Just checking in to let you know that I’m not dead, I’m just really freaking busy right now. Between work (oh the fallout from the covid surge, it is getting FUN is it not?) and the horses, I’ve rarely had more than a few minutes to spare here and there.

Gemma, due to no fault of her own, is really high maintenance at the moment. She’s fresh off the track, young, full of energy, and on stall rest, all at a new place to boot. That’s a lot. Trying to keep her happy and quiet and her stall clean and get her handgrazing/walking a few times a day is consuming every spare moment right now. She’s been wound a bit tight for sure, as expected, but has yet to do anything truly naughty or bad. I think when she’s in regular circumstances she’s gonna be a pretty chill girl.

I’ve gotten to know her a bit this week though, spending all that time with her, and I can say that I like her temperament and personality a lot. She’s very smart and catches on to things quickly, and she definitely wants to please. She’s sensitive, for sure, which should be no surprise, but I like her. As she settles in she’s starting to show a little more quirkiness and weirdness, which of course makes me happy. We’re starting to settle into a bit of a routine now so hopefully my days will be a little less packed. I’m definitely in dire need of a weekend though, I’m pretty sure I slept so hard last night that I didn’t move an inch.

I also did put a stick on her the other day and she’s a bit over 16h… almost 16.1 but honestly a lot of that is withers, so we’ll just say 16h. I remain really impressed with how she moves (her walk is probably one of the best I’ve ever seen in a horse straight off the track, she’s got a good 6″ of overstep even as tight as she is right now) and how she’s put together. There are some little things to nitpick for sure, like any horse, but it’s hard to find a ton of fault with how she’s put together. It’s possible that I’ve spent time while handgrazing her to make a list of possible stallion candidates for the future. I think this is the rare TB mare that could be worth presenting to one of the stricter warmblood registries for breeding approval. I can’t wait to see how she looks once she’s rested and has some weight back on.

Hopefully next week things will have settled down a bit and I’ll have more time to get back to regular content, but thanks for the messages making sure we’re ok. All good – just busy!

Surely y’all knew this was coming, right? I figured I might as well go ahead and do a post about Gemma’s breeding (and a bit about her history) while it was all still fresh in my mind.

Gemma’s JC name is Emily Who (all of her breeder’s horses names end in Who) and she raced 11 times starting in 2019 and most recently in December 2021. Astute observers may notice a gap in her race record between November 2020 and September 2021… this is because her breeder/owner retired from racing, brought all his horses home, and then an online herd dispersal sale was organized. That sale went live in the summer of 2021 (you can see Gemma’s sale video here… it’s nice to see what she’ll look like when she’s got some weight back on!), which I vaguely remember because Michelle and I had looked at the online catalog and bookmarked a few mares of interest.

We didn’t end up buying anything from that sale obviously, but Gemma was sold to racing people, bought back to the track in September, and raced 4 times for them. While she never won a race, she was second a couple of times. This race was probably her best performance, where she finished second. She didn’t seem all that interested in being a racehorse. To make it all even slightly more ironic, her breeder lives in Lamesa TX which is where the vet clinic is that Presto spent so much time at as a foal. The world is really small sometimes.

Anyway, on to the pedigree side of things. Her breeding is the thing that attracted me to her most. Her sire Abstraction was an unknown to me (which makes sense, he’s a New Mexico based stallion and his oldest crop is just now coming 6, so it’s a bit too early to have seen sporthorses from him yet) but I was very familiar with the rest of his pedigree: Pulpit – Quiet American – Nureyev. Pulpit of course is an AP Indy son (we’ll circle back around and talk more about Pulpit in a bit), and we’ve talked about AP Indy a lot on this blog in the various In The Blood posts. He comes up A LOT in sport, especially in eventers. Quiet American is by Fappiano, another big one for eventers, and Nureyev is also seen in sport a ton.

On the dam’s side she’s Crafty Prospector – Secretariat – Ack Ack – Forli. Her second damsire is Secretariat himself… you don’t see him up that close very much these days. Crafty Prospector shows up in the pedigree of plenty of sporthorses, including Jess Phoenix’s 5* horse Bogue Sound, Clark Montgomery’s 4*L horse Caribbean Soul , 3*L horse Banjo, and 3*L horse Outrageous Dance to name a few. And then of course on the bottom of the pedigree, Ack Ack and Forli are always good to see in an eventer.

What’s really interesting is that she’s bred quite similarly to two of my favorite thoroughbred sport stallions: eventers Saketini and Redtail Achiever. Saketini is by Bernardini, who is AP Indy x Quiet American. Saketini also has the mare Meadow Blue on his damline. Redtail Achiever is also by Bernardini so you get the AP Indy x Quiet American cross again, plus his damsire is by Mr P, he’s also got Nureyev and Bold Ruler, and they both have Ack Ack on the damline as well.

Ok now back to Pulpit himself, her sire’s sire. I was particularly interested to see him in a mare because two of my favorite up and coming 4*L event horses – Sorocaima (Buck Davidson) and Campground (Erin Sylvester) are out of Pulpit mares. You see plenty of Pulpit in eventing at all levels as well as jumpers up to 1.35, but he does seem particularly effective on the dam’s side of the pedigree.

I’ll stop there, otherwise we’ll be here all day, but that’s a brief peek into her pedigree and why it appealed to me as both a sporthorse and a broodmare. That combined with her conformation and her movement made her impossible to pass up!

I’m trying my best not to nod off as I sit here typing this on Monday evening. I’m tired. It’s been a long few days. My latest blog post was last Thursday, when we bought the new mare, and a lot has happened since then so… let’s catch up.

Hillary and I spent basically all of Thursday looking at our shipping options for the mare. Preferably something within the next couple days, because the trainer’s barn was full and they needed stalls ASAP. Our options were either to pick her up by Sunday, or they could send her out to the farm outside of the city and then she could be picked up from there within another week or so. I didn’t really want to have to move her out to the farm, so we were trying to find someone that could pick her up soon, get her here fairly direct without a lot of stops so she didn’t have to spend a ton of extra time in the trailer, and had a suitable/safe rig. And, uh, wasn’t too expensive.

Most of the quotes we got were either a) from sketchy people b) not a suitable rig c) would take at least 24 hours to make a 7 hour trip d) hella expensive. Not saying that good haulers aren’t absolutely worth what they charge – they definitely are – but we personally couldn’t justify $2+ a mile when realistically she was within an almost reasonable driving distance of us. And all the best shipping companies couldn’t get her for at least a week anyway. So we started shuffling around our weekend plans and trying to make things come together, and finally worked out that we would leave Saturday, drive to New Orleans, stay the night with former blogger Alyssa (yay for blog friends), then get the mare Sunday morning and drive straight home so we could get her unloaded and settled before it got dark. Last minute 36 hour NOLA trip… why not?

Other than being a very boring and horribly bumpy ride (anyone who has driven I-10 across Louisiana knows the full scope of the misery) it was pretty uneventful. We’d decided to bring my trailer with Hillary’s truck, rather than trying to bring her bigger trailer, which turned out to be a good decision for navigating through the city streets and parking at Alyssa’s house. Hillary’s trailer def would not have fit. Plus those NOLA potholes would have taken out the tanks on her living quarters for sure… pretty sure you could fit a full size alligator in some of those things.

Anyway, we got there, got parked, and headed out to do a little sightseeing with Alyssa. I spent a chunk of my childhood in NOLA and have been back a couple times as an adult, but Hillary never had, so we figured she should for sure see some of the French Quarter while she was there. May as well get some culture in. Plus we were on a mission to find some king cake (I’ll be honest, at least 40% of the appeal of making the trip ourselves was so I could get a real king cake and not the sad grocery store wannabe shit they sell here that is basically french bread with sugar on top and sometimes pineapple jam filling. If you’ve ever had REAL king cake, it’s an abomination.).

We found some dinner, walked around a bit, went into some touristy gift shops and Madam Leveau’s, walked around with a daquiri taking in all of that weird AF (in a good way) NOLA essence, went and got a king cake, then went back home and were in bed before 10. That’s the old people way to do it. 10/10 would recommend. I’d only gotten about 4 hours sleep the night before so I passed out pretty quick (and then proceeded to have a repeating dream where we all woke up at 7:48 and therefore were very late for our 8am appt at the track… anyone else have anxiety dreams about lateness all the time? I’m never late. Probably because I can’t ever sleep because I’m too busy having dreams about being late.)

Indeed we actually got to the track a bit early and waited outside the entrance until the training break at 8. Then we drove down to the barn and got to go meet our mare! Who… was in the middle of her breakfast and therefore had zero interest in saying hello to us. It was a very mare greeting. More like a “for gods sake, WHAT?” than a “hello”. We got to walk around and look at several of their other horses too, and may or may not have called dibs on a couple of them when they retire. I don’t think I can be friends with racetrack people, it’s got bad idea written all over it.

After that we grabbed her papers, loaded her up, and away we went, back towards Texas. She walked right into the trailer, which was great, sometimes the racehorses are confused by a 2 horse straight load when they usually ride in big slants or vans. She seemed very sweet and willing though. Nervous, but she settled and ate her hay. We were able to make it all the way back only having to stop once, so we made pretty good time even though we hit some rain when we drove through the cold front. Poor girl, it was hot and humid when we loaded her up in NOLA and she got to Texas and it was cold and windy. Gotta love that when you’ve just hauled any horse all day, much less a young one that quite literally just came off the track. She wasn’t interested in drinking when we stopped but she did drink quite a bit when she got in the barn, and I’ve been soaking all her meals.

For now she’s in the double stall, since she can’t go into regular turnout for a little while yet. We’re trying to coordinate a weekend where we can shuffle her up to Michelle’s place, I think she’ll be happier resting for a couple months up there. Michelle has small pens with sheds, and there are plenty of horse friends in close proximity all the time for company. For now though she seems fairly content in her double stall. Bored, definitely, and not particularly happy to be inside when the others get to go outside, but she’s handling it pretty well all things considered. We’ll get to know her and play with her a little before she goes up to Michelle’s.

She’s still being a tad shy, but from what I’ve seen so far she seems smart and sweet. A little bit worried if you come at her too quickly, but we can work on that. And even when she’s worried, she’s never overreactive or belligerent about it, which I like. She’s starting to show a little bit of goofiness too now that she’s settling in, which of course I also quite like. Wouldn’t be a horse of mine if it wasn’t a little weird.

As for her name, I think we’ve settled on Gemma for a multitude of reasons. We had it down to Cora, Etta, or Gemma, and Gemma just really seems to fit her the most. Her name before was Emily, and Gemma sort of sounds similar. Really though Gemma is short for Geminio, the Harry Potter doubling spell. That has lots of meaning behind it for us. 1) she’s the second $900 facebook pony, so the doubling spell makes sense. 2) I already have one horse with a magic theme name 3) Hillary’s last OTTB also had a Harry Potter name. Plus I’ll be honest, 4) I really like the name Gemma as a nod to Gemma Tattersall. Anyone who wins a 5* wearing a lavender pompom helmet cover is a fucking queen in my book (and I’m pretty sure it automatically makes her President of Pom Club). To round it all out, 5) the mare has two forehead whirls, and she def does have two different sides to her (if you’re another horse and you want to come near her while she’s eating, she has some hellacious angry mare ears). She’s sweet, but I can also tell she’s gonna have some red mare opinions too. All of that stuff makes the name choice pretty indisputable I think.

So welcome home Gemma, we hope you love your new life. Today is her 5th birthday so we’ve got to find a way to celebrate!

Um. Oops. You know when you “accidentally” buy some tack you weren’t planning on buying and it’s called a taccident? It’s a thing, look it up.

Well. Um. What’s it called when you buy a horse you weren’t really planning on buying? A Horsident? Accihorse? Mental Disorder? Whatever.

Here’s the thing though… tell me this wasn’t eerily serendipitous. It happened almost exactly the same way Henry did. I wasn’t really shopping when I found him on facebook either. I always look at and scroll through horses, but I’m almost never genuinely shopping. Y’all know how it is. Henry was 100% an impulse purchase, because I saw something in his eyes that I liked, my gut said buy the horse, I was in a period of emotional turmoil, and I figured “why not”. Why not indeed. Best decision ever. I offered the seller $800, she countered at $900, a deal was struck, and history was made with my sight unseen horse purchase named Jerry that became Henry.

Fast forward to last night when I’m mindlessly scrolling and see this magnificent creature, who stops me dead in my tracks.

Her fancy advertising photos pulled me in, sure, but the one that really snagged me? The informal face shot. I see the same things in her eyes and face that drew me to Henry, and my gut gave me the exact same “buy it” feeling.

Was I looking for a horse? No. Well I was thinking maybe like summer or fall I’d pick up a project for RRP next year or something. I do love a good OTTB, and I already made a list of requirements for what I wanted (in case you’re curious, it’s literally in my phone notes and says “mare, 16-17h, uphill, good neck connection, good walk, no Storm Cat, good sport pedigree”). So I see this one, named Emily Who, and… damn if she didn’t tick all the boxes. I’m not totally in a position right now to be taking on the expense and responsibility of another horse entirely on my own though, so I sent her to the only person I know who’s as batshit as me… Hillary. She also loves a nice mare, it wasn’t a hard sales pitch to get her in for halfsies.

And well, I dunno, an hour later I was making an $800 offer, which was countered with $900, good enough for me, so we paid with Paypal and I’ll be damned if history didn’t just repeat itself almost exactly. But with a chestnut mare this time instead of a bay gelding. I can’t help but feel that the way this went down was extremely serendipitous and has good juju.

She needs some downtime, which is no problem, but her trainer reports that she is sweet and kind and laidback and would like a life outside of racing. She’s raced for a while but never won, although she did come close a few times. I know and trust the connections, which is always a big perk too. They’ve been very forthcoming about details. She can hang out and de-stress and gain some weight and settle into a quieter life for a while.

We do have to change her name though, I know way too many Emily’s to look this horse in the eye and call her that. Hillary and I were trying to think along the “repeat” or “again” theme and so far have come with a few possibles: Geminio (the repeating spell in Harry Potter) barn name Gemma, Ancora (Italian for again) barn name Cora, or Iteratus (latin for you repeat) barn name Rory. Just some initial ideas from the bit of perusing we’ve been able to do. We want to have a list ready when she gets here and then decide once we get to know her. Open to more ideas along that theme! Just nothing cheesy or super long please.

Currently working on shipping… its not super far from us since she’s in New Orleans, but it would be about the same amount of money to just have someone bring her here vs us drive there, stay the night, and drive back, so we’re looking at options. Not sure yet when she’ll get here but I’ll keep y’all posted.

SURPRISE, WE GOT A MARE!

_{I am the most ridiculous human being I’ve ever met, but are you not entertained?}

Despite being pretty busy these past couple weeks, I’ve managed to fit in a good amount of saddle time. Hillary was gone for the holidays so I had both Henry and Grace to ride, and usually ended up riding both of them on my lunch break.

Despite the crazy temperature swings we didn’t get much rain, which is kind of a double-edged sword. At this point we need it for the grass, things are looking a bit brown for this time of year, but it did mean that there was no interruption to any of my riding time. It was also nice to spend some time behind my favorite little fuzzy bay ears again.

One day I didn’t have enough time to ride them both so I figured I’d see if Grace ponied. And naturally I’m lazy so I just stuck a bareback pad on Henry. For as big of a jerk as he can be to other horses in the pasture, he’s usually pretty business-like when it comes to ponying duty, and after a couple laps around the courtyard it definitely seemed like Grace was familiar with the concept. We set off with no issue and I was able to walk and trot them both up the little hills in the back.

I rode in Hillary’s saddle a few more times while she was gone too but honestly being able to buy a new saddle isn’t in the cards for me for… quite a while probably, so I just had to quit riding in it. It was making me too sad about all the struggles I have in my own saddle that I didn’t in hers. Is what it is for a while I guess! It’s good to know where to start looking whenever I do finally end up buying something else though.

Hillary was back before New Years, and we were able to get rides in on NYE as well as New Years Day. On NYE we just wanted to do something fun, so we went out in the back on the hacking path and did a long walk and then galloped around videoing each other like a couple of 12 year olds for a while. It was deeply entertaining, and a nice way to cap off the year just doing something purely fun with the horses. Henry may or may not have run off with Hillary and tried to decapitate her on a tree. That’s how you know he loves you.

@breed.ride.event

Watch out for that tree… #newyear #ifidiedumb #equestrian #horsegirls #horseriding

♬ If I Die Dumb (A Parody of If I Die Young) – Maria T Comedy

In all seriousness, it’s nice to see him feeling good though. He’s such a cheeky horse, I think he’s having as much fun with Hillary as she is with him. He’s got her completely wrapped around his little hoof, milking tons of cookies out of her, and whenever he feels like she’s mastered something well enough, you can see his eyes light up as he tries his best to do something “naughty”. Which is really never that naughty… no one tell him. When it matters, he’s all business, but he also likes to pull out his arsenal of cheeky things to keep her on her toes sometimes.

On New Years we did some flatwork. Grace is getting better and better, feeling stronger and a little more fit as we go along. She’s been out of regular work for a long time so I always have to be mindful not to push it too much or make her tired, but I can feel a difference in her over the past month. She’s still convinced there are horse murderers in all the bushes and trees (and sometimes in the arena letters) but she’s got a lot of “try” in her so that makes it fun no matter what we’re doing. To me I think she rides more like a thoroughbred, at least in the brain, which IMO is a compliment.

This week Hillary’s been focused on riding Henry in a bit, which is a lot different, less fun, and harder than riding him bitless. He carries a lot more tension and requires a thoughtful, tactful ride… I swear he’s a million times easier to jump than he is to flat, and a million times easier to ride bitless than in a bit. She’s figuring out his buttons though, and how to get him through the tension. Hopefully the weather cooperates over the next month or two and she can get him to a show. I think he’d be delighted to show her just how amazing he is.

I’ve also been jumping Grace a bit more. Not a lot, usually just a few small jumps here and there, but she’s definitely really fun to jump. I’ve figured her out a bit more as far as what kind of ride she seems to prefer. I did give up on keeping her in front shoes though, she pulled two in two weeks and had another one halfway off by the time the farrier came for our regular 5 week appointment, so I had him just take them off. I tried. At this point I think she’ll do more damage pulling shoes off and possibly taking chunks of foot with it. So far she seems to be doing ok without the shoes, not quite as good as she was with them, but good enough, and I’ve been putting stuff on her feet, so… we’ll see. I think it’ll be fine though.

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That pretty much brings us up to date on what the horses have been up to I think. We’re hoping to be able to go XC schooling this weekend but it looks like its supposed to rain Saturday, so we’ll see how the ground ends up. If not this weekend then soon!