I sat down here to do my recap of last week’s happenings and had a hard time remembering what the heck even happened. How does last week already feel like such a long time ago?

Really though, I think between AEC and Bicton I spent most of my free time watching livestreams. The AEC one was bad for my blood pressure, they had a tendency to cut to commercial break or cut away to another ring/person RIGHT when the person I’d been waiting on was about to go. The only time their servers went down the entire time was precisely for the entirety of Tenny’s XC run and I don’t think I’ve ever yelled at a screen so much in my entire life. That was the one thing I wanted to see most, of course.

For a free livestream though I can’t complain too much, and overall we did get to see a lot, and at least something from every level. It gave me a little bit of FOMO (okay maybe not so much the first couple days when it was absolutely pissing rain) and extra sadness that Presto didn’t get to go. Then again I didn’t think the Novice looked particularly challenging, definitely not as technical as the course he did at Chatt, so… oh well. It was a beautiful show though and the courses were lovely, that’s for sure.

The Bicton live stream was great – good commentary and we got to see a lot of the course. The terrain was absolutely INSANE, that’s for sure, and the “bloodier” horses definitely seemed to fare better – the average blood percentage of the top 10 was 62%, and the average of the top 5 was 66%. Some horses just plain ran out of gas 3/4 of the way around after going up and down so many hills.

I did think it was interesting how many times the pin at the bounce coffin gave way – often on only one side. Of all the times it went, only one horse really whacked it particularly hard. Most just scraped over the top with the hind end the way XC horses often do when jumping into coffin questions like that, but they certainly would not have fallen or even stumbled if the pin hadn’t gone. Lots of 11 penalties where it wasn’t deserved, IMO. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of discussion comes about after all these penalties that have happened on the big stage lately.

The other highlight from Bicton was seeing Gemma Tattersall finally win a 5*. I feel like she’s a bit of a kindred spirit with that pompom up there on her XC helmet. Pom Club things. If Gemma can ball around a 5* to win it like a complete boss bitch in her lavender and white pompom helmet cover, the haters can definitely STFU about mine.

@breed.ride.event

Pom Club forever 💥 #equestrian #eventer #eventing #horsegirl

♬ Mama Said – Lukas Graham

Anyway.

Otherwise the only interesting things to happen last week were the acquisition of a few new things. Free Ride had a sale so I finally caved and ordered the black shirt that I’ve been eyeballing for months. It has a little tone on tone stripe down the arm/side and sparkly glitter mesh so duh, I needed it. I do honestly need a few more shirts that are more fitted for when I tuck them in, so that plus sale plus free shipping seemed to justify it in my mind.

It’s a cute shirt for sure, although the fabric is a bit thick for a sunshirt, IMO. I’d call it more of a baselayer. Which works fine for me because I’ll be able to wear it more over the coming months. It’s really nicely fitted and Free RIde shipped the same day I ordered, big props to them there. I’ve always heard good things but this was my first time ordering from them.

The week before that, when I was still high off my $40 amazon breeches find, I had ordered a show shirt from another Amazon company. I found it kind of by accident, hidden in a listing for sunshirts. They had navy and gray, both with full mesh sleeves, so I took a shot and ordered the navy one. The all mesh sleeve is really appealing to me because I’m pretty much always at shows that are hot, so I wear my Motionlite coats, but if you wear a short sleeve shirt under those you can always see the line really easily, which drives me nuts in pictures. The mesh sleeve seemed like a good compromise – you’d get the bit of white cuff at the wrist from the long sleeve, and the sleeve would be a nice flat smooth profile under the arm of the coat, but the mesh would be cooler than a regular long sleeve. In theory, anyway. I didn’t have super high hopes for a $30 shirt but figured what the heck it was worth a shot.

This one is another winner though, for sure. The fabric is nice – thin and stretchy, and the mesh sleeves are REALLY cool and breathable. The fit is great for a show shirt too, not too boxy. I immediately went back to order the gray one but it’s sold out in my size right now. I think these things will be magical for warm weather shows. The mesh is delicate obviously so my dumpster fire self will have to be a little careful not to rip it, but also… they’re $30.

The other acquisition/upgrade last week was my running martingale clip rings. Presto is jumping in a running right now, but I sold my last running attachment (Henry used one when he was greener and more, uh, enthusiastic too, but settled out of needing it) a couple years ago. I grabbed a cheap $6 adjustable running attachment from someone on facebook one day so I’d at least have something for when he comes back. I dunno about y’all though but I freaking HATE having to unbuckle reins to run them through the rings (ain’t nobody got time for that) so I wanted clip-on ones like the Prestige and CWD runnings have. Stacie pointed out that duh you can just buy the rings by themselves (I got mine on the same Amazon order as my shirt, it was $7 for 5 rings) and convert any running to the clip-on ring style. She’s a genius. All hail Stacie.

It was as easy as cutting the old rings off with bolt cutters, then sliding the new ones on. Took all of 30 seconds maybe.

I got the 40mm, which are a little bigger than the rings that came on the running to start with, but I figured I’d rather them be slightly bigger so it was easier to clip them on and off over raised reins.

That was definitely the cheapest and easiest upgrade that I’ve done in a really long time. Unbuckling reins is for the birds, man.

We did get to do one other fun thing this weekend too but it gets it’s own post tomorrow! Hope y’all had a good long weekend.

It’s become a bit of a game to find little toys and things to show the babies. It keeps things fun, and them seeing some scary stuff now when they’re little seems to help build their confidence and bravery for the future. Plus, ya know, it’s entertaining as heck.

This time the toys of choice were a little dog tunnel and a flower bubble machine. Right off the bat the babies spotted the human with the interesting new things and came up to scope them out. Ladies first of course, because they’re always the most bold.

The girls weren’t really all that impressed with the bubbles, to be fair. They sniffed it once and then wandered off bored. Obi, however, was skeptical of the death acid balls (his words) that it was shooting out at a very high rate of speed.

You know who was a big fan of it, though? Mr. Percy. He LOVED the bubbles. He marched right up there, gave it a sniff, and then just keep standing there letting the bubbles accumulate around him.

When the machine ran out of bubble solution and shut off he almost seemed sad about it.

As for Patrick, he wasn’t really convinced that any of this business was safe or wise to participate in. He prefers to spectate all the various tomfoolery, thank you very much. If he was a human he’d always be the designated driver of the friend group, I think.

The girls didn’t really get that interested in this particular play day until the tunnel came out. Now THAT looked like it was worth investigating.

Especially once it got popped open and laid out to full size. They immediately had to scope it out.

At first (for, ya know, at least 15 seconds) they were a little skeptical of it, but it didn’t take long before it became basically a jungle gym. Especially for Teddy. Because Pony.

She’s now stomped it, sat on it, run over top of it, jumped over it, and scared the boys with it. What better toy could a girl want?

Happy Friday!

Y’all know I can’t resist a 5* field, and Bicton being a bit of a one-off plus containing a fair number of first time 5* starters, I definitely had to take a closer look at the field. It’s a small group for a 5*, we started with 39 entries and are down to 33 as of this writing, but there are still some interesting horses and breeding to look at here. The course looks great, H&C will be livestreaming – what more could you want?

The first thing that stood out to me was the number of horses that have a full TB parent. There aren’t any full TB’s in the field, but 11 horses (33% of the field) have one full TB parent. As far as which side of the pedigree the blood is on, it’s split pretty evenly – 5 have a full TB sire and 6 have a full TB dam. If you go back one more generation, an additional 6 horses have a full TB damsire and another 3 have a full TB sire’s sire. Even with no full thoroughbreds in the field, the importance of TB blood in the modern event horse is still very evident, and it doesn’t necessarily seem to matter where in the pedigree the blood comes from. None of them share the same thoroughbred either – you see everything from the classic sires like Imperius xx and Hand in Glove xx to more modern sires like Tajraasi xx.

The average blood percentage for the field is 60%, higher than the usual 55-56ish that we’re used to seeing at the European 5*’s. MHS King Joules (by Ghareeb xx out of a Cavalier Royale/Morwood xx mare) has the highest blood percentage, around 84%, and Finduss PFB (by Saffier out of a Sarantos/Purioso mare) is the lowest around 33%.

As far as where they were bred, as usual Ireland gets to stake the biggest claim, with 48% of the field having been bred in Ireland. Despite that, only three of the 16 Irish-breds are fully of traditional Irish breeding, the other 13 have continental European warmblood heritage (mostly Selle Francais and Holsteiner – the magical combination). Of the three traditionally bred Irish Sporthorses, they have a lot of blood in there to balance to Irish Draught – Alfies Clover is 72% TB, Diamond Ructions is also 72% TB, and Majas Hope is 77% TB. The other two countries that have bred the most entrants are Great Britain and Nederlands, with 6 horses each.

While none of the horses in the field share the same sire, we do see a few stallions appearing in multiple horses’ pedigrees. Clover Hill shows up in 4 different horses, once as the sire’s sire, twice as the damsire, and once as the dam’s damsire. Namelus R is the sire’s sire of two horses, with Rock King and Cavalier Royale in the damsire spot for two horses.

We see a lot of jumper bred horses in the field, as usual, as well as some purpose-bred eventers. Top level 1.60m showjumper stallions Carambole, Iroko, Camiro de Haar Z, Hermes de Reve, Touchdown, and Tangelo vd Zuuthoeve are the sires of one horse each. Advanced level eventing stallions Mill Law and Jumbo both have one offspring each, and 5* eventing stallions Oslo Biats and Chilli Morning also have one each. Interestingly perhaps for US breeders, there are two sires of horses in this field that are now over here breeding in North America – Valentino (sire of VIP Vinnie) and Billy Mexico (sire of Billy Walk On).

Looking on the damside we also see some excellent performance horses. RSH Contend Or’s dam showjumped to 1.60m level and Fonbherna Lancer’s dam showjumped to 1.40m level. Two horses in the field have top level eventing dams – Chilli Knight out of 5* mare King’s Gem, and Mr Fahrenheit out of 5* mare Little Tiger.

In addition to performance mares we also see some who didn’t compete in sport themselves but have proven to be tremendous producers. MHS King Joules’ dam produced 10 foals – 2 eventers competing 3* and 5* and 5 showjumpers competing from 1.30m up to 1.60m. HHS Noble Call’s dam produced 5 foals – one 4* eventer and 4 showjumpers competing from 1.35m through 1.60m. Pencos Crown Jewel’s dam has also produced a whopping THREE 1.60m showjumpers. Billy Walk On’s dam produced 3 other eventers that have competed through 3* level. Mr Farenheit’s dam Little Tiger has also produced another 4* eventer, making her a excellent producer as well as a top performance horse. The same can be said of Chilli Knight’s dam King’s Gem, who already has produced one other 5* eventer a well as a 3* eventer.

I can’t wait to see how this new course shakes out and who finds themselves on top at the end. Who are your Bicton picks?

If there’s one thing I’m passionate about, it’s supporting the people and programs that I really believe in. And, as you may have noticed, I’m a big fan of the Willow Tree Warmbloods breeding program. I mean, I’m part of it so I’m biased, and Presto bears the WTW suffix, but ya know. I’m proud of what Michelle has built so far and am very proud to rep the farm and happy to help put the name out there as much as possible. Therefore, I have a lot of WTW logo stuff.

As Presto begins to wind down his time in training, and the transition back over to me becomes more and more real, I find myself doing a weird equestrian version of nesting and prepping. I can’t really do anything right now except think about what we might do and where we might go next year. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I have no problem being a walking advertisement for WTW. Plus, like, the logo that Britt made is pretty sweet, so why not show it off. I’ve slowly been adding bits and pieces to my WTW apparel and equipment.

When Presto was a wee baby mostly I had stuff like a grooming towel, and a scrim sheet, and a polo shirt… stuff I could use when he was showing in hand. Plus the decals on my truck and trailer. Now that he’s a bonafide Real Horse it’s time to start expanding a bit. He got his fancy bonnet back when he went to Megan, because ya know… gotta have a fancy hat. I love his bonnet and how professional it looks, and I think the logo turned out great (it came from Equine Bonnets and only took a week – highly recommend). Otherwise though he wears Megan’s logo stuff, since obviously it’s easier for her to use her own pads and whatnot, and fair enough for her to also rep her own program.

But now that he’s headed back to me soon, I figured it’s time to start expanding on both his and my stuff and add a few pieces at a time so that we’re fully locked and loaded and logo’d to death by the time we ever actually hit a horse show. That’s part of the point, right? Pretty sure.

I’ve been needing to buy him some saddle pads anyway – all I’ve got are Henry’s sheepskin-lined ones and Presto can’t wear those because he needs the shimmable half pad. Oddly out of all the things I collect, saddle pads are not one of them. I have very few. But seeing Megan’s Pro Choice saddle pads this year, I actually really liked them, so I got him one of their XC ones – white with navy trim. Which…. uh… I kinda forgot until this moment that he needs pads for stadium and dressage too so good job self. You can see what phase I care about most. Anyway, I did order him the XC pad already anyway, and I definitely plan on having the WTW logo put on it. I just can’t decide which way I prefer the logo.

On one hand, the top one sits nicely with the shape of the pad and the text is bigger/easier to read, but the bottom is the classic WTW logo format and is more recognizable. There’s also room beside it to pin my bridle number if I don’t want it on his head or breastplate. Pros and cons. I put it to an Instagram poll but the results were almost 50/50 so that didn’t help much. The only thing I’ve decided for sure is that it’ll have the logo on one side and his name on the other.

I also snagged a banner and a stall sign on super sale from Vistaprint, we’ll see how they turn out.

The whole world will definitely know about WTW if I have anything to say about it. Like people will be begging me to stop soon. No shame in my game.

What is y’alls favorite logo item?

I figured Mina gets one more update post, since she’s been here for I think 6 weeks now (?) and has settled in to farm dog life a bit.

Now that we know each other and she’s gotten used to the farm, things have come along pretty well. I know going from being an apartment dog to a farm dog was a big change for her, but for the most part she’s acclimated just fine. When she first came home I was fairly sure she hadn’t really spent much if any time off leash, she was very confused by the concept of freedom. Bit by bit she started earning more and more though, as she worked on paying attention to me and coming when she was called. Her recall is very good now, I never have to have her leashed or worry about her running off at all, she comes running just from a whistle and tends to not really want to lose me from her sight anyway. She’s definitely figured out that I’m her person.

As for the horses, she’s not really scared of them anymore, which is a good thing and a bad thing. She’s not as careful about staying out of their path or away from their feet so I have to watch her pretty closely when she’s near them. Quinnie and Henry really don’t pay her any mind but JB is deathly curious about her and really wants to chase her, which Mina has yet to realize.

We haven’t had too many encounters with wildlife or other animals, aside from bugs (this dog will run up to a spiderweb and shove her whole face in it to sniff the spider). She loves to chase birds but I don’t think she’d know what to do if she ever actually caught one. What does seem to concern her is if any of the livestock start singing the songs of their various people – like if the cows start mooing or the donkeys start heehawing or the horses start neighing. Mina goes on high alert, or if it’s the horses she wants to go running over to them. I dunno if she thinks there’s something going down or if she’s still just not figured out what the heck noise they’re making.

For the most part Mina only has two modes – 100% balls to the wall, or asleep. Like… there’s very little in between. She’s quite high-energy, I bet she wasn’t that great as an apartment dog honestly. Stewie was a JRT mix and even in his heyday he wasn’t as high energy as she is. She’s got that vibrating, ADHD quality to her sometimes. There are lots of zoomies. Lots.

To her credit though, she’s not destructive AT ALL. She doesn’t chew or dig or bark or anything like that. Her only real bad habit that I’m still trying to deal with is that she jumps up on people. She kind of gets overwhelmed with excitement because FRANDS and then just starts leaping like crazy. I’ve gotten her to stop doing it to me 95% of the time but all bets are off for new people. That’s a work in progress.

The other thing she really seems to hate is… leaving. She doesn’t want to get in the car AT ALL, and she’s high anxiety the whole time she’s in there and when she goes anywhere new. We’ve done about 5 little trips now, thinking she’d get better over time once she figured out she definitely wasn’t going back to the shelter. Not so much… if anything she’s gotten worse. If you go to the car she runs the other way and lays down in a ball, you basically have to drag her in. Not really worth it, IMO. I guess she’s happy enough here?

I’m glad that she likes the farm and isn’t overwhelmed by it, nor is she a flight risk. You just never know how they’ll handle it sometimes. For a shelter dog that came from who knows where, she’s a really good dog overall.