I feel like social media is very quick to point out when companies or brands do something bad/wrong. Which is totally fair… I appreciate knowing things like that so I can take it into consideration when buying something. There have definitely been several times that I’ve used my own social media and blog to vent and warn people about situations that I was frustrated with or times that I had a dissatisfactory experience.

I also make an effort to commend these companies when they do something great, or go above and beyond. So today I’ve got two goods and one bad to share… settle in for story time, my friends.

It just occurred to me that I also talked about Romitelli the other day, letting me switch out the custom boots I ordered for something else because I didn’t like how they came out. They get some bonus points for that also.

On that note, let’s start with good ones.

I think at this point a lot of saddle brands – particularly French ones – have a bad reputation, the CWD/Devoucoux conglomerate of brands in particular. So many of them are known to have horrific customer service, or – best case scenario – your experience depends entirely on your rep and how honest/willing they are to stand by their product. Unfortunately a lot of those brands also seem to run through reps like Kleenex, so… that part becomes a bit sketchy. The internet is full of horror story after horror story of saddles that don’t fit and the brand refuses to make it right, or just completely ghosts people, or what they got isn’t what they ordered, etc etc.

I had never ordered a new saddle before so that was something that really freaked me out last year when I was thinking about buying something. Its a lot of money to fork over to someone you don’t really trust. Which probably makes my decision to go with Arion even more head-scratching, being that they’re a newer brand, but 1) I knew the FL rep via a friend, outside of his involvement with the company, 2) I dunno y’all, I just had a good juju feeling, ya know?

And I will say with confidence that they will stand behind their products 100%. Let me tell you what had happened.

Everything went pretty smoothly when I ordered. Rep came out, I tried saddles, horse got fitted, I ordered, saddle came like 4-5 weeks later (which is insanely fast for a custom saddle, most companies were telling me 12-16 weeks). They did forget to do the blue piping that I’d ordered around the cantle, but they offered to either take it back and put the piping on, or I could have some accessories for free. I chose the accessories because honestly I didn’t love their blue that much anyway, it was a little bright, and I was by that point already questioning my commitment to the blue. Worked out fine. I love my saddle.

Fast forward a bit and the bottom of one flap was starting to wear weird. I sent a pic of it to my rep, who responded immediately and said “it shouldn’t look like that, let me talk to the owner of the company.”. Half an hour later I have a text back that says it looked like a defect, they basically went too deep with the stitching so it caused a weak spot there in the leather, and they would make a new saddle for me for free.

They did want to check the fit again on my horse though before they re-made it, since it’s been almost 10 months and Presto is a young horse, which could mean he had changed since the first fitting. I appreciated that, and their desire to make sure it was right. In the meantime there was a different rep, Kristin, that was specific to the Ocala for the winter season (my original rep was based in Wellington), and when I saw her set up at one of the shows we got to chatting and I mentioned the whole situation to her. When I saw Kristin again last weekend at TerraNova she was like “Did you get your new saddle ordered?” and I was like “You know what, no I haven’t done that yet.” and she immediately offered to put me on her schedule for this week. Even though she wasn’t the rep I originally went through, and none of this is her issue to solve. She knew it would be faster and easier for me since she was already here in town, so she offered that to me completely of her own free will, which I appreciate a lot. She didn’t know me from Adam, there was no reason for her to offer me that.

Kristin came out on Tuesday and immediately thought that we should change the panel configuration a bit. Presto is definitely wider than he was last June, and she thought he needed a bit more room in the tree. She had me ride in one of her demos that had a slightly different spec with the panel, simulating the fit she wanted, and I could definitely tell a difference at the canter, so I think she’s spot on with that. When I mentioned that I wished they had glitter piping (their sample photos only have a few basic colors) Kristin was like “Oh we can order that if you want it!”. Um, yas please. Give meh the glitterrrrr.

So now I have a whole brand new saddle coming, with an updated fit to the panel, and black glitter piping – even thought its been almost a year since I ordered the first one. It should be here in about a month, so stay tuned for the conclusion of this story, but I have to say that I’m extremely pleased with Arion’s customer service and their willingness to stand behind their product and make sure that’s it’s 100% right. A lot of other companies would not have gone to anywhere near this length, that’s for certain. They have been so incredibly pleasant to deal with, and their company seems to have a heavy emphasis on customer service. It actually feels like you’re working with the whole company instead of just the rep. It’s refreshing.

Good story number 2 is (thankfully) much shorter. This one goes to Design by Dalia Lehmann, a Polish company.

A few weeks ago I lost my whip, so I had to go into Tack Shack to order a new one. I love my black and silver glitter theme, but it does make for a mega-boring whip that isn’t very distinct, so after much deliberation (like SO MUCH… color is hard for me) I opted to add a little purple to it. I got black with a purple stripe, a silver glitter stripe, purple stitching on the popper, and silver lightning bolts on the popper. It’s not bright but it’s still fun, and purple was my mom’s favorite color so it’s a bit of an homage to her.

I ordered the whip and, because of who I am as a person, I was like “you know what I need – A SHOW COAT TO MATCH IT”. Specifically this one, which has had a grip on me for several years.

I’m pretty sure I’ve posted it here before. I dunno why I love it so much but I just do. The super dark purple, the black crystals… it’s just chef’s kiss. Did I need it, no. Did I want it, yes. Y’all know how this goes.

So I left it in the hands of fate and decided that if I could find a good enough coupon code, that would be a sign from the gods to buy it. I looked around for a while and discovered that I’d actually missed a coupon code by just two days. Dangit. No coat for me then I guess. I commented on the post something like “Darn, saw this a couple days too late!”, not thinking much of it, and within 5 minutes they had PM’d me a coupon code to use.

Look y’all, who am I to spit in the eye of the gods. Clearly it was their will.

But really though, I appreciate that the company did that for me because they certainly didn’t have to. They could have just as easily ignored me or vaguely hinted at a future sale, or some such thing that most places probably would have done. This is the story of how I became the owner of a coat I know my mom would have totally loved.

Now we’ve saved the worst for last. Or mostly just… the confusing one? The annoying one? I dunno, I’m puzzled by it.

Back during the Christmas/New Year’s time frame Empire Research, a supplement company, was doing several days of giveaways. Most of the days were to win a certain supplement, and then the grand prize last day was the entire product line. They have a salt and an oil and some cookies that I was interested in, so I entered and won. They tagged me in the post, sent me a PM asking me for my address, and I shared the post to my stories as a thank you.

Nothing ever showed up. I have messaged them several different times for an update. The first time they told me they had already sent it and it should have been delivered, and they said they’d look into it. I never heard back. A couple weeks later I messaged them again, no response. A couple weeks later I tried again, still no response. They’ve read all my messages. I’ve given up.

Did they “wrong” me? No. But it does leave kind of an icky taste to do a big giveaway thing, clearly pick the entrant with the most followers as your winner, get your shout out from me, and then ghost me entirely. Like… why? They’ve continued to be active on social media, their website is up and running, so there’s no particular reason that I can find. I’m also not hard to please, if you just respond to my messages and tell me what’s up, I’ll happily wait a really long time. I am the queen of taking forever to do shit because I am a busy human being, so I completely understand that part. But… the reading my messages and choosing not to respond at all part. That part I don’t love. At least respond and tell me something. Now the whole thing just seems sketch.

I have to assume I probably dodged a bullet there with that one?

Have you had any good or bad experiences lately?

Whew it has been a bit of a week. Florida has been treating us to a bit of a summer preview with temps around 90 every day, and I’m going to assume from the fact that I feel like a walking piece of beef jerky that I have not done a very good job of hydrating.

BUT, last week Niamh of Hoof Woof Images was in town! So many visitors lately. She met the herd, petted some babies, and was kind enough to snap some quick pics of Presto. I have no idea how Niamh gets such stunning pictures, but it’s gotta be either magic or witchcraft. Maybe both.

Highly recommend contacting Niamh if you’re looking to book a photog for nice photos. She was also quick, which is a good thing because Presto was seeing actual demons at the end of the barn aisle.

On Thursday Hillary and I left for TerraNova. I was reporting on the 4* for Eventing Nation, and Hillary got to come in an official capacity as well, to help with interviews and social media. On our way out of town we stopped at WEC because our new Romitelli boots had finally arrived.

To be honest I ordered mine under extreme duress (it was a really really bad day) and they didn’t turn out how I had pictured. Originally I wanted them to coordinate with my light blue coat, so I’d ordered black boots with like a pebbly gunmetal top part and light blue stripe. In actual application I didn’t like the top bit I’d picked (too shiny) and the blue was very different from the sample color, so instead of being like the sky blue of my coat it was like a bright, almost bordering on turquoise color. I just didn’t like how it turned out and they def wouldn’t coordinate with my coat. Womp womp.

Luckily Romitelli is very accommodating and helped me look through all the boots in my size that were in the store, the latest shipment, and the storage trailer to see if there was something I liked better. I saw many things, y’all. Many interesting and bright things. But I did really like these dark gray boots with metallic silver accents.

They don’t really go with the light blue coat but they would def go with my black and silver glitter theme, or just look good with all the black I tend to wear at home. So they let me trade mine out for those. Crisis averted. We’ll see how they look with the XC outfit maybe?

After that we were officially en route to TerraNova. It’s only 2.5 hours away but my Ocala-privilege ass has gotten very used to everything being under an hour drive and honestly I have no idea how I used to spend so much time in the car when I lived in Texas. It’s maddening.

But we made it around lunch time, set up our stuff in the media area, and immediately headed out to walk the 4* course, get photos and video, and decide on our plan of attack for XC day.

We only got lost once (totally blaming Will Coleman for that, he saw us walking the wrong way and chose to let nature take it’s course… which I probably would have done as well) but it still took us a couple hours to get everything we needed and for me to wrap my head around all of it well enough to write up the course preview. We headed back to the media area very hot, moist, and dehydrated. Spoiler alert: the entire event would see us in much the same shape.

Anyway, I won’t bore you with the details of what all we did, because the short version is: watch the 4*, write about it, stalk riders for interviews, spend 900 hours trying to pick the right song for a reel, double and triple check info on FEI, shoot video, record literally everything, sweat, eat our weight in italian ice, go to press conferences, and get sunburned no matter how many reapplications of sunscreen occurred.

If you want to see the coverage we did, the course walk is here, recap 1 is here, recap two is here, and Instagram reel 1 (aka an ode to Chin Tonic) is here and reel 2 is here.

On Saturday we apparently forgot all the mistakes we made during the course walk on Thursday and headed out on course to photo/video/watch/walk 4 hours of XC without any liquid sustenance whatsoever. Hillary posted videos on Insta stories like a machine, I took notes, and mostly we just felt like death the whole time as we made our way around the course and tried desperately to find any bit of shade (were we at one point crouching on the ground behind a Novice rolltop? maybe…). Event reporting, is is glamorous.

I didn’t even ride but I still felt like I got run over by a Mack truck pretty much all day yesterday. Today is marginally better.

There’s no rest for the weary though because this week is looking pretty full as well. Better to be too busy than not busy enough! Hope everyone else had a good weekend too.

Now that Rue is out of the fresh-and-wobbly phase of foaldom, it’s time for another fun part of our baby timeline: introducing them to each other.

Now, it’s worth noting that these two girls are very different. Very very very different.

Rihanna almost acts more like a colt. She’s bold and brazen and playful and bossy, and has been far more inclined to use her teeth or feet. She sees humans as toys (to play with) or servants (to scratch her itchy spots).

Rue on the other hand is extremely sweet. Also outgoing and playful, but really loves people and will follow you around like a puppy and neigh for you when you leave. It’s pretty adorable. Rue is kind and wants attention and companionship.

These two really could not have been more appropriately named.

Anyway, their surrogate dams already knew each other and have been living together for a long time, so that made it a pretty easy integration. They basically nodded “whats up” at each other from across the field and went straight to grazing. It took Ri and Rue a few minutes to really notice each other.

Naturally it was Ri that took it upon herself to try to force an introduction.

Rue wasn’t super opposed to it, but Blue was having none of it. She’s pretty convinced that Ri is the neighborhood riff-raff and doesn’t want her kid playing with that one. She kept herding Rue away from any of Ri’s advances.

Goldie of course just ignored all this and stayed in her grassy corner. She has priorities and it ain’t dem kids.

While the girls still haven’t QUITE worked their way into playing with each other yet, they’ve gotten pretty close. Maybe soon. In the meantime Rue has been quite enjoying her larger turnout…

her zoomies are really coming along.

Small business? Check. Woman-owned? Check. Made in the USA? Check. Really damn good product? Check.

Review over.

Just kidding.

For real though, I have to give a big shout to Spot On Braiding Wax. Anyone who has been around the blogosphere for a while might remember California-based Peony and her mare Spot. Former-blogger Peony started this company several years ago, meticulously and painstakingly tweaking her braiding wax formula over time to get it just perfect. I’m not kidding, I was one of the original testers back in the day, and she’s really developed something great.

Prior to Spot On Braiding Wax I had never actually used any kind of wax-based product for braiding before. Water or QuicBraid was the usual go-to. They worked fine and all, but 1) once water dries it’s as if it never really happened at all 2) a lot of horses didn’t love the spray of the QuicBraid, and I didn’t find that it held the flyaways particularly well over the course of the day. It was about as useful as a weak hairspray, IMO.

So the first time I tried the wax, I was intrigued and also skeptical. I’m not sure what I imagined, but I think in my head it was going to be something like the really thick heavy pomade type wax that guys used in generous dallops in the late 90’s to twist their hair into spikes (if you were alive then you know exactly what I’m talking about). Thankfully, this stuff is nothing like that.

The wax comes in an easy to use little tube (like a really fat chapstick, basically), and you get your choice of lavender scent, peppermint scent, or unscented. I am a fan of all three so if you’re looking for my input on what to choose, I’m gonna just say to eeny-meeny-miney -mo it. You can’t go wrong.

I section the hair, swipe a few strokes of wax down the dry hair, then I just braid as usual. It’s easier to use than a spray bottle, takes up less space on your braiding belt (or if you’re me, in your pockets), and is way way way less messy than anything liquid. You also use considerably less of it compared to a spray, and don’t have the side effect of it dripping all over the place.

The real question is, though, how does it work?

A lot better than the sprays. The wax does a way better job of containing the little fly-away hairs, and IMO helps the braid hold it’s shape better. It also makes the hair easier to grip (a soft grip, not a sticky one, if that makes sense), which makes for a better braid job in general, especially if you have a horse like mine who isn’t the most cooperative about standing still. The wax also leaves the hair with a nice natural texture vs the somewhat crunchy texture you get from some of the sprays. It stays in well enough to do it’s job, but it’s also very easy to rinse out at the end of the day. Another perk – it doesn’t leave your hands feeling sticky or smelling gross by the time you’re done braiding.

A big part of that is because it’s made from all natural ingredients – no chemicals and nothing icky. Just a nice blend of Beeswax, Candiella Wax, Shea Butter, Jojoba oil, Coco Capyrlate, Vitamin E, Kaolin Clay, and Sunflower Solubulizer. Nothing that’s bad for you or your horse’s skin!

I am not a good braider by any means, especially not with Presto because he hates having his mane pulled, thus I don’t pull it, thus it’s thick and unruly on the best of days. Kinda matches his vibe, ya know? But the braiding wax does make a huge difference in my ability to execute a braid job that looks perfectly suitable for public consumption and helps keep everything tame throughout the show day.

The wax is currently retailing at $16.99 per tube, which IMO is an extremely reasonable price. I use a lot less of the wax than I do of the sprays, so a tube lasts me a long time. Spot On also sells a really nice waxed thread in a wide variety of mane-matching colors, for those that like to sew their braids in with thread. Peony was nice enough to offer a coupon code for my readers – use BRE5 to get 5% off your order!

To sweeten the deal even more, she also offered a giveaway to one lucky reader. You can win a free tube of braiding wax and a spool of waxed thread – all you have to do is comment below to get one entry, and you can also check out my post on Instagram for info on how to get more entries. Good luck!

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Yes I know, I missed Foal Friday. You have every right to be upset. I didn’t even realize I missed it until Sunday, so… that was a big fail. BUT – I have a very valid excuse that I hope you’ll find acceptable: Friday and Saturday Hillary did her first Training!

She badbitched it, with a double clear XC, so now she and Lex are officially a Training level pair! So anyway yeah… I was morally supporting for that instead of doing Foal Friday. Sincerest apologies. (If you’re a Patreon member I posted some Rue and Ri video in the facebook group to tide you over!)

Last week was pretty busy with other things too. My big project was writing a piece for Eventing Nation about Mighty Magic (that might be posted today? not sure…) that had me calling and interviewing all kinds of people from Andreas Dibowski to Miks Master C’s breeder. It was a lot of coordination and phone tag, and it ended up being the longest piece I’ve written for them yet. Shocking, I know, given the subject matter. I was delighted when I was asked to write something about MM.

We also had aquatred on Monday, which was Presto’s 3rd session total and his first one in a while… their machine was broken for a few weeks. Kind of a bummer because part of the point of doing it was to try to catalog the week over week progress. On Wednesday we also had a jump lesson, where we started putting some bigger stuff back in there. Since show season has been so hot and heavy we’ve just kind of been cruising in between the shows, but this time we had some harder exercises again and the triple combination ended up set pretty big… boob height? However big boob height is.

We’ve also had friends in down visiting… first it was Holly, who some of you may know from blogging. She was here for a week and I think got the pretty good full Ocala experience. She ordered a custom whip and custom boots, and we stuck her on pretty much all the horses while she was here.

Presto, who she thought was a lot of work. She is correct. He is large.

Henry, who she rode a bunch and got to take him XC schooling at Sweet Dixie. He was quite pleased with himself.

And last but not least…

Holly and Nunez got along like a house on fire, it was really quite adorable. She is well suited to the Adult-Riders-On-Ponies lifestyle.

A couple days after Holly left, my friend Stacy came out for a long weekend. It was her first time here and she came to the show with us, we took her to WEC, she got some boots (its like… the thing we do to everyone I guess), and she rode Henry and Presto. She too thought he was a lot of work. Henry was quite delighted to take her over some jumps too… he’s feeling very superior after the last couple weeks. He thinks he’s King Henry God of the Guest Horses (he’s not wrong).

I also perhaps ordered a new custom whip of my own

I’m excited to see how it turns out because it took a lot of debating for me to choose. I don’t like color very much but also just a black and silver whip is boring, so I was trying to figure out what color I could add to it that I wouldn’t hate. In the end I settled on purple, which was my mom’s favorite color. It’ll be black with silver glitter and purple thin stripes, a silver glitter spiral around the handle, and a black soft popper with purple stitching on the edges and a silver embroidered lightning bolt. Hopefully that’ll be distinctive enough to prevent it from walking away (or, uh, me losing it). I’m excited to see how it turns out!

I think that catches you up on most of the happenings around here. Later this week Hillary and I will be down in Sarasota to cover the 4* at TerraNova for EN, but I swear I’ll schedule a Foal Friday post to run while I’m gone. I swear. I don’t want to incite a riot by missing two weeks in a row.