The serious part came on Saturday morning, but let’s start with something a little more exciting.

As I mentioned last week, Henry’s new PS of Sweden Flying Change bridle came on Thursday (it shipped on Monday from Sweden -beat that) so I spent Friday night getting to know it a little better and conditioning it. I also used that as an opportunity to try out my new Higher Standards leather balm, one of my awesome Xmas gifts from my barn buddy Brandy (aka Auf der Autobahn). It worked pretty well, I just rubbed in one liberal coat with my hands and it softened right up. God I love this bridle. It’s freakin gorgeous, and that’s saying something because I generally hate black tack. And as has proven typical – really impressed with the design/functionality from the PS of Sweden guys. We’ll explore that more in a later post, but here’s another gorgeous picture of it.

On Saturday morning Brandy and I met up at Gold’s Gym for a spin class. We’ve been talking about getting a membership and hitting the gym together but we wanted to check it out first. I used to do spin all the time when I did triathlon, and honestly I LOVE it. You could not pay me enough to do any other type of group class, especially Zumba, but spin = awesome. Toward the end of the last set of high resistance jumps I was pretty sure my heart was going to explode out of my ear. Sounds awesome right? They were running a special for membership, so after class we joined the gym. Now we’re committed! When they were taking our information they asked who to notify in case we dropped dead, and we informed them that we always wear bracelets with our medical information because we ride horses. They seemed a little perplexed by that for some reason. Then Brandy and I texted back and forth all afternoon about which body parts hurt the most (basically my entire skeleton and all of my muscles, so no big deal)… this is the beginning of something great. Horribly painful, but great. It’s far past time to get serious about getting back into better shape – all this dressage nonsense is going to kill me otherwise. Plus I really owe it to my pony to not flop around like a big fat sack of potatoes, my riding is questionable enough as it is. We’re spinning again tonight and tomorrow.

Then it was a quick trip to the barn to graze the boys (still a little too muddy to ride), who are ridiculous

then more Xmas shopping and present wrapping, with a helper.

Saturday night we did Christmas with my family, since my brother was in town with his wife and son. We ate, we opened presents, we took pictures, and then we headed off downtown for an x-mas themed Master Pancake comedy show. Everything they do is hilariously inappropriate, and that show was no exception.

Sunday I crawled out of bed with fairly tolerable aches and pains. I hauled my butt out to the barn in the afternoon, hopped into an unplanned lesson, and rode my pony for the first time since Tuesday. The light week was partly intentional and partly because of the weather, and then I realized it’s only 3 weeks until our next show. Oops, better get ourselves together. We’ll talk about the lesson tomorrow.

One and half more days of work and then I’m off til the 29th! Can’t wait, I need a break.

Just a little update/announcement about the logo contest. Thanks to everyone who has submitted something so far… I’ve gotten almost forty logos already! Really excited about the level of participation and the quality of the submissions I’ve gotten so far. Making a final decision is going to be really tough. Because of that I’ve decided to add a second and third place prize both to sweeten the pot and to extend as many thanks as possible. I wish I could give something to everyone!

The runner up will be getting a gift certificate for a custom Firefly bonnet.

The second runner up will be getting an Ogilvy baby pad from Luxe EQ.

If you haven’t gotten those logos in yet – you’ve got until December 31st!

Now, on to December’s 10 questions from Viva Carlos:

1. What size horse do you prefer to ride? Whatever takes up my leg nicely. I prefer something that isn’t too slab sided but isn’t super wide either… height-wise I don’t really care. I’ve owned everything from a medium pony to 17.2h, but my favorite height in general is 15.3 to 16.2 – IME that’s the best height for max athleticism but less soundness issues.

 

2. Do you school in tall boots or half chaps and paddock boots? Tall boots.

3. What do you do with your ribbons after shows? usually I chunk them in my car or the closet or a tack trunk and they’re not seen again for many months. Eventually they meet the trash can. Henry’s latest one is actually hanging on his stall though (collecting dust).

4. Do you ride/board at a large show barn or a small private barn?  It’s a pretty decent sized barn, with 3 different trainers – two h/j and one eventing.

5. Have you ever seen a horse give birth? Many. Side effect of working at a breeding farm. 😉 You haven’t lived until you’ve been elbows deep in horse placenta.

6. What is your favorite breed? TBs and warmbloods – mostly the Holsteiner lines, more specifically the C lines (both, but anything Cassini in particular – which should be no surprise since he’s one C line crossed with the other).

7. Favorite tack brand? PS of Sweden and CWD

8. Would you ever buy used tack? I love buying used, you get great deals that way. I would be hard pressed to ever buy a new saddle unless I needed something super custom.

9. Ever been on a carriage ride? Once or twice.

10. How often do you go to the tack store? Probably a couple times a month, usually just for things like treats and salt blocks, plus mobiles at shows. I can’t resist a mobile.

I figured it’s ok to post this since he doesn’t have thumbs and therefore is unlikely to access the Internet and ruin his surprise.

1. Coggins/yearly shots! You might be thinking “That’s an awful present” but you have to look at it from Henry’s point of view. A) He gets lots of treats. B) He gets a couple days off. Definite win.

2. New blankets! Since the other ones don’t really fit him right, and these were on crazy good sale. Hopefully this eases our shoulder rub issues. He got a new sheet:

And a new lightweight blanket:

His clothes don’t match, but I don’t think he cares.

3. New dressage bridle and fancy browband from PS of Sweden. Ok I’m probably more excited about this than he is but it’s so pretty. My preciiooousss. Even more exciting, they should be here today. Not that I’m stalking UPS or anything.

And the two things that will definitely top Henry’s list:

4. A bucket of NickerMakers. He loves these gross cheap things, so who am I to say no?

5. A special Christmas Day bran mash. Because he’s spoiled rotten.

 

What is your horse getting for Christmas?

 

 

 

 

 

There’s not a lot going on here that’s noteworthy. Henry’s been good, the weather has been gorgeous (Texas in winter = winning), and I’ve got no new riding pictures/video. But when I was scrolling through the pics on my phone I noticed something… I’ve got some serious horse people problems.

First, my car. There’s a lot of problems happening here. #1 – yes that’s a metal trashcan strapped into the front seat. I had to go to 3 stores to find said metal trashcan, and I needed metal so that it was rat proof. #2 – it’s strapped in because it’s full of baggies (that took me an hour to make) with rice bran nuggets, MSM, and DMG. #3 – it’s in the front seat because there’s a GIANT TACK TRUNK taking up the entire back seat. Don’t ask questions, just nod and move on. Oh, and we’re not talking about how dirty said vehicle is. So many #horsepeopleproblems.

If your helmet monogram is crooked by just millimeters it’ll bother you forever. That’s a sentence you don’t hear every day. #horsepeopleproblems

The amount of expletives that come pouring out when your beloved Amigo sheet gives your horse blanket rubs, even though it didn’t last year. So you buy him a fancy shoulder guard, which just gives him bigger rubs. AAAGGGHHHH! #horsepeopleproblems

I always wonder what someone would think if my phone ever got stolen and they went through my Notes. Lesson highlights wouldn’t make a bit of sense to someone who doesn’t have #horsepeopleproblems

and they’d be really disappointed when they realized just how useless a TIP or USEF number is to them

And finally, if your next 3 months look something like this, and you have to keep track of it with your phone lest you double book, you definitely have #horsepeopleproblems

 

 

We’ve all seen a lot lately about the demise of the horse show photographer. I understand their plight and I sympathize… I really do. Even in the days where everyone has a friend with a nice camera, there’s nothing quite like a really nice, gorgeous professional photo. I have lots of them floating around, two of which are in my office at work

Another of which hangs in the hallway in my house

one of which would hang somewhere if I would ever frame it

and a bunch more scattered around random places, plus obviously all over my facebook. Mostly I buy digital images for social media use, but occasionally I’ll get a print. I’ve had a lot of pro photographer interactions by now.

However, a recent one with a shall-remain-nameless photographer really left me a little dumbstruck.

First, a week or so before the event an email was sent out letting us know that this certain photographer would be there and provided a link to their website. The site was very hard to read – gray background with white font, obviously homemade from a very rudimentary template, difficult to navigate, etc. However, I can live with that part. What really struck me was this paragraph:

“For now, we shall not be charging for proofs from the other Horse Trials we photograph.  But shall take that step if sales drop.  The all images package sales for those shows still cover our expenses – but not by much.

Our early bird and on-site all images packages are less than the $155 charged by another Area V photographer and our non-discounted full price is far less than the Premium Package ($325 or onsite price of $275) of yet another eventing photographer.  Consider yourselves lucky you do not compete at quarterhorse shows.  At a recent one in Waco, the show photographer was charging $179 for ONE IMAGE with a commercial release.  And people were buying!”

Uhhh. Wha? Consider myself lucky??? I’ve never seen any professional website that so willingly tossed out the prices of competitors (especially in a not-directly-comparable circumstance) or essentially threatened to charge for proofs if sales dropped. This is why I did not opt for the early bird package. The lack of professionalism displayed there was a real turn-off for me. That and I couldn’t find enough pictures to tell how good their work actually was anyway.

Fast forward to after the event, and they post that proofs are available on a first come first serve basis if you email them. Well that’s kinda weird, but ok, curiousity killed the cat. I had to see what they got. A few days later I got an email back that was just a zip file attachment. The only text was “please open the attached zip folder”. No information on ordering, no hello, no nothing. Okie dokie then, no time wasted on pleasantries…

So I open the zip file to find lots of proofs. Yay, right? Wrong. They are all thumbnail size with the word PROOF written across them in bright opaque yellow. In most of the pictures I can’t really even tell if it’s me and my horse, much less if I want to actually buy the picture. I can’t see his face, I can’t see my face, I can’t see my position, I can’t see how his legs/body look. That’s frustrating, and kind of a waste of time for everyone involved, especially the person who put together all those proofs. How am I supposed to buy a picture when I can’t actually see it? I understand the need to prevent people from stealing proofs, but there are ways to do that while still allowing people to see the actual picture underneath.

I could see enough of one picture to think I wanted it, so I emailed back asking how to order, since remember there was no information sent with the pictures nor was their any information on the website. I was told I’d get an email invoice the next morning. Two days pass and nada, then I get an email asking if I’d gotten the Paypal notice. I said no, and that if it’s going to be via Paypal it needed to go to X address. Later that day I got an invoice, I paid it, and the next day I had the picture in my inbox. That part went fairly smoothly. Ready to be puzzled?

After all of that… all the effort going into protecting their images and making the proofs impossible to steal (or even view), the photo didn’t even have a mark on it. No signature, no watermark, nothing. There’s no way for anyone looking at it to know whose work that is. Social media is free advertising, people! When you go to such great lengths to complain about the industry in general on your website and prevent image stealing, then not even mark your work… it’s baffling.

Here’s the deal, photographers: I am more than willing to buy your work, and pay you fairly for it. But a) it has to be good b) make it easy for me to view the proofs c) make it easy for me to pay you d) try to be at least somewhat professional and not make yourself sound borderline crazy. By helping me, you help yourself. I would have probably bought 4 or 5 more pictures if it hadn’t been so difficult and the proofs had been reasonably viewable.

I’d like to say this was the first negative photographer experience I’ve had but it’s definitely not. Between badly timed/poorly exposed pictures, or pictures that took SIX MONTHS to show up after payment, I can understand why this business can be so tough for some people. All the talent in the world does not help you if you’re a poor businessman, and conversely being a good businessman does not help you if you lack talent. To the ones who do it well: thank you! Please come to my events and take my money.