dreamy AF and it’d be nice to stare at that for 3 days) but would need to look into both of them more.

I also have the possibility of clinicing with Charles de Kunffy at some point this year. Not as expensive as Buck or Boyd, but still not cheap for a 45 minute ride.

What do you think – are big name clinics worth the expense, or are you better off just using that money to take more lessons with your regular trainers?

The weekend started out with a lot of promise. We had gotten a couple rainy days last week so were unable to ride except for hacking down the road, but the sun came out towards the end of the week and we were hopeful that things would dry up. A couple of new things arrived in the mail for Henry – a new bonnet from If the Bonnet Fits, and a new-to-us Nunn Finer Piaffe dressage girth. This is now the FIFTH dressage girth I’ve bought for this horse in an attempt to find just the right one, and finally – FINALLY – I think we’ve got a winner. More on both items coming up soon.

On Saturday we hauled over to Dressage Trainer’s covered arena for lessons. Henry hadn’t really been ridden in a week, save for one road hack, and for him he was actually a little wild. There was someone else riding in the arena during our lesson and every time she smacked her very lazy horse with the whip, Henry got more and more worried that she was going to come beat him next. It was not our best lesson, he was a little tense and dragging me in the down transitions, but it had some good moments. Mostly I’m just happy we actually got to ride.

And then it rained. And rained and rained and rained some more. Sunday we had plans for a barn-wide road hack and mimosas, but it looked like we were gonna get rained out.

Still, we are alcoholics troopers, so we sat in the barn drinking our mimosas while it rained. I let Henry sniff mine and he stuck his entire tongue in to taste it (he said EW). I drank it anyway, because it’s never going to stop raining and we’re never going to ride regularly again and I need a coping mechanism whether it’s got horse slobber in it or not.

When the clouds parted we all jumped on and actually managed to have perfect timing. We fit our little road ride in and were settled back in the barn before it started raining again.

Y’all need a better picture to fully appreciate my shirt… Bobby got this for me for Texas Rose. Yes that’s a rainbow butterfly caticorn. I can think of nothing more magnificent. Bobby loves me.

Sadly we’re rained out of our riding plans for today and tomorrow but hopefully the sun will come out and start drying things up. Surely it will eventually… right?

Oh, and for those wondering how Sadie is doing – she actually regressed after I posted last week and is now holding steady in the “maybe any minute, maybe two weeks from now” stage. I really wouldn’t expect anything less from her, she’s gonna toy with us until the end.

I was pretty ridiculously ants-in-my-pants excited while waiting to get these pictures. Terrie Hatcher was the photographer and she does really beautiful work, plus Texas Rose Horse Park is such a gorgeous facility – it was the perfect storm for great pics. Not to mention the fact that it was Henry’s first Novice and I wanted as much media as possible of my superpony. I was hopeful that Terrie would get some good shots and I’m certainly not disappointed! I will probably go back and buy more but here are the first five, starting with my new absolute favorite photo of Henry ever:

Thanks Terrie for the beautiful pictures! This is why it’s so important to support our really good photographers – we need them to keep coming back to help us make the memories into treasures. Great pictures are truly irreplaceable.