Hillary and I really wanted to take Gemma and Henry on a fun outing before my schedule went completely off the rails pre-move. The last available weekend for that was this past one, which was maybe sooner than I had planned, but… beggars can’t be choosers. We opted for the little XC place down the road since it’s only a 20 minute haul and they have lots of little tiny jumps on their mini XC course. Gemma had not jumped yet (I’ve only ridden her like 7 times? 8 times?) but I figured this could be a good little introduction. My plan was just to lunge her over some logs and ditches and up and down the bank and into the water, and I figured if she was good for all that then I’d get on afterward and hack her around the field.

Spoiler alert: expectations exceeded.

Henry tried to murder her in the trailer (I love him to the moon and back but I swear to god he is such a freaking butthole sometimes) but other than that it was an uneventful trip. Poor Gemma spent the ride over cowering in the back corner as far away from him as she could get. My horses have chestnut mare vs bay gelding stereotype role reversals.

Gemma definitely had some ants in her pants while I was tacking up – she’s been to that facility once before when Henry was doing jumper classes and I just held her next to the ring. It’s a loud and busy place though, at the top of a hill (therefore windy AF and you can see a long way in any direction) with a highway bordering the XC and lots of traffic noise. She wasn’t being naughty or anything, just wide eyed with her head on a swivel. I put her to work on the lunge line, trotting for a few minutes until her eyeballs settled back into her head, and then asking her for lots of transitions to get her focused on me. Once she was listening we went over to some little logs and I asked her to trot over those on the lunge. Which she did. Quite literally. Just… trotted over. As if they were poles. So we walked a little further and found a few slightly bigger things… same reaction. So then I asked her to to canter a couple, which was harder on the lunge line. She still didn’t care. Ok well, this game now seemed stupid. Screw it, I said, I’m getting on.

I walked her up and down the smallest bank first, then trotted a few little logs and boxes. She was too busy looking around at everything else to even notice the jump until the last second, so she had that kind of approach where she did a hardcore wiggle right at the base. I didn’t have a neckstrap (yes hi, was not planning on really riding) so Hillary had to give me one of her stirrup leathers. Once I had that it was a lot easier to just keep my hands hooked on either side of the neck strap to keep the “tunnel” and put my leg on to keep her straight without worrying so much about keeping my hands out of her way or trying to grab mane. My spare neck strap will be living permanently in my trailer from now on so that Hillary doesn’t have to ride around with one stirrup again.

Gemma didn’t quite understand the game yet, since, ya know…. she’d never jumped before, but she was 0% worried about it and never cared about any of the jumps. The only issue she had was that sometimes when we were trotting things her hind feet didn’t quite remember their job, especially if she was too busy looking at something else. I was like well let’s see what happens if I canter stuff. It seemed to me like she might find that it made a little more sense or was easier at the canter (a lot of them do in the beginning since a jump is really just a big canter step, vs when they trot something and have to be more coordinated about all 4 feet). I mean, have I only cantered her like twice before? Yes. But it’s fine. Off we go.

Once she cantered a few jumps it definitely started to click for her more, how she was supposed to use her body. Then the things we trotted were a lot better too. I was also pretty impressed with her ability to also handle the slope and terrain – nothing about that place is flat really, and you’re constantly dodging bushes, so it’s not the easiest scenario for a wiggly greenie. She was very honest though, and even if she got wiggly at the base, as soon as I re-directed and closed my leg she was like “oh ok”. Pretty sure she was convinced I was just an idiot that clearly couldn’t steer around all these things, but she humored me and jumped them, even stringing a few together.

Then we headed back up toward the ditches, banks, and water. I had Henry lead the way over the ditches the first time, which was… ridiculous. Henry paused and took a hard peek down into them before he hopped over, and Gemma didn’t even notice there was a hole in the ground, she walked over like it was groundpoles. Or if she realized it she just didn’t care. Then we trotted over them by ourselves and again, same thing.

Then we went over to the water, which is narrow and dark here – most horses tend to be a bit spooky about it. We had Henry lead the way across it the first time because I thought she might need a lead. Lol. Clearly I do nothing but constantly underestimate Gemma, because she barely even hesitated before marching right in. When we turned back around to walk through it the other way Gemma was having none of the whole “following” business and surged to get ahead of Henry and lead the way herself. Ok then mare.

I trotted her across the water each direction by herself, and again she gave a last second wiggle and peek but she went. Then we went back to the baby bank and trotted up and down it a couple times. Zero hesitation, she plopped right down like a little champ. Up was a little more awkward because ya know… hind feet are hard, but she did it.

To cap it off I cantered one more slightly bigger box, then called it done with that. She’d done more than enough and… um…vastly exceeded the expectation for the day. Nothing like your first time jumping and your first XC school ending up being the same outing.

It was very helpful for me though, to see what she needs to work on most and how I think I should approach the jumping stuff with her. She’s different than I expected her to be, but in a good way. Less reactive and way more bold. I liked that even when she wasn’t sure what I wanted, she never said no, and even if she looked at something, she still went forward. She’s also got a pretty good jump on her I think, and her balance is super. All traits that I can definitely work with. You sometimes just never really know how they’re going to feel about XC until you take them and go do it, but she wasn’t intimidated by it at all… she ate it up. I think she liked cantering around the open fields especially.

We might just have ourselves an event horse!

The first couple weeks of a new foal always remind me of that scene in Family Guy where the mom is trying to just relax and the kid will not leave her alone. Some mares really like this time period when the foals are more clingy and more interested in them (like Peyton the helicopter mom) but others are just like omg kid what do you want? With Inca being a maiden we didn’t know what her reaction would be, but so far it seems to be somewhere in the middle. She likes her baby, and she’s patient, but sometimes she does look a little bit like she wants someone to come get this kid.

On one hand, she gets NO PEACE. Ever. At all. Her life is no longer hers.

She cannot graze in peace…

She cannot roll in peace…

She can’t even just stand there and be a horse in peace.

On the other hand, the kid (who I have jokingly been calling Quesadilla until she gets a real name and now I’m worried I’m going to end up calling her Queso forever) basically throws a parade for her anytime she walks around the paddock, so that’s one perk. Mom is still cool at this point.

There are slight reprieves when she’s nursing at least, although Q is like a little pint-sized shark attack. She’s an EATER.

And of course Q still does sleep a lot at this stage, so if Inca can just survive the part between naps, it’s not too bad. For a few brief minutes Inca’s life is almost hers again while the kiddo is napping.

Normally this is the stage where the babies would get to start going out together so they could play and give the mares a break, but since lil Quesadilla (dammit, I have to stop calling her that) is the only foal this year, poor Inca is gonna be on solo child care duty for a while. Good thing she’s patient.

Happy Friday!

I am one of those people that will somehow find a nickname for an animal, twist it 45 different ways, and never call said animal by their actual name. Unless they’re about to get in trouble… kinda like how your mom would throw out your middle name when you were teetering on the brink of a bad decision. Otherwise though, I basically never call any of my animals by their real names in regular day to day life. Mina for instance has morphed almost entirely to Beans or usually just B. Henry is Hens or Muffin. Presto is Pesto or Noodle. Also… hmmm… I literally just noticed when I typed this out that they’re mostly food related. That wasn’t intentional either.

So it’s no surprise that Gemma has had nicknames right from the start, and we’ve run through them pretty quickly. Slim Gem is the obvious one, and it was particularly appropriate when she first arrived and was so skinny (she’s still skinny, so I still call her this sometimes, but she’s less skinny now at least). She earned Jungle Gem a few times in those first couple weeks when she had some wild moments too… that’s a fun nickname but I don’t get to use it that often anymore.

Then there were all the “squirt” variations. The Mare Squirts are real with this one, although have definitely decreased since she’s been on Regumate. Still though… she’s squirty. It started out as Lil Squirt (her rapper name, obviously), then went to SquirtAlert, before settling on Squirt Gun Kelly. I still call her that sometimes.

The most often used ones are GemGem, which is not creative in the least so I disappoint myself every time I use it, and Clever Girl, which she has rightfully earned. I caught myself calling her Pretty Girl a few times in the beginning and I absolutely hate the word “pretty” so I had to force myself to say clever instead for a while, and now it’s well-stuck. I’ve always felt a weird way about the word pretty (in relation to living things at least) for my entire life and never really could figure out why until I saw this Rupi Kaur poem a few years ago… really hits the nail on the head.

Anyway. She is extremely clever, so that’s a more appropriate word for her.

She also gets called Goat Girl a lot, because I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a horse that was a) more thorough in her grazing b) so non-discriminatory about the greenery she will eat. Like… this thing will get down on her knees and crawl halfway under the fence to eat a shitty weed even in a big pasture. I blame it on her west Texas upbringing where I’m betting she probably never had much grass so now she will literally eat anything that grows out of the ground. The annoying part about it to me is that she’ll eat these shitty weeds but still doesn’t like the coastal hay very much and I have to mix it in with her alfalfa to get her to eat it instead of just pull it out of the net and piss on it. Freakin goat.

Her latest nickname is Geminem, because she is both slim and shady. That one seems to be sticking too.

How often do I actually call her Gemma? Almost never. Or at least not to her face.

I don’t even like 80’s music at all, so why the hell is a friggin Whitesnake song what came to mind for me when I was writing this title? *shudder* And now it’s stuck in my head. Great. Wonderful.

ANYWAY. This post is about Gemma. Because I think I love her (great, that tossed a Partridge Family song into my head instead and now I just feel old AF. Better than Whitesnake though…). I mean, I already knew that I liked her a lot, just from the day to day handling and learning her personality over the first couple months she was here. But now that I’m riding her and learning more about that side of her, I just continuously keep liking her more and more. She has yet to disappoint, aside from the fact that she’s gross and always smells like pee. Minor details.

I took her out back on the hacking path by herself last week for the first time and of course she was super. No screaming, no spooking, no funny business. Her head is on a swivel and she wants to look around a lot, but in a curious way, not a spooky way. She’s like that about everything and it’s a quality I greatly appreciate. She’s interested and engaged, but not fearful or stupid. I never feel like she’s gonna do anything particularly naughty or go belligerent on me.

I’ve also been riding her out in the jump field for the past few rides. It’s not level like the dressage arena, there’s a good bit of slope to it, but it’s bigger. There are pros and cons to both spaces. She’s a little more naturally forward out in the jump field, which helps, and my poles are out there for her to trot and canter over. I was hesitant about how she would handle the slope… the first couple times I hacked her outside of the ring you could tell she wasn’t used to unmanicured surfaces or having to pay attention to her feet. I think she tripped over every rock, stick, divot, and bump. She’s figured it out pretty quickly though, and now she’s only tripping over things when she loses focus, looks at something else, and forgets to watch her feet.

The slope in the jump field can be challenging though, especially for young and green ones that aren’t that strong yet and are still learning how to balance themselves. The first ride out there she was definitely struggling a little with the steepest downhill parts, but every ride she’s shown great improvement, and now she seems to have figured it out pretty well for herself. You can feel her adjusting her own balance to compensate for the slope… she’s smart and naturally wants to stay up off her forehand, which makes her feel very nice to ride (especially if you’re used to a Henry, where you spend 99.9% of every single ride trying to get him in a more uphill balance). Of all the straight off the track horses I’ve had and ridden, she’s probably got the most natural aptitude for the flatwork as any I’ve sat on. She’s not hesitant about the contact (even if it’s still very inconsistent), she doesn’t try to escape by ducking behind, and she actually wants you to ride her with your seat. Mostly we’re working on getting her more supple through her body and bending around the leg right now. There are 5-10 steps of brilliance every few minutes, and those steps hold a lot of promise. The feeling she gives you in those moments is really nice.

Which… Hillary hasn’t sat on her yet (today maybe!) but Bea got to take her for a spin yesterday. Figures that the kiddo is the second one on her and beat Hillary to the punch. Ever since we brought Gemma home Bea has been saying this is her horse, but I think we all thought it might be a long time until Bea actually got to sit on her. Jokes on us because Gemma is a lot quieter and more chill than we anticipated.

After I rode her yesterday, Gemma gave pony rides to Bea for a few minutes, because what better mount for a 4yo kid than a 5yo ottb chestnut mare? She was super though. Don’t believe stereotypes. It’ll be a long time before they do anything but pony rides of course, but that seems to have appeased Bea for now.

I’ve been making an effort to upload videos of her to my Instagram regularly so you can follow along with her progress… it’s easier than posting them on Vimeo and then embedding them.

Gemma is making me wish I had the budget to do an embryo transfer on her this year so I could “have my cake and eat it too” by getting a baby out of her but still continuing to ride her. That’s not in the cards though, so the baby-making will just have to take a backseat… I’m having too much fun riding her.

We’re now officially about a month out from the big move and it’s totally fine. No one is panicking. Definitely not me. Things are about to start ramping up hot and heavy in preparation for All The Things that have to be done (it is a lot. A. Lot. I have anxiety dreams on a nightly basis and constantly think of more things I need to do – the list of Notes in my phone is getting fairly grotesque) and I’m in this weird stage where I’m trying to mass purge unnecessary shit because I don’t want to move it, but also I need to gather things I’ll need when I get there. Which, some things I can get after I get there yes, but other stuff I’d like to already have on hand so I’m not trying to go hunt things down for the horses while also ironing out my own living and work situation at the same time. Reasonably prepared is what I’m aiming for. Remains to be seen if that will be attained.

This has involved getting (among other things) fly sheets, although I still need one more. I nabbed a couple zebra ones on super sale from Epplejeck, and I think they’ll be fine for Gemma and Presto, but if Henry stands any chance of wearing a fly sheet without absolutely roasting to death, he needs the lightest weight, finest mesh fly sheet ever created. Which I have not quite found yet. Fly sheets are a bit of a new concept to me, the extreme heat and sun here means they aren’t really a thing, but they are definitely a thing and a desired item in Florida. Suggestions on one that might work for our favorite pal, Mr. MightDieofHeatStrokeAnytimeItsOver75Degrees?

I also went ahead and replaced my barn boots, because hell if I was going to drag holey, destroyed boots 1000 miles with me to the land of frequent rain. Girl no. I snagged some new ones on sale last week and the old ones are currently residing in the trash can. One less thing to deal with and I won’t be mad about moving them. Granted I’m not really sure how I feel about these new boots, they’re a different brand, but… they’ll do for now. Mostly I needed something that didn’t have giant holes in it so my feet wouldn’t be wet all the time, and they do meet that criteria at least.

I have a whole bin of stuff packed up and ready to go to consignment, and have already started some mental Tetris in my head to figure out how and where to pack everything else. I’ve never in my life been so glad to own fairly little stuff. Or I’m glad I got rid of most of it when I moved into the t!ny h0use anyway. Stuff = stress. Moving all the horses’ stuff will be bigger objective in all this and I’m way ok with that.

Other than moving stuff, I’ve also started thinking about prep for LRK3DE. We are going this year and I have some commitments with EN, particularly with creating a breeding guide. I’ll also provide detailed breeding data to the event, although whether or not it gets used on the live stream commentary depends a lot on who’s commentating. There’s one big name person in particular who has already expressed zero interest in having or using that data, which is frustrating, but… they’ll get copies of it nonetheless. In prep for that I made a few pieces of BRC swag for Kentucky for Hillary and me.

Getting that whole “business” off the ground will really be more of a summer project, but I wanted to start getting the branding in place before Kentucky so we had it for our paperwork and for ourselves to rep, so we can look perhaps a little more legit for some meetings. Bless the Cricut for it’s services to this endeavor. I actually think the stuff came out looking pretty good, considering the logo was something I just threw together on my own. It’ll work.

Hopefully I’ll have some Presto news for you soon. For now he’s still just living his normal day to day life out in Midland, although he did have a complete meltdown about the new baby last week and had to be moved further away from them. I’m pretty sure he thought it was his own personal toy and it certainly is not. He still, knock on wood, has yet to take a lame step since he’s been out there. Sure is luxuriating in all his MagnaWave and bodywork and knee deep piles of hay though. Rotten little $hit.

Speaking of little shits, Henry’s food baby is due any day now.

He really exploded when the spring grass came in, but honestly with all the upheaval and changes that are about to be happening I’m fine with him carrying a little bit more weight right now. He always loses some when he travels, and he is not particularly good at handling big life changes. And when I say not particularly good I mean atrocious. He’s atrocious at it. So I have a feeling some of that weight will come off on it’s own anyway soon… he can keep the food baby for now.

Which reminds me… I need to start stocking up on Ulcergard…