Everyone’s favorite chaos factory (aka Presto) made the trip to Michelle’s yesterday to start his R&R time. I went up there to meet her so I could see her off, grab all his stuff, and give him a proper nose boop.

Megan says he’s been quite well-behaved with all of his down time (something I found highly suspicious, because, ya know… Presto) but indeed he did seem pretty chill about things. Immediately patted me down for cookies in a very thorough and perhaps overly personal full body search, put the sleeve of my hoodie in his mouth, and tried to make me wear his head like a hat, but that’s all very normal. He seems a little bored maybe, but he’s certainly holding himself together a lot better than I anticipated considering how long he’s been out of work.

We got all his stuff loaded up, talked for a bit, and then put Presto into Michelle’s trailer. Not gonna lie, I spent the first hour drive home regretting sending him away instead of bringing him home. I really miss having him around on a daily basis, he’s absolute mayhem YES but he’s my brand of mayhem. Once I got past the emotional side of things though and remembered why I made this decision in the first place I was like oh yeah, that’s right, it was 100% the better choice for him. He won’t be lonely, he’s got a perfect living space, and all of the extra services he needs to aid in his healing are readily available. I do miss him tremendously though, not gonna lie, and every time I see him I’m reminded of that.

Michelle got him home to her place in west Texas yesterday evening and stuck him in a pen next to the 2021 weanlings. The kiddos will be leaving for Ocala soon but for now they think he is THE COOLEST HORSE THEY’VE EVER SEEN and I’m just over here like oh my god what kinds of terrible things is he going to teach the children.

I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough. Poor Michelle, I’m not sure she quite realizes exactly what she signed up for. ^{(too late now, muahahahaha)}

Hopefully he decides to behave himself there too though, so he can get healed up and back to work. I know he’s prefers having something to do and would much rather have a job. Just gotta keep your legs out of trouble, kid, and stop pawing shit so aggressively.

As for a little Patreon update – tremendous thanks to everyone that’s signed up as we launch, I’m really excited about what we’ve got planned and upcoming and it’s giving me so much life to see that you guys are excited for it too. Things are coming together! We’re filming and recording all the first real content this weekend and I’m looking forward to branching out into these new formats. If you’re a Patron you should have already gotten a message with the link to the private fb group (there’s already lots of discussion and updates and some exclusive video there) so please make sure to check that out, and for the Supporter and VIP tiers I also posted a fun thing for y’all this morning – check your Patreon dashboard. 😉

Happy Friday everyone!

Tuesday was farrier day, and conveniently enough Gemma was already synced up with Henry’s shoeing cycle. That meant it was time for her first appointment with my farrier, and also time for her racing plates to come off.

Of course we’re still learning each other, and while I think I have a pretty good gauge on her personality now and how she will react, sometimes you just never quite know until you do things. The perk of racehorses is that they’ve been there and done that and seen a lot, so it wasn’t a matter of whether or not she was well-handled and used to the farrier. We knew that would be true. But, ya know, some of them can still be difficult about it or require sedation or multiple handlers or a chain shank or whatever. Knowing her, I doubted any of that would be the case. She’s definitely sensitive, yes, but she’s clever and a thinker and generally wants to please.

She hasn’t quite figured out the crossties 100% yet though, so I figured I’d hold her for this first time at least. We opted to do Henry first, and I held her nearby the whole time he was getting done. She was a little interested in all the smoke when he was getting his hot shoes fitted, but she never so much as flinched at any of the noise or commotion. Mostly she was just curious (always curious, this one) and was dying to put her nose all over the farrier’s tools.

Once Henry was done we got to work, first pulling off those aluminum plates. She was a little bit rude about holding her own weight up (“you want to pick it up? Fine, you hold it then.” Mares.), but didn’t do anything naughty. We opted to leave the hind feet barefoot for now but put steel shoes on the fronts. It’s not easy for horses to transition from shod to barefoot on our hard and rocky ground, especially one that’s been wearing shoes for most of their life. I also don’t like making drastic changes like that when one is just coming off the track and we’re trying to get their body to relax and unwind. Adding foot ouchiness can just create more tension and stiffness, and we’re trying to do the opposite. So, front shoes it was.

I also kind of get the impression that Gemma might not be the most stoic of horses. She banged her leg on the water trough the other day, not even very hard, but she took off a teeny lit bit of hair. Y’all, she stood there waving her leg around in the air like it was BROKEN FOR SURE, and when she finally decided she could put it back down she was mega lame and very sad about it. This went on for about 15 minutes before she declared that she might indeed survive this harrowing experience. The drama was high. I suspected that the shoeing change might go similarly and I was right… she’s pretty convinced that her hind feet are broken and there’s something very wrong with the fronts to make them weigh so much more. She’s walking a little bit like a goat now. I think she’ll forget in a few days but lord. I can’t even imagine what she would have done if we’d tried to put her barefoot. Laid down and died, probably.

But with the removal of the plates and transition to normal shoes, she’s officially gone from racehorse mode to sporthorse mode, which is an exciting step. Now I just have to figure out what the heck I want to do with her old shoes. I knew I wanted to keep them but I didn’t actually have anything in mind to do with them… ideas?

I also sent off some of Gemma’s hair to Etalon for a full genetic profile. It’s our standard practice to do that on any of the breeding mares anyway (which Gemma hopefully will be one day) and I was very curious to see what her color genetics are. I mean, we know she’s ee (chestnut) but I’m curious about her agouti and especially if she might have any of the W’s. Her white markings have jagged edges, the front one comes up over the knee, and she has a lot of ermine spots in the socks. She doesn’t have as much face white as is typical for a lot of those expressions though, nor does she have any belly spots or roaning. Color, especially for white markings, can be wily sometimes and what you see isn’t always indicative of what’s truly there genetics-wise.

We shall see what the DNA says, it should take a few weeks to get the report back. Aside from all the color stuff they also check to see if she has or is a carrier of a bunch of health-related genetic stuff (some of the testing is more proven than others, but it’s interesting info to have anyway) including PSSM, Equine Metabolic Syndrome, WFFS, uveitis, etc. Cool info to have, for sure!

Gemma’s got about another month left to go in her rest period, but until then I’ve really liked having this low key no pressure time to get to know her… I think she’s gonna be pretty fun.

First of all, big thank to all of you last week that commented and PM’d me with input on the Patreon idea. As usual y’all thought of things that I hadn’t, and helped steer it in (I think/hope?) the right direction.

Let’s talk about what I don’t want. I really definitely do not want to put content that would normally be on this blog behind a paywall. I’ve been doing this thing for 8 years pretty much 5 days a week for no other reason aside from the fact that I (usually) enjoy writing, I enjoy the community, and I enjoy the discussions it’s brought about. I don’t want that to change. Blogs have been dropping like flies the last few years and I don’t want this to be another casualty. So instead of taking anything away from the normal blog posts, content-wise, I’m thinking I would drop down to posting more like 4 days a week on average (sometimes 3 if I’m really strapped) to clear up some time for producing the Patreon content.

All of that said, what I really DO want is to make the Patreon interesting, worth doing, and worth people actually paying money for. If I’m giving you the honest truth, the idea of dabbling in something a little bit different, but still complimentary all together, holds a lot of appeal for me. I’ve been at this thing for a long time… this blog started in 2014, I’m coming up on 2,000 posts and almost 1.5 million words written. That’s a freakin lot. Having the opportunity to accent it with content in other formats makes me feel a little re-invigorated about all of it. And if I’m not going to do something cool and fun and worthwhile, I’d rather not do it at all. So here’s what I’ve got for the membership tiers and what they would include:

$5/mo “Superfan” – this tier gets access to a private Facebook group with more discussions, early updates on stuff, extra details, etc. To be honest there’s a lot that I either don’t post on here, I post vague info about, or wait until it’s very much a done deal before spilling the beans. It’s kind of a lite version of what all is really going on, mostly because I have to remember that anyone and everyone can see this site. With a private group and smaller audience, I could say more and say it earlier. Like, for instance… Presto’s lameness ordeal of the past couple months… I would have updated on that as it was unfolding rather than waiting til the end diagnosis. Or the Ocala property purchase that I didn’t want to give details about until it was all very much wrapped up. We can also do polls for fun things (want to vote on what bridle Gemma gets?) and stuff like that. Think of it as “the rest of the story” or “BreedRideEvent Plus”. I also want the group to very much be a community where discussion is encouraged.

$10/mo “Supporter” – this tier gets access to the above Facebook group plus exclusive Patreon-hosted content, which will be (at minimum) monthly podcasts and vlogs as well as extra written content. Having it at this price bracket will allow us to keep everything ad-free. The items in this tier require a little assistance in the form of Hillary, who will co-host the podcast and some of the vlogs with me and help with production. We do a lot together, she’s leasing Henry, and she co-owns Gemma, so it’s a partnership that makes sense, we’re friends so we banter well, and she’s someone that you guys already “know”. We’ll also bring in other blog “regulars” like Bobby and Michelle as guests to keep things interesting (I feel like a lot of y’all would love listening to Bobby absolutely roast me for an hour, or hear Michelle talk more about her mares and foals and breeding philosophy). We’ll give more detail about ourselves and our horses, talk about whatever is going on at the moment, discuss more controversial topics, new and cool things that are coming out, etc. When we take trips, go to shows, during the Ocala move, when we restart Gemma under saddle, etc I’ll do some vlogs with a lot more detail and more footage than you would get elsewhere. The white breeches post that the regular blog gets? Patreon gets a vlog version as well, with way more detail, as well as a regular schooling breeches vlog. The results from Gemma’s genetic testing? Blog gets the key points interpreted by me, Patreon gets to see the full report PDF and a fully detailed breakdown. You get the idea. For written content I’m also thinking I could actually publish all those bloodlines spreadsheets I’m always making, plus Hillary has some great budgeting spreadsheets and tools like that as well. This is also where I’ll put the “Where Are They Now?” WTW foal updates as we hear news from their owners. Patrons from this tier as well as the next VIP tier will also be invited to submit topic requests and participate in AMA’s for the podcast or vlogs.

$15/mo “VIP” – It’s hard to gauge how much interest there would be in this tier so we’d have to see how many we got and if it was feasible enough to keep it long term, but this would include the fb group and all the extra Patreon content, plus a “thank you” package of goodies when you sign up (I’ve already got stuff planned out and am fairly pleased with myself, and yes it will also include a card signed by humans and horses because who wouldn’t want a Henry tongue-print and a Presto nose boop?), as well as automatic entry into monthly giveaways for cool stuff. Good stuff, not lame stuff. We’ll kick it off with a bang by giving away a Seaver girth sleeve on March 1.

_{Shoutout to Aimee L who not only sneakily found her way to the Patreon early, but became our first Patron and first VIP – getting the ball rolling in style}

Become a Patron!

I think all of this is feasible with Hillary’s help in addition to cutting out a day a week (on average anyway) of the regular blog. Then the Patrons would still be getting something fun for their money, I would still have time to produce the type and quality of content I would be happy putting out (again, with Hillary’s help), and the people who don’t want to pay for any of it can still continue getting pretty much the same content here.

Hopefully this is a solution that will keep everyone happy! If you want to be a Patron, we would absolutely love to have you on board for what we’ve got planned. But it not, that’s okay too. ❤

Oh, Texas. You couldn’t just like… let me have one last pleasant winter experience here, could you? I think this place and I share mutual feelings for each other. Or so it seemed last week when it was blowing freezing rain directly into my face at 20mph. Did I perhaps yell “This is the LAST FUCKING TIME, Texas, with your stupid WIND and your stupid FUCKING ICE” as my eyeballs got frozen shut? I mean, perhaps. No one can prove it though, except maybe the neighbors.

The good news is that this time at least I was well-prepared. Winter Storm Uri definitely taught us a few things last year, even if most of those lessons were wrapped up in a big ball of trauma. This year it also wasn’t nearly as bad. We were supposed to get ice for a couple days, but no super prolonged periods under freezing, and no snow. My only real concern was the power. No offense ERCOT and/or Texas Powers That Be, but I have literally negative percent faith in your ability to not kill me. So did I hoard water? Yes. Did I double check to ensure the stack of firewood was ready to go? You bet. Did I haul a weeks worth of hay down to the barn, make sure everything I own was fully charged, stock my pantry with two weeks worth of non-perishables, etc etc? Indeed I did.

To add insult to injury we got 5″ of rain in the couple days preceding the ice storm. That made for some really really high quality mud, as well as standing water EVERYWHERE right before it froze solid. I know I said we needed rain, but what I meant was like… not all at once. Beggars can’t be choosers I guess. But all that rain did turn the runs out behind the horse’s stalls into absolute shitshow disasters, and then they froze over, so I had to close to stall doors and not give them access to the runs. Knowing I was going to have to close their doors, in the one afternoon where it had stopped raining and before everything froze, I did a reset of everyone’s stall – loaded them up with a layer of pellets, fluffed up some extra shavings, got everyone fully loaded on hay, etc. They were definitely going to have to spend at least one to three days inside, but the barn was as prepared for it as possible.

They ended up spending about 36 straight hours inside, and then had a couple mornings where they had to wait to go out, but it could have been worse. We burned through basically all of the shavings in that few day period, even with me mucking every few hours, but everyone was warm and cozy and dry. I forgot the joys of trying to pick frozen poo and pee though… you people that live up north are certifiable.

Other than being annoyed about being confined, everyone fared pretty well. They basically just stood there in their warm jammies while I slaved away cleaning up their shit, keeping them stocked up on hay 24/7 to keep them warm, and soaking their meals in warm water. Rotten animals.

I was a little worried how Gemma would handle the confinement (or really, the subsequent return to turnout) so I did get her out and walk her and hand graze her a few times. Honestly though, she handled it all great. No real shenanigans when they got to go back out, and she did a pretty good job of just standing in her stall eating hay. I mean… she eats like half the amount of hay as the other two fatties, and she seems to prefer eating out of a slow feed net as opposed to the floor or the large hole net (I think she finds the “challenge” more interesting) much to my annoyance, but… she did well for her. She doesn’t like Texas hay very much and I don’t really blame her.

We did get a pretty good coating of ice, but luckily we didn’t lose power. Some people did, with trees coming down on the lines, but the grid kept up with the demand. It did not stop me from laying there the entire first night listening to the frozen rain hitting my windows, just waiting for the power to go out, and constantly checking ERCOT/local outages. Thank goodness though, it was fine. I mean, I had to give a lot of CPR to every single gate latch on this property, and I almost busted my ass on some ice, and snot may or may not have been frozen to my face at one point, but it was still way less miserable than last year. Still 0/10 would not recommend but I didn’t incur any new emotional damage.

Our work offices were closed on Thursday and Friday due to all the ice on the road, so I did have super light days working from home. I used the extra time to start getting the Patreon ready, get the content organized, lists made, and make a schedule. Everything is set up and ready to launch tomorrow – I’ll have a post here explaining everything and how it’s going to work, and what it will mean for the blog, plus outline some of the content that’s already in the works.

And last but not least I did get one fun bit of mail before the IceFest. I’ve been gathering more whites to include in that big Ultimate White Breeches post (which I’ve got all my people coordinated for the try-ons/photos/videos next weekend so I swear it’s coming soon) and decided to throw in a pair of low-budget bregging style ones into the mix. I’m trying to make it as diverse as I realistically can with a range of prices and styles. A few of you here have suggested that I try Esprit Equestrian in the past, and when they came out with their PRO line they really put themselves on my radar. I like the styling of them and was intrigued by the description saying that they had an inner lining to help smooth out lumps and bumps. I bit the bullet and got a pair of the whites (for science) fully expecting to not like them that much and end up returning them after the try-on. I have to say though y’all, initial reaction is that I’m pretty impressed. Like impressed enough to where I want all the colored ones now. Y’all were right, these things are comfy and really flattering. I’m a little shook. We’ll see how they stack up against all the others.

Anyway, more on aaaalll of this tomorrow… hopefully what I’ve come up with for the blog will be something that works for everyone. If not I’ll just blame it on my brain cells having leaked out of my nose and frozen to my face.

We got the pics back from Gemma’s first photoshoot! Since she’s still got some weight to gain we went for mostly head shots, but I think they came out super cute. She’s a pretty photogenic mare, and I have to admit… that deep chestnut is growing on me a little bit more every day. We’ll have to do another shoot once she’s fully let down from the track and up to sporthorse weight, and slicked off in her summer coat. But for now, she’s got her first set of Glamour Shots… that’s how you know you’re officially in the fam.

Big thank you to Megan Carr Photography for getting these pics of our pretty girl!