This past weekend was originally meant to be a jumper schooling show at Scissortail for Hillary & Henry and myself & Grace. But then I ended up taking Grace to the breeding farm a bit early (glad I did, last count she had about 20 follicles for them to pull for ICSI attempts!) and then that wicked cold front blew in, prompting them to cancel the show since it was supposed to be 20 degrees and windy on show morning when all the lower level kiddos would have gone. In lieu of the show, the facility was kind enough to replace it with some afternoon jumper schooling rounds and Open XC schooling, free of charge, and the photographer that was going to shoot the show offered free black background photo sessions (you just pay for whatever pictures you want edited).

Really awesome of them to offer that – support your local show facilities! – and honestly it kinda worked out better for us anyway. Hillary and Henry could just go in the afternoon, they’d set the jumps to whatever height she wanted, and she could be in and out quickly. And then I got to thinking… hmmm… it’s really tempting to get some photos done of Gemma. She’s still got weight to gain and all that, but having a few nice shots of her from the beginning would be fun. I asked Hillary if it was crazy to want to take Gemma for photos, and while I’m not really sure if this is a pro or con to our friendship, she was totally down with my idea, listing several other totally valid reasons why it made sense.

So on Saturday afternoon we loaded up Henry and Gemma, and off we went on her first little adventure as a “sporthorse”. She loaded in the trailer great (almost too great, she’ll run your ass over if you walk up there too slow) and make the 25 minute trip like a champion. She ate her hay and was quiet and polite even when Henry made some grumpy faces at her. They were pretty cute.

When we got there we left them on the trailer for a few minutes while we went to check in at the office, and then came back and unloaded Gemma first, then Henry. This facility sits kind of at the top of a hill and there is LOTS to see – arenas, cross country, barns, horses, trailers, a busy highway… a lot of horses are a bit overwhelmed at first. Gemma definitely was a bit wide-eyed (weirdest racetrack she’d ever seen) so we just walked around near the trailer and let her get an eyeful of things. As long as she was polite she was welcome to look, or to walk around. She thought a couple times about doing a little yeehaw but with a reminder she kept her feet on the ground and was respectable about it.

The first order of business was the photo shoot. I figured if we were going to get a few of Gemma then we may as well get a few of Henry too, and it made sense to do the photos before he was ridden. We found Meaghan, the photographer, and hoofed it up to the covered arena to get the pictures. Gemma was really good at posing and seems to look cute from every angle (so photogenic), and the photographer got A LOT of really good ones. It was very hard to narrow it down from her proofs, but she made us a very very affordable package deal so we got several of her and a couple of Henry. I can’t wait to see what the final edited photos look like… I think this is my favorite proof.

You guys will definitely be seeing all of them when they’re done.

The photo shoot seemed to help settle Gemma a bit, and she was less wide-eyed when we went back out to the trailer. Hillary tacked up Henry and got on him, and we ventured with them towards the warmup and the jumping ring, which is where Gemma ended up spending most of her time. We stood near the warmup (and even in the warmup a bit while I set jumps for Hillary and Gemma did her best to knock them right back down with her nose), we stood near the ingate, and at the edge of the XC field beyond. If she wanted to graze I happily let her, but if she started to get antsy or upset then we just walked for a minute until she settled and wanted to graze again.

She was on edge a few times, and standing still for long periods wasn’t possible, but she never lost her marbles or wound up or got naughty at all. Considering she’s a 5yo TB that’s been on stall rest or in a tiny pen for the past 3 weeks and at her first “show-like” experience, I was quite pleased with her. Gemma definitely wants to be a good girl, and I think that’s 90% of the equation at the end of the day. Hillary did a couple classes while I videoed (with mixed results) and then she tossed on a vest and went out on the XC just to gallop a few jumps and jump down the bank. Gemma got a little more anxious when he left but never neighed or got hysterical or anything. If she can keep her feet moving she seems capable of coping, and I’m more than happy to let her do that as long as she does it politely.

Once Hillary was done we went back to the trailers while she untacked, and now that Gemma had had some processing time and seemed more settled, I tied her at the trailer with Henry. She was content to eat cookies (we went through a fairly staggering amount of cookies in a 2 hour trip between the two horses, it’s a little obscene) and some hay and stand there quietly with Henry. Can’t really ask for anything more than that.

We loaded them up and headed back home (again she loaded and rode home great) and just like that, Gemma’s first outing is officially in the books. I think we’ll try to get her out to as many things like this as we can, it’s definitely good for her to start learning what shows and stuff are all about before there’s any pressure put on the situation by riding expectations. We have all the time in the world, so we may as well make the most of it.

Gold star for the baby red mare (and Henny too of course… always Henny)!

It’s starting to feel like every post these days is me playing catch-up. Sorry about that. My brain hasn’t even had time to attempt more structured content. Time flies when you’re busy? Anyway, a lot has happened in the last week, so let’s go.

Last Wednesday I took Grace out to the specialist/embryo transfer vet to drop her off for the breeding season. She was starting to show signs of coming into heat, and given that we’ve been trying to get Grace pregnant for a while, I figured taking her early would be best. They can start tracking her and try to get her bred as soon as it’s looking viable (hopefully in a couple weeks). It would be great if we could get an ET or two out of her this year, plus one for her to carry, but let’s just focus on getting her pregnant first. Since she was already starting to cycle I thought it was best to cut her winter riding a bit short and just go ahead and take her. Plus with work being so busy right now and the ground being so hard, I wasn’t succeeding in getting much riding done with her anyway. Fingers crossed we have some baby-making success this year! I’m feeling positive about it. Plus I got to squee at the two babies already on the ground at the vet’s place… always a highlight and totally worth the drive.

The end of the week was consumed with prepping for a blast of winter weather, which rolled through on Friday and was luckily milder than anticipated. I have a lot of trust issues after Winter Storm Uri last year where they were EXTREMELY WRONG about how bad it would be and how long it would last. Luckily this particular wave was just some sleet and frigid temps, and the sleet didn’t accumulate on anything but the metal gates and my truck since it had been 80 the day before. I was still grumpy AF about it, but after last year I’ll (begrudgingly) take it.

Otherwise the horses have been doing fine (knock on wood) through our continued yo-yo-ing weather. At this point we go back and forth from 80 to 25 so much that they’re just always getting salt and soaked feed, which they seem to be totally fine with. Gemma, to her credit, has been a trooper through all of it.

On a different note, I got a new XC vest last week! I won a decently sizeable gift card during Christmas from Ride Equisafe, and was finally able to get that Champion Ti22 vest that I’ve had my eye on for a long time. It fits great and is super comfortable, so once I actually get to ride in it a bit I’ll have to do a review. I love my Champion helmet, and so far I’m really pleased with the vest too.

And last but not least, I’ve become fairly obsessed with my secondhand Apple Watch (gifted by Hillary – she da real mvp) which I have lovingly nicknamed Twatch. It doesn’t care if I just spent 45 minutes doing a spin class, it’ll still ping me and be like “time to stand up!”. F you, twatch, I just sat down. But also thanks for tracking all my shit so I can look at my metrics. At this point I pretty much only use it for the Activity stuff and to control my Spotify when I’m in the barn, but it’s great for that. I walk a lot more than I thought I did (especially with Gemma here since she’s a little bit higher maintenance, thus I’m back and forth to the barn a lot more). I walked 55 miles the week before last and 49.5 last week. Plus it keeps track of all my workout stuff too, which is nice… I can keep track of my spin classes and weightlifting stuff more formally than what just lives in my head. So fancy. So modern. (I’m like the last person on earth to get with this technology, I know…)

We did have a fairly exciting outing with the horses (yep, plural!) this weekend too, but that’s a whole nother post for tomorrow… stay tuned.

Yeah you’re right, that title was seriously a stretch. It’s 5am when I’m typing this, give me a break.

If you’re like me and have spent this latest cold front hiding inside trying to pretend that winter doesn’t exist, yet are still a huge nerd and always enjoy distracting yourself with horse-related educational material, you’ve come to the right place. Here are some of the videos I’ve watched lately that I thought were interesting!

Q&A with Dr. Barry Miller from the Virginia Tech Helmet Safety Lab. This lab is working on putting together a rating system for equestrian helmets that will finally give us actual safety rankings for helmets rather than just a pass/fail of pre-determined standards. You can learn more about the rankings, helmet safety technology (including MIPS), and the lab/testing itself in this Q&A.

I get people asking me pretty regularly for recommendations on sporthorse conformation/breeding books and reading material, so I thought this webinar might be of interest to some of you. It’s a pretty detailed and in-depth discussion of sporthorse conformation (and yes they do talk about differences between dressage horses and jumping horses) with KWPN judge Marian Dorresteijn.

If you’re looking for stuff regarding lameness, physical issues, colic, etc, Love of the Horse has a good On Demand library. You have to sign up to watch, but it’s free!

USEA has also been posting videos on their Vimeo account of various sessions they had during their convention last month, including but not limited to a couple of the ones that piqued my interest the most during their livestream:

Competing in Thermally Challenging Climates (applicable not just to eventers! This is a great one for us southerners especially… also kind of nice to daydream about what it was like to be hot…)

Equality in Eventing (and equestrian sports in general)

Hope y’all are staying warm out there. If you’ve seen any other good videos lately that are worth a share, drop them in the comments!

I think the initial little few week period when you first get a new horse is a really fun time. You get to learn who they are, what their personality is like, their likes/dislikes, and all the little quirks. Now that Gemma’s been here about a week and a half she’s settled and gotten to know me and is coming out of her shell a bit. For instance, despite being skinny when she came off the track, that girl loves her food. Like, I thought Henry was a screamer for food but Gemma might have him beat. She neighs when I have feed, when I have hay, when I have treats, or any time she thinks I might or should have any of those things. There’s a lot of hollering for food. She’s definitely put on some weight already too, so I’m hoping she’ll join the Chonk Club sooner rather than later.

Since she’s got a very good appetite she goes through hay pretty quickly (we’ve already made two hay runs for her, but as long as she wants to eat it I’m happy to buy it!), and since she’s also currently in ulcer treatment (because racetrack) we’re doing our best to make sure she always has hay in front of her. She didn’t really seem to love eating out of haynets though, but if I put the hay on the floor she drags it around and pisses in it, so Hillary brought out her Porta-Grazer. It took Gemma a few days to figure it out, but now it seems to be doing it’s job pretty well – she finishes most of her hay every night and doesn’t make a mess of it, and it helps the hay last longer through the whole night. I’m not sure that Gemma loves the Porta-Grazer, but she hasn’t really complained too much. Until yesterday anyway. Gemma’s got jokes.

I SWEAR I heard her laughing when I found the poo and said “GEMMA NO! WE DON’T SHIT IN THIS! PORTA-GRAZER NOT PORTA-POTTY!”. She just gazed cooly back at me from her pen with what I can only assume is the horse version of a smirk. Tell me she isn’t laughing.

She’s definitely got plenty of personality, and it’s slowly but surely starting to trickle out. I think she’s gotten to know me well enough by now. She’s still very polite most of the time – not nearly as cheeky as a certain bay gelding we all know and love who I swear whips you in the eye with his tail out of spite – but she’s coming out of her shell for sure. So far I quite like what I see. Enough sass and opinions to keep things interesting (would I even know what to do with a horse that didn’t have opinions?) but nothing extreme or ridiculous or rude. Even if/when she does have a spooky or naughty moment, which have been very few and far between, she’s quick to settle back down and get with the program. She doesn’t build or spiral into a pit of anxiety. Smart girl. I think she’s also very happy to be back on a quiet relaxed farm and not at the track. Her connections didn’t think she liked it there, and I think they were right.

Gemma still sleeps A LOT… whether that’s making up for the lack of good sleep when she was on the track or if that’s just her, we shall see as time goes on. I’m pretty sure she’d sleep through a hurricane though. Or a winter weather/high wind advisory like we’ve got today, at the very least.

GemmaQueenofNaps?

The world is nuts right now, y’all. Life is nuts. Everything is nuts.

I feel like everyone is getting covid. Like everyone. My whole team at work, my SO, his whole team at work, half of my friends and their families… it’s totally out of control right now. As someone who has yet to get covid (knocking furiously on wood) it’s starting to feel a little bit like I Am Legend out here. I’m quite glad that the SO doesn’t live out here and I told him not to come last weekend since he’d been potentially exposed. That’s the last friggin thing I need right now. As you can imagine (and have probably also experienced) it’s making work absolutely delightful, especially since we’re in our busiest time of year for our customers yet our workforce is severely depleted. It means my days are long and hectic, trying to make up for the missing staff. I worked both days over the weekend, and it seems like pretty much everyone is in the same boat at the moment. Not that it makes the customers any less irate. Good times.

In better news, a friend of mine let Hillary and I borrow some fence panels (thank you Sarah!) so we could make a little outside pen for Gemma. She was pretty unhappy in the barn by herself, which is totally understandable, but she’s pretty content outside in her pen. It will probably be another week or week and a half before we can get her up to Michelle’s place in Midland, so hopefully this can be a short term solution to get her through until then. So far she’s been pretty well behaved, but she’s still a young thoroughbred with lots of cooped up energy so I’m keeping a close eye on her. She’s still unfailingly polite to handle though, which is much appreciated.

The weather is still doing that really awesome yo-yo shit that I love so much (insert heavy sarcasm) which its basically been doing for a month straight now. Is it gonna be 30 today or is it gonna be 80 today or is it gonna be both? Who knows. It makes horsekeeping absolutely delightful. I’m going through both salt and fly spray at record speed. We’ve also gotten basically no rain to speak of so the ground is super hard, and the grass is just sad and crunchy. Granted, it’s a lot easier horsekeeping-wise to not have rain while Gemma is here, so I’m scared to complain too hard. It can hold off until after she’s gone, I’m ok with that. I also get the feeling that once it finally does start raining, it won’t stop for a while. I’m over it in advance.

Grace is definitely coming into heat already, so I’m probably going to go ahead and take her over to the breeding specialist this week. It’s earlier than I had planned, but with the ground as hard as it is and work being off the charts insane, I’m not able to ride her as much as I’d like anyway, so if they can get an early start on getting her bred and start trying to harvest some embryos, that would be fantastic. Having had her here for a while and ridden her, I’ve gotten to know her a lot more which has changed some of my breeding opinions for her slightly. More insight into the mares is always helpful.

Speaking of breeding, in all the time that I’ve spent playing with and handgrazing Gemma, I’ve started to compile a “long list” of stallions that I’m interested in for her eventually. Ya know, down the line. When we get to that. It never hurts to be prepared, plus if I already have a list going then I have lots of time to think about, look around, and whittle it down. Totally not crazy.

I’ve had time for basically nothing else. I have a lot in my “to do” for the blog that just keeps getting pushed off, and that’s probably just the way it’s gonna be for a while. I’ll tackle things as I get the chance, I just don’t know quite yet when that’ll be.

Hope everyone is staying safe out there and avoiding covid and all it’s related problems. Are we having fun yet?