We’re now about 6 weeks away from the big move (it’s fine. this is fine. no one panic. i’m not panicking.) so I’m already in crunch time mode as far as getting all my shit organized in preparation to start packing. That means its time for another purge of horse stuff, because I’m sure not hauling it all halfway across the country with me. The cheaper items or bigger bulkier items are just gonna go to consignment or be sold locally because I cannot be bothered to deal with it, but I do have some nicer stuff/easier to ship stuff that’s still up for grabs! If you’re interested you can message me on one of my socials or send me an email via the contact form.

Coats:

Dark green Alessandro Albanese Motionlite mesh show coat, size small, new with tags. I’ve steered away from green so there’s no good reason to keep this, even though it’s pretty. $200

Navy blue with yellow piping Winston Equestrian washable lightweight wool show coat. This was semi-custom from back in the Henry prime era but it doesn’t fit me anymore and I’m not going to keep the yellow in my colors. The size is french 40T which is technically “tall” but I’m not very tall (5’6″) and it fit me great. 40 is equivalent to US size 8, bust measures 37″. The fabric is a lightweight blend that is machine washable. Super flattering, good for those who prefer a bit more structure to their coats. $150

Hy Equestrian Roka Rose show coat size Large, new with tags. I bought this from overseas but it was considerably larger than what the size chart said. Bust measures 40″. Really pretty mid-navy color with rose gold and navy rhinestones on the collar and pockets. Stretchy tech fabric, with a zipper under the buttons. SOLD

RJ Classics navy classic wool hunt coat, size 10R. I only wore this a few times, for foxhunting. $40

Breeches:

Clockwise from top left:

tan Tredstep knee patch breeches, worn a few times for hunting, in good condition. Size 30R. SOLD

chocolate brown Horze Grand Prix knee patch breeches, worn but no holes or stains. Size 30R. $30

Baleaf black full seat breeches, worn less than 10 times, too big for me now. Size S (fits like 28). $25

Pomme Nellie breeches, black with silver accents, knee patch. Great condition, I only wore these a few times, I just have a lot of black breeches and… probably don’t need all of them. Size M (fits like 28). $90

green Equiline breeches, knee patch. In good condition, no stains or tears. Size I-42 (fits like 26). $100

Other Stuff:

Navy horse size fly bonnet with yellow and white trim. – $18

brown stirrup leathers

left – HDR leathers, darker brown, only used a handful of times. Stamped 54″. $35

right – medium brown, used but in good shape. Look a few inches shorter than the HDR. $15

Boy o Boy custom belt, tone on tone blue/navy, size 36. I hardly even got to wear this one very much which is sad because it’s gorgeous, but it doesn’t fit anymore. Probably best for sizes 30-32. SOLD

If you’re local (aka can pick stuff up or arrange someone else to pick up for you) and want the full list (there is… a lot more stuff) shoot me a message!

If you’re looking for a creature to give you an ego boost about yourself in general, let me tell you who not to go to.

Hillary has been in Ocala for over a week now (god it’s ONLY been that long??) which means that Henry is once again my full-time ride. One of us has been pretty pleased about this. Hint: it’s not him.

See, Hillary has bought his love. Like many times over. She comes armed with what seems like thousands of German Horse Muffins, doesn’t spend a lot of time fussing with him, rides him, doesn’t demand as much of his performance as I do, and then she leaves. It’s his ideal relationship.

And then there’s me.

I think he’s been a bit lazy lately about carrying himself, being uphill in his canter, and keeping a good shape, so those are my priorities for the time Hillary is gone. I come swooping in there with a bit (he’s really sure he doesn’t wear a bit anymore at all, after almost 3 years of very rarely wearing one) and ask him to be round and uphill and push some of the more intense flatwork buttons that she does not. This is not to say that I ride him better or anything like that at all, just that I’ve been riding him for 8 years so if I didn’t know how to ask for more and push all the buttons by now, it would be pretty sad indeed.

Henry though… he’d much rather give about 50%, and pretend like it’s the best he can do. I know him better than that, so I insist on his 100%. Now that he’s been living his best life with Hillary for a few months, he thinks I am a walking case of Bullshittery, and he’s not totally convinced that he’s required to participate at that level, considering that he’s now seen an alternative. This horse would really love to be a low level schoolmaster and ignore your opinion most of the time, I swear.

The day after these pics, I went out to go get him for a hack and he took my cookie, slapped on his devil horns, and hightailed it to the back of the pasture before I had a chance to put the halter on. Rude. The ultimate in rude. He hasn’t done it since then (I guess he thinks he made his point), but I also haven’t dressaged him since, so… ya know. He remembers, and he is very opinionated. People who don’t know him don’t always believe me but man. If you anger or annoy him in some way, you WILL know about it and you WILL pay for it. It’s Henry’s world and we’re all just living in it.

I’ve also been trying to get him shed out, including the 9000lbs of shetland pony-esque hair on his legs, which requires extra general fussing-with-him, which he hates. Cookies, jompies, fuck-offies. That’s what he’s interested in. If you’re looking for a horse to make you feel loved, he is not it. Even though I know that deep down he does love me in his own Henry way.

We’ve done a lot of pole work and hacking and a couple jump schools, which have all improved his mood. He’s noticeably happier and more agreeable when you go to get him on the days after he jumps. Anyone who wants to say that horses aren’t smart or emotionally developed, I beg to differ.

He’s still got another week to put up with me before his lady in shiny armor comes back to save him from this ridiculousness. I don’t know what he’s gonna do when we move and Hillary isn’t there to baby him at all. He might just go on strike completely.

Week one of Gemma’s new sporthorse career is going well! I’m really enjoying having a green horse again… maybe I’m some kind of glutton for punishment or something but I do really enjoy these beginning stages.

I think it’s because everything is so much simpler when they’re at this stage. Expectations are low, tasks are simple, and every little thing is an achievement. They also make very quick progress with all these simpler things, so it’s easy to see the changes from day to day. It’s a “tougher” stage I suppose because they don’t know as much, but I think it’s super rewarding. Like when’s the last time I was mega proud of Henry for standing like a rock in the crossties while I spent a few minutes digging around for something in the tack room? Or being very polite for the farrier? Or actually stopping when I said whoa? He’s far enough into life that those things are just expected of him, but for Gemma they’re new and worth celebrating.

She got her feet done on Monday, which she was really good for. Better than the first time for sure (where she wasn’t totally certain that she had to hold up any of her own feet, and may or may not have attempted to lay on the farrier) although I still chose to hold her rather than put her in the crossties. I think next time we can shoe her in the crossties with me just standing nearby. Since she got her fancy new Nikes I’ve put her on an every other day work schedule. The first time was Tuesday, where I tacked her up, did a little work on the line with voice commands and moving her shoulders/haunches, and some basic desensitization. She’s very sensitive, and if things come at her quickly or unexpectedly she can be a little reactive… not in a panicky way usually but definitely a little bit worried. When she first got here she was particularly jumpy if you came at her face quickly and/or without warning. She’s already gotten better about that, but I do think she could be a little less reactive to things in general. I don’t want to make her dull, but I do want to take that sharpness away that’s caused by nervousness. Thus: desensitizing.

I started with the lunge line, tossing it over her back, neck, haunches, and around her hind legs. She didn’t care much about that. So I decided instead to use the lunge whip, which she was much more leery of. Luckily she isn’t the type to panic and bolt for the hills, she just gets wide eyed and shuffles away. When I first started moving the whip back and forth in front of her she mostly tried to slowly tiptoe backwards, hiding behind me. Cute, but… not quite what we were after. I just kept going and waited for her to stop and relax, then I stopped moving the whip and praised her.

Then I did the same thing on either side of her, which was fairly uneventful. After that I moved on to actually touching her with the lash of the whip… rubbing her neck and haunches, dangling it over to the other side, dragging it across her and lightly tossing it around her legs. At first she couldn’t quite figure out what I wanted, but every time she stood still I patted her and stopped moving the whip for a few seconds before starting again. It didn’t take her long to figure out that the game was to just stand still.

After that I progressed to tossing it back and forth over the top of her head. I figured that would be the thing she was most worried about so I’d saved it for last on purpose, and by this point she didn’t care much. She kept one ear on the whip, just in case, so not as totally relaxed about it as we will eventually aim for, but she didn’t move her feet.

I let her be done with that, and spent a few minutes standing at the mounting block putting my foot in and out of the stirrup, leaning over her, flapping the stirrups around, etc. They don’t use mounting blocks at the track so for that stuff I basically just treat her like an unbroke horse.

Yesterday we did pretty much the same thing again, but with more trotting in the lunge work and the introduction of some very loose side reins, so we can start talking about contact. She remembered the voice command work from the session before, and her “walk”, “whoa”, and “trot” are getting better. Whoa is probably the best at this point… the rest is more hit or miss. Still better from the first time though, so she’s definitely getting it.

We followed that with a little more of the same desensitization work with the whip, and then more lessons at the mounting block. Nothing was perfect of course, but everything was an improvement over the first session, and that’s all I’m after at this point.

I do think that she’s starting to become a bit bonded to me. She’s the type that’s a little more distrustful of strangers, especially men (judging from farrier and vet appointments anyway) but she seems to have figured out that I’m a safe space. She will leave the other horses to come up to the gate if she sees me, and when they come in for dinner every night she stands and waits for me to block Henry so he can’t try to bite her when she goes past. She’s really starting to look to me first for guidance when she gets concerned about something, which I love.

For now I think this is exactly the kind of stuff she needs, and we’ll keep doing groundwork and laying down the base for a little while longer. So far I’m really pleased with her – she’s smart, she learns well, she wants to please, and she’s people-oriented. She’s brave about her surroundings and confident enough in herself not be herdbound or worried about where the other horses are. Those are all traits I can work with, and all the reasons why I love thoroughbreds so much. It’s been a while since I had a young green OTTB… I’d almost forgotten how much I love them.

She does make me wish that I could breed her and embark on her sport career at the same time though, a little Gemmette would be adorable. Too bad embryo transfer is so expensive! Eventually…. just not yet.

Yesterday was Presto’s 5th birthday, can you guys even believe it? I’m convinced that the first 3 years of a horse’s life take a decade to pass, and then after that every year is like 3 months long. Maths and time don’t make sense. Five. FIVE! He’s a real boy now. Well… ok… as real as Presto could possibly ever be.

I couldn’t be with him on his birthday, since he’s way up in Midland “resting” (ha), but I could make sure that he still had a banging birthday party, so I got on Amazon and ordered a few things to send to Michelle. What was the theme of this party, you ask? What other possible theme could there be?

He got an outfit, an inflatable bop-it, a banner, and a pinata, along with a bag of treats to put in said pinata. If there’s one thing we know about Presto, it’s that he loves murdering things with his mouth and feet, thus I figured that stuff was right up his alley.

So, step 1 for throwing a Presto party: you gotta decorate. It helps set the tone, ya know?

Step 2: get dressed. Gotta have just the right outfit. And if you don’t have thumbs you may require some outside assistance.

Step 3: Revel in the majesty of yourself and how you look in all of your chic birthday glory.

Step 4: Invite some friends over for your party.

Step 5: As birthday boy, your next priority should always be your presents. Presto’s attention went to the bop-it first, since it was bigger, but he was honestly pretty unimpressed with that. It occurs to me that perhaps I have set the bar a little too high with what is now required to actually captivate Presto’s attention.

It took him a minute to figure out that the real treasure lay inside the piñata. And when I say “took him a minute” I mean that quite literally… from the moment he first saw the piñata to the moment he managed to bust it open and get the treats out was 1 minute 16 seconds. Honestly that’s about 30 seconds longer than I anticipated. He kept trying to roll it like his old treat ball, expecting it to spit out a cookie with each shove. Took him a beat to figure out that further violence was required for this particular item, which he was then quite pleased to dole out.

Once he got to the good stuff his attention was solidly focused on eating on the giraffe guts. Er, horse treats. Honestly a bit of a boring party for him, given his history. I expected a little more fanfare… a little more giraffe murder. Maybe he’s actually growing up a little bit?

In all seriousness though, yes I do go a bit overboard with the silliness on his birthdays, but it’s because we came so precariously close to never getting to celebrate any at all. Every year I still vividly remember that sad little sick foal that almost died more times than I can count, and every year I’m grateful all over again that he made it through. Even when he’s a dumb giraffe that can’t keep his chaos feet to himself and manages to bruise his P2 and spend all my money on MRIs. Indeed, even then.

How boring would life be without a Presto in it?

Presto is good at a lot of things. Rest and recuperation or rest and relaxation… those maybe aren’t on the list. I think his version of R&R more likely stands for rumpus and raucous.

He’s doing pretty well at Michelle’s though, aside from causing his usual level of chaos and mayhem, which in turn causes enough stress in his humans to remove a few years off their life. Ya know… standard Presto behavior. Knock on wood though, he’s remained looking sound and has refrained from any particularly damaging trouble to this point.

Although yesterday Obi somehow did sneak over into Uncle Presto’s paddock (no ones sure if he went over the fence or under it) and Presto was delighted to have a temporary friend.

He plays a bit too rough to keep a yearling as a friend (although points to Obi, he can dish it out pretty well for a little dude) so Obi had to go back over to his own paddock, but they did get to have an hour or so’s worth of fun before it got broken up. Presto probably had more fun than Obi, who now may or may not be brain damaged from being hit in the head repeatedly with Presto’s feeder, but… ya know. Those are the risks when you enter Presto airspace. The real question is – will he sneak back over there again, or did he learn his lesson the first time? We’ll find out I guess.

Aside from just being a general pest (aka himself) Presto’s gotten some nice little therapy sessions. Last week you saw his laser and chiropractic session, and he’s also getting some regular Magnawave from his friend Mk, who looks comically tiny next to him.

He seems very responsive to the Magnawave, offering some big dramatic releases. He’s probably the kind of horse that would really benefit from having a BEMER to use on a regular basis (I’ll just tuck that information away in the back of my brain for whenever I have money to burn LOLOLOL). He’s always responded really well to bodywork stuff in general… probably because he does play so rough all the time he’s constantly doing some level of something to himself. He’s looking really good though, even if he’s not so sure about all of this stuff sometimes.

It’s very nice that Michelle has friends local to her with all this good equipment that are willing to help him out. And also nice that these friends have a good sense of humor and can deal with his antics… he often gets called “busy”. Um… yeah sure, that’s the nice word for it. We’ll go with that.

He’ll keep getting regular MagnaWave while he’s there, and Michelle is going to start booking his swimming sessions too. We all think that he would like that a lot, even if just to have something to go and do. He’s bored bored bored…. never has been one that handled downtime very well (ahem HOW HE GOT INTO THIS SITUATION IN THE FIRST PLACE), he needs a job and an outlet for all that “busy-ness” of his. Those hamsters in his brain start running amok after a while.

Presto’s birthday is tomorrow (can y’all believe he’s FIVE????) and I may or may not have sent Michelle a whole bunch of themed birthday party stuff for him. Gotta keep up that tradition. Plus hopefully it’ll result in some good entertainment for all of us. His friend Mk will be there doing his MagnaWave anyway so he invited her to his party.

There’s never a dull moment with this one, that’s for sure.

The one and only 2022 foal is due in the next couple weeks, so hopefully we’ll be back to Foal Friday content soon! The chaos is a lot cuter when it comes in a little fuzzy foal-sized package rather than a 17.1h giraffe suit.