Good news first: guess who’s going to Belgium?

Moving on…

Beka of The Owls Approve has started a cool new blog hop series centered around our ponies. I can’t resist that, because there’s nothing I like talking about more than my ponies. My non-horse friends and SO are painfully aware of this given that I struggle to come up with more than 5 words to say about anything non-horse related.

Before you met, where was your horse?  Who bred him/her?  What do you know about his sire and his dam?  What do you know where he came from?  Tell me about the time before he had a trainer.

I guess I’ll answer for both of my horses…

Sadie: I bred her. I leased her dam, picked the stallion, paid for the semen, had it shipped in from Canada, paid the vet, waited a year, and voila – baby horse. I knew her dam very well and felt like I had a good sense of the stallion from his owner and some friends of mine that knew him (Westporte). I was the first person to put my hands on her and there is zero mystery for me to Sadie, which is really nice. I know her as well as anyone could possibly know a horse… everything she’s ever done and everything that’s ever happened to her. There is no “before me” time.

 

 

Henry is obviously more of a mystery but I still know quite a bit about him compared to most of the other horses I’ve bought. He’s a 2007 Arkansas born and bred TB by the stallion Skeet out of a mare named Lona Thump. I have never been able to find anything on Skeet other than the farm he used to stand at and some old racing photos. Not a clue where he is now, and I don’t know anything about his dam. I was able to trace Henry back to his breeder though, found her phone number online and called her. She was a very nice older lady who just had him and one other young horse at the time, and she remembered him but didn’t seem that interested in staying updated on him so I haven’t called her back. She bred him and owned him until he was 4 but never raced him… she said he was always more interested in eating than running. “The only thing he ran to was the feed bucket”, exact quote.

Her vet found him a non-racing home, although I’m not totally sure who it was with – this is the only gap in his timeline that I wasn’t able to fill. From there he went to an eventing/jumper trainer who showed him in the hunters a couple times and had him for sale (for quite a bit more than what I ended up paying), then started doing some other stuff with him. She said he got kinda fried so she turned him out to decompress, and almost a year later I bought him out of the field sight unseen.

 

Hard to believe it’s been almost a year now!

This past weekend I had a little photo shoot in an attempt to get some good pics of Henry’s PS of Sweden bridle and quarter sheet for upcoming review posts. Because we all know the outtakes are the best part anyway, I will waste no more words and leave you with only captions.

We’re special.

Remember, this is why this is happening. Here. I have to go here, and see this.

Boy this was a tough list to make. I like all of these things, and some of them (like the Ovation bridle and the Chetak boots) are really difficult to replace, so I’ve been holding on to them for years even though I almost never use them. So make it quick, buy this stuff, and put me out of misery. Belgium better happen and it better be worth it. If you’re interested in anything shoot me an email at charliebrowntb (at) hotmail (dot) com. I prefer Paypal and shipping is not included in prices. Please keep in mind that between my work schedule and my horse and my real life, it can sometimes take me a few days to get things shipped out. If you need it ASAP just let me know and I’ll see what I can do to make it happen.

 

RJ Classics size 8R black hunter shadbelly. Comes with the original yellow points and reversible custom points, blue diamond pattern on one side and burgundy tone on tone floral pattern on the other. Only worn a few times. – $100

Horse size raised fancy stitched Ovation bridle with matching raised fancy laced reins. – SOLD

Dressage bridle parts. These are a mixture of Dover’s Crown line, Bobby’s, and Delfina but I don’t remember anymore which is what. There is a black browband with clear rhinestones (never used), horse size black crank flash noseband (never used), black leather reins with buckle ends (never used), black crown piece (guessing cob – looks smaller), and a used black flash strap. – $50

blue Medium Horseware washable technical jacket. SOLD

Black Tipperary XC vest SOLD

Horse size Chetak open front boots and hind ankle boots. SOLD

Tory premium leather draw reins with snaps, 108″ per side. Comes with girth loop attachment. – $25

OTTB baby pad, I had this custom made with a jumping horse OTTB logo. White with black trim. Measures 21″ down the spine. Good condition, some staining under the bottom edge of the flap. $20

Bag o’ Crap – A bunch of odds and ends that come as a lot. One Gel Eze leg wrap/anti slip, used but no holes brown Ariat Heritage gloves, navy lycra tail bag never used, one fillis iron with cheesegrater pad (other was lost when package was damaged so it has no mate), two navy standing wraps, one neoprene hock boot, a pair of dee savers, and a pair of never used elastic and nylon side reins. It’s all tossed in a Dover tote and ready to live at your house instead of mine. – $50

And for local Austin area people, I have a nice small wooden tack trunk with bandage lid, measures 28″ long, 20″ tall, 16″ wide. Perfect for shows, not very heavy, is easy to move around, and will fit in a car. Asking $200. Yes I’ll clean my crap out before you come get it.

First: on Friday I got the one pro picture that I ordered from our event. My experience with the photographer was… interesting and unusual to say the least, but that is a long and winding rant story for another day. Until then, I present SUPER WATER PONY!

Last Thursday’s dressage lesson was a hard one for Henry (we’re starting to ask for more difficult work from him) so I decided to keep the weekend pretty low key to give his brain a break. He tries so hard that sometimes he gets flustered and upset when he’s learning new stuff but can’t quite figure it out, thus I wanted to just take all the pressure off and let him do things that are fun and easy. Saturday my fabulous photo-taking friend Amy was able to come back out, and I really wanted to get some pictures of things for upcoming blog reviews, so I just did a short hack out in the field then I got off and we played photo shoot.

I wasn’t going to share any of the non-riding pictures until later, but my pony looks so darn handsome I can’t help but pick a few. Sorrynotsorry.

On Sunday I put his hackamore on, tossed on my Ogilvy pad to spare my lady bits, and hopped on for a bareback hack. One of the recurring themes in my dressage lessons is that I tend to get stiff and tense in my hips, which in turn translates to the horse. I’ve been working a lot on loosening my hips, following the movement, not gripping with my upper thigh etc. Bareback, especially on my bouncy ball of a horse, is fantastic for that. You grip and tense up – you bounce and fall off and die. You loosen your thighs and let your hips go with the motion – you’re golden. So we spent about 20 minutes just walking around the property then did 10-15 minutes of flatwork in the field. No bit and no saddle shines a really big spotlight on how effective your aids are, and Henry was super. He is such an honest horse that he really goes however well you ride him. Which I believe is true of the vast majority of horses, but it’s especially true of this one, pretty much 100% of the time. He teaches me just as much as I teach him, if not more.

At the end I tried to get him to turn his head so I could get a picture. He wasn’t that interested.

So I bribed him with a cookie.

And got blurry shark horse. Picture fail.

Aside from that it was a fairly uneventful weekend, which is kinda what I needed and wanted after the previous week. I did manage to gather all my sale stuff together, clean it, and get pictures. I’ll have all that up tomorrow.

We also put our Christmas tree up! SO kept grumbling something about me having too many horse ornaments. I dunno what the heck he’s talking about, personally.

First, thanks to everyone who shared and/or expressed interest in my logo contest. I’m super excited to see what y’all come up with! I also decided that if I get enough entries, or several really awesome ones that make picking a winner hard, I will offer smaller prizes to the 2nd and 3rd place logos as well. Not sure yet exactly what those will be, but something cool. I promise.

In other news, I had a dressage lesson last night. I’ve figured out by now that dressage just hurts. It hurts my brain, hurts my legs, hurts my abs, and hurts my pride. You win, dressage… you win. But lookie at how cool the Tardis Blue Annie’s breeches look! I’m pretty in love with them – best breech color ever. Thanks Annie’s!

If you haven’t seen it already, Now That’s the Spot is hosting another blog hop tack swap, so if you’re looking for good deals or have anything else you want to clear out before the holidays, go check it out. I’ll be going through my stuff this weekend and posting next week so I can start trying to accrue money for Belgium. Buy things.

On that sad “I’m so horse poor” note… Henry’s almost-favorite Santa (he has many because he’s an extra good boy) is gifting him with a PS of Sweden dressage bridle. He was gracious enough to let me pick which one, so I’ve narrowed it down to two:

the Flying Change Revolution (comes with a plain leather browband)

Super gorgeous customer photo here

or the High Function Revolution

Happy Friday!