Finally. Blessed FINALLY we were at the final day of our FEI experience. No shade to the horse show itself, but Presto was over it and therefore I was over it and we were both ready to GTFO and go home.

The 1* jogged first on Sunday at 8am, and then our division’s showjumping started at 9:30 (I was second to jump). This might seem like ample time, but the course wasn’t set or open for walking until 8:45, and my coach had to jog her 2* horse right around that same time, so it ended up being a bit of a tight morning, time-wise.

I was up and down in the barn by 5 to give Presto his Ulcergard, and the braider (my new favorite person) showed up pretty soon after. Once he was done getting braided he got his breakfast, and then I got him out and took him for a long handwalk. He looked great though… cold tight legs, didn’t seem particularly body sore or tired or anything. Indeed, he was a bit wild. I jogged him and he looked good, so he went back in his stall for a few minutes while I went to see if the showjumping course was at least posted (it wasn’t) and then went to change into my jog outfit.

For the jog itself, he was once again in old hunter pony mode. Like seriously man. When we practice jogging him up, he comes bounding forward like the pranciest fanciest thing you’ve ever seen. The second he gets to the ACTUAL jog strip he’s like oh no I simply cannot why we do dis.

Either way, despite his terrible presentation, this time he was quickly accepted. Praise the freakin eventing gods.

He got to go back to his stall while I went and changed into my show clothes. By the time I was dressed I could see that they were done dragging the showjumping ring and the poles were all back in their cups, so Megan and I ran over there in the hopes that they would open the course a bit early for walking. As soon as we got there the course designer gave the thumbs up, so we quickly walked the course and made a plan.

Once we were done walking Megan had to jet back to jog her 2* horse, and I had to jet back to get mine tacked up. Luckily he doesn’t require an extensive warmup so the timing worked out pretty great actually, even if it was a bit tight.

One of the big things we’ve been working on is my base pace and allowing him to keep coming forward (in balance of course) to the jumps. I tend to want to over-manage the canter and sometimes take too much away in the corner, or package it up too much out of the corner. He’s a ginormous horse so it always feels faster and less balanced to me than it actually is. He’s keeping a much better shape across his topline now than he used to, he doesn’t need as much help anymore. Megan wants me to stay up off of him a bit more in the corners and just sink down softly into my tack once I see my distance. It does seem to work better for us at this stage.

We worked on “base pace” in the warmup, and all the jumps came up great. We jumped a few oxers of increasing height and width, and then ended with a tall vertical. The rider that went before me was Caroline Pamucku, so I got to halfway watch her round, which was better than getting to watch none at all. I like to see how the turns and distances are working out. Everything walked pretty standard, but ya know… sometimes it rides differently.

We went in the ring, saluted the judge, and then away we went. I very deliberately got him out in front of my leg immediately, wanting to make sure that if nothing else, I didn’t get accused of having too little pace. I’m tired of making that mistake. Fence 1 came up great, and we made the turn to fence 2. Megan tells you to look at the inside standard of the fence as you’re coming through the turn, and then shift your eye to the takeoff spot once you’ve made the turn. This works really well for me, I don’t end up drifting a smidge past my line and hanging out too long in the corner.

He jumped the absolute shit out of the oxer at 2, then down the line to a skinny vertical at 3. Then it was around the turn again to 4, with 5 strides to 5AB. I got slightly deep to 4 so had to land and step up just a teeny bit to get down to 5A correctly. He was incredibly rideable though, and kept jumping really well no matter what. He’s gotten so much stronger that he’s jumping really well from the deeper distance now because he’s actually pushing off the ground properly.

We made the left turn to 6, which was the start of our S-curve of jumps across the ring. The oxer in the middle looked ginormous and really really square.

This is also the point where I get to admit that I completely forgot that FEI showjumping is bigger than the national equivalent level. Like Modified showjumping is 1.05m, but CCI1* showjumping is 1.10m, which is Prelim height. I didn’t realize that until YESTERDAY. So ya know… um… does explain why I was like “huh, these look a little big”. Yes, you moron. The first one was M height and the rest were P. Duh.

Anyway, I saw a bit of a move up to that oxer and he just FLEW over it. Like grew wings and flew. I think my soul left my body, and I very distinctly remember thinking “glad I put a little sticky spray on my saddle this morning” during the 75 seconds we were in the air.

He jumped the next oxer much the same way.

It’s kind of insane how easy this all still is for him, he’s just starting to make some kind of effort. And the effort makes me think it’s time to start working out more if I plan on actually staying attached to this animal when he finally starts making genuine efforts.

Then it was around to the last line (cutting inside a group of standards – FEI SJ is set at 350mpm rather than 325mpm, so the time ends up tighter. No room for making big loopy turns!) which was a two stride and then 7 bending strides to a vertical. Well it could be 7 direct or 8 with more bend in the line, but that line had been there the day before and direct seemed to be working better, so we went with that.

He jumped all those super too, and with that we had ourselves a double clear round and our very first FEI completion!

I was super pleased with the round and how he jumped, it’s feeling smoother and like the balance is improving. Mostly I was also just glad I didn’t shit the bed and do something entirely stupid, like go off course or fall off. That would have been the pits. I wanted that completion plaque! And we got it!

Sadly, if not for the umbrella incident we would have finished 5th. That stings. That stings a lot. But at the end of the day it’s hard to be disappointed with the weekend, really. He was super in the dressage, we had one of our best XC rounds ever (and it felt easy), and the SJ was also one of our best rounds to date.

The part that sucked was managing him for 5 days in stabling. I thought it would be a challenge, and I was right. It’s just so not the situation for him, and clearly I haven’t figured it all out. It mostly left me feeling like I will be in absolutely no hurry to do another FEI any time soon, or travel particularly far to out of town horse shows. Luckily this is Ocala, and I don’t really have to. We’ve got plenty of stuff to do and things to work on to keep us occupied.

I have a whole lot of thoughts and feelings on the whole thing, really. More than I can ever type and a lot of conflicting emotions. Patreon members, we recorded a podcast about it (its on your dashboard) so you could get the full and unfiltered story. The short version is that while I’m glad we did the FEI – it’s a bucket list item checked off, no doubt – it wasn’t really some kind of magical or poignant experience for me. Mostly it was stressful. Really stressful. In ways I hadn’t even considered.

Luckily we’ve got other stuff on the docket now, and it’s local and much more familiar, so… sigh of relief on that front. There are still a couple more shows before Ocala kinda shuts down for summer, so we’ll see if we can continue our plans for the rest of the season (knock on wood… I feel like with horses we’re always knocking on wood…)!

I’m drafting a post about all the outfits involved in this whole adventure, since that seemed to be a popular idea. Coming soon (hopefully tomorrow?)!

Always the best part, let’s be honest.

XC day was… long. The 1* was the lowest level running that day (4*, 3*, 2* were the other divisions) so we got the crappy end of the weather stick and got to run at 3pm when it was 90 degrees. This was the first truly hot weather of the season so I was a little worried how Presto might handle galloping for 6 minutes in it.

To the event’s immense credit, they did a lot to help mitigate the heat risk. They had vet box in the covered, so the horses could get into the shade immediately after they finished, and there were troughs of water constantly refilling that you could dip your cool-down buckets into, along with lots of ice and fans and plenty of people available to help cool horses down. Short of being able to control the weather, that’s about all you can do.

I had walked the course twice the day before, once with Megan and once with Hillary. They had also run a Modified one-day the day before, and they shared a couple combos with the 1*, so I went out and watched how they were riding and which routes seemed to be working best. I went early in the order for the 1*, so I wouldn’t really have the opportunity to watch anyone go in my division.

My initial impression of the course was that I thought it was pretty friendly. I mean, it’s a solid and fair 1*, but the questions are all things we’ve seen before. Granted… we’ve been running Modified for almost a year now, so… one would freakin hope.

Presto was a scene in warmup. By this point in the week his quarter had completely run out. He’d been in a stall for 3 days, he was pretty sure his neighbor was his BFF, and he was having meltdowns every time that horse left (or didn’t actually leave but Presto just thought he left). Like earlier that morning I had to bolt across the show grounds because someone called me and told me he was alternating between double-barreling the wall and sticking his front feet over the top of the wall. He just… really really really didn’t handle the stabling aspect of this adventure, and it rapidly fell apart throughout the day on Saturday as we waited to go. We hit his limit.

And even with giving him Ulcergard every morning, I could tell in warmup that his stomach was bothering him. He is often a scene in XC warmup, but in a jovial yeehaw “let’s have fun” kind of way. This time he was a scene scene. Like rearing and spinning and screaming and he definitely considered trying to run back to the barn a couple times to be with his new BFF (who gave zero fucks about him in return). It was far beyond his normal antics, and with a different tone. I thought he might actually try some of his old napping habit (that we haven’t seen in quite a while from him) out of the start box. He had that feeling to him, if you know what I mean. I have learned now that he gets like that when he’s anxious… I think it’s a tummy thing.

As soon as we left the box I really sent him in front of my leg, trying to get him to focus on his job. I could feel him thinking about going back to warmup, but luckily the first one came up fast and we were over it before he had a chance to think too hard. We landed from that one and I opened him up to a good gallop. That usually gets him clicked in. The beginning of the course was pretty open and flowy, so it gave you a good opportunity to get going, and fence 2 was a big wide gallopy ramp, so it worked out well. He absolutely flew over that, ears perked. Now we were in business.

Fence 3 was the MIM oxer off a pretty short turn approach, but the turn works as the half halt, so you could pretty much just keep coming. He pinged over that great. As we got close to 4, the trakehner in the treeline, I could see the poor girl who had left the box ahead of me off to the side, no longer attached to her horse. I didn’t have any time to process it in the moment, but turns out the horse had fallen. Luckily Presto was too busy jumping the trakehner to give that horse much thought in the moment.

From there we went to the log wagon, which was good, and then to the first real question – a jump in the water, then a left turn to a bending line. I noticed while watching the day before that if you had a horse that tended to step into the very edge of the water, it was a perfect 3 forward strides to the rolltop. I happen to have a horse like that, so I knew once we got to the edge I could just close my leg and the 3 would come up well, and it did. The line to the next one seemed to ride best in a 6, then you could ride forward and the skinny was there in 3. Some people hung out/slowed down and did 7 and 4, but it definitely looked more awkward that way. Megan wanted me to take the bolder route, so we did. Presto was delighted, he’s a fan of taking bold and forward routes.

From there we had another decent gallop stretch to a table, which came up pretty well out of a forward stride, and then we looped back (and balanced up a whole whole lot) for the coffin. We jumped the MIM rail that Prelim usually has, bigger than any of the ones we’ve had before, and with the bigger ditch. Otherwise thought it was a pretty straightforward line… two strides to the ditch, four straight strides to the corner. It was bigger than usual but I feel like we’ve seen more technical questions at that coffin before. Presto was super through there.

Then we had the log table, which was good, to the next little house thing. Then it was 8 bending strides right to the log stack, with four bending strides left to the skinny. This question rode really well if you picked your line from the beginning and really stuck to it, but I saw it do some gnarly things to people who didn’t make a decision or tried to change their mind. Presto was really good and rideable through that question.

Then we had another gallopy table before we got to the next combo, the crater. Here, his anxiety got the best of him. As soon as I got straight to the A element he spotted the videographer sitting under a big umbrella directly in his line of sight on the other side of the crater, and he spun like an absolute top. Damn near dropped me right off the shoulder. We were still a good 6-7 strides from the jump… I don’t even think he’d seen it yet, but he was NOT having it with that big flappy umbrella.

I got him turned around, he eyeballed the shit out of the umbrella, and then we re-approached. Once he locked on to the jump he was bold as brass, remembered he had a job, and jumped through the combo like easy peasy. Unfortunately the spin happened close enough to the jump for it to count as a 20, even though it had nothing to do with the actual jump itself. Big fucking bummer. BIG FUCKING BUMMER. UGGGGGGH. This is totally the kind of shit he does when he gets anxious though (recall Stable View?), and given the day leading up to that point… I’m not shocked. I wish I’d felt it coming, but he really got me with no warning on that one.

Once that happened I took my foot off the gas a little. No point in going for time anymore, womp womp. But he hopped over the collapsible table great, and up over the mound really super.

Then we got to the second water, which I thought might have been the most interesting question on the course. You had a fairly standard brush fence into the water, and then turned right and jumped a corner. Caveat being, there was a Training jump in the way of what would be the best line to the corner. So you could either cut inside of the Training jump and come into the corner on a bit of an angle, daring yourself a little, or you could go around the Training jump and make a quick 90 degree turn to jump the corner dead-straight.

While we were walking the course Megan told me to take the inside route. When I looked at her a second too long she was like “If you’re gonna move up to Prelim, you need to take that route. Going around is a waste of time. Keep his shoulders straight and ride through the flags. Don’t be a p*ssy.” and then kept walking. Did you know this is apparently a very effective strategy of coaching me? I was like “ah well yes obviously I am not a p*ssy, so clearly I would take the inside route”. And honestly? She was right. It rode really well that way. Presto was genuine as hell, locked on to the corner right away, stayed super straight in his shoulders, and it worked out great. And since this was the water jump directly in front of our stabling, I got to see literally dozens of people jump through that question all weekend long between the various Modified divisions and the 1*. Not very many people took the inside route but it always rode better when they did. The longer route was awkward and required too much micro-managing.

After that we just had a gallop up the hill to the log oxer, then to the skinny table, both of which were great. Then we galloped between the ropes and across the road (ok that was fun) into the big grass arena for the last jump.

After we crossed the finish we pulled up to trot and trotted a circle for the vet and steward at the finish. They gave the thumbs up and off we went to vet box in the covered arena to start his cool down. We pulled his tack off on the way and I had plenty of ground people to help, so honestly I mostly just watched and chugged a bottle of water. They walked him a bit, or tried to. They put water on him, or tried to. They took his boots off and studs out, with some difficulty. I figured he would be naughty for vet box because he HATES baths and hates being wet, especially if the water is cold. I was correct, he was violently opposed to having buckets of cold water thrown on him. He scattered the bucket volunteers pretty quickly.

The good news is that he was barely winded and not that hot. He cooled down really quickly and was very obviously not tired, so we were out of vet box in less than 10 minutes. Granted, they opted not to try to take his temperature for fear of their life. Fair. That’s fair. Either way, he was very clearly not in any kind of distress health-wise. He was completely back to normal respiratory rate by the time he got back to his stall, and seemed fresh as a daisy. All good!

From there it was just normal post XC care stuff. Or normal for him anyway. Magic cushion, handwalking, etc. I tried to wrap him since he was going to be stuck in a stall, but he pulled those off in an hour. I gave up. He very clearly did not need fluids or anything like that, so… it was a pretty simple and easy post-XC.

If we could just erase the stupid umbrella spin, it would be the best XC day we’ve ever had. It was smooth and bold, the jumps came up well, and it felt honestly incredibly easy. He’s fit and even in the hot weather he handled it fantastic. That stupid 20 will bother the shit out of me until the end of my days. We’ll talk more about my thoughts on that and the how/why/what next aspect later. I did learn something about him and his show management from this, at least.

But, either way, we were through the XC and on to the next and (finally) last day – the final jog and show jumping!

I did casually drop at the end of my last post (like two weeks ago… sorry!) that we were headed to our first FEI. I didn’t talk about it much publicly because I didn’t want to jinx it, or make it into a Big Thing (it was a Big Thing, I admit), plus I legit was so busy leading up to it that I truly didn’t have as much time to devote to thinking about it as I would have preferred. I didn’t even learn my dressage test until two days before. I can’t decide if that was the better approach, because I had less time to overthink, or if I would have rather been able to focus on it a little bit more. Either way, didn’t matter, it was what it was!

I was mostly very worried to commit some kind of FEI rule-related sin and get myself eliminated or in trouble for something stupid. I know USEA/USEF rules and procedures inside and out by this point, it’s old hat, but FEI is a very different ballgame and I am brand spankin new. I hate feeling brand new. I rolled into the Florida Horse Park on Wednesday for in-barns with Presto’s passport and a thermometer, raring to go. It did help that the show vet is also my normal vet, and the organizer is a good friend, so having familiar faces around all the “official” things all weekend made me a little more comfortable.

We sailed through in-barns in just a few minutes, getting his TPR and a general once-over. Although I did have some anxiety when they took his passport and put it in a box with all the others. I dunno why it didn’t occur to me that they would take those and hold them hostage onto them for the duration of the event, but that thing was a PITA to get and letting it out of my sight was stressful. Either way, we were quickly released to head over to the designated FEI-barn and get settled in.

Arena familiarization started at 4, so Megan (with her 2* horse… having my coach stabled right there in the FEI barn next to me was nice at least!) and I swung aboard right at 4pm to head over there. Presto has been up in the dressage rings at FHP a lot by now, but they were more decorated than normal, with an extra judge’s box and bleachers, so I figured I should take the opportunity to get him in the ring and let him see things. He didn’t give a shit, I think he was confused about what the heck we were doing schooling in the dressage ring. I didn’t ride him for long, just ran through a few different sections of the test and then called it a day.

After that he got a bath and a few last minute grooming touches to prepare for the first jog on Thursday morning. I did do something I have literally never done before for this show… I hired a braider. The reasons were many: 1) it took something off my plate and gave me more time, which brought my overall stress level down 2) Presto is a turd to braid and I usually end up extremely annoyed with him by the time I’m done, so it helped my mental state 3) I saved a lot of money on my entry by winning it in an online fundraising auction, so I figured I could justify this particular luxury.

It was worth every penny, btw. Is this how the other half lives? I love having a beautifully braided horse that I didn’t have to braid.

Anyway. Thursday started early, since the 1* jogged first. Presto got his Ulcergard around 5, he got braided, I fed him, handwalked him for a while, and then groomed him again. He had a little baby heel grab on his white foot, with a teeny bruise, so that was just fucking great. We jogged him up on the asphalt road just to double-check how he looked (great), then I went and got dressed. I was near the top of the order for the jog, so once they started I didn’t have to wait very long.

And well… the ground jury had no mercy at that first jog. They sent like 8 horses to the hold, and mine was one of them. It was an absolutely heart-stopping moment. To be fair, he jogged much less enthusiastically for the actual jog than he did earlier that morning, so I don’t think his 15yo hunter pony impression helped his case. The vet in the hold thought he looked fine, but he was the teeniest little bit tender on that bruised spot when she pushed on it with her fingers. She told the ground jury what she found, we jogged again with more enthusiasm, and then were accepted.

But I’ll be honest, any excitement or wind I had in my sails before that… it was gone entirely. I hated it. Hated every second of it, suddenly felt very overwhelmed and out of place and like I didn’t belong. My brain spiraled hard and I never really came back from that, emotionally. Someone told me that with the new awareness surrounding the social license to operate stuff, FEI officials have been told to be extra stringent, which is possibly why they were sending people to the hold left and right, but I dunno. I know my horse is sound, I would withdraw him in a heartbeat if even for a moment I thought that he wasn’t fit to compete, but I was mortified to end up in the hold.

Either way, that part was done and dusted. I didn’t do dressage until that afternoon around 2pm, so I had all day to sit there and marinate in everything that had happened and beat myself up about it. That was great. I just felt absolute dread settle into my stomach and it never really left. I guess the perk of that is that there’s no room for nerves? Heh. Super.

Presto doesn’t need a long warmup for dressage (especially when it’s 90 degrees… my god Florida really turned it to BAKE) so I got on him like 20 minutes ahead of my ride time. Which was honestly still more time than I needed. For as much of a monkey as he can be about literally anything, he knows what phase is first and always marches into warmup and goes to work like a pro, wasting no energy on the boring part. We did lots of transitions, worked on keeping the left side straighter and the right side more bent, keeping more sit in his canter, and then walked for a while. When the horse before me went to the ring they allowed me into another ring, an actual dressage court, to finish my warmup. I mostly just confirmed all the sizing and location of my 15m circles in there, ran through my test again in my head, and then it was time!

Also, side note, I think I’m gonna do a separate post about all the outfits involved in this weekend, because some of these things deserve their own discussion. Stay tuned for that. For now though, let’s admire the teal For Horses shad. It is magical.

Anyway… the test went pretty well. I didn’t particularly “go for it” in any way, I mostly just tried to make it accurate and keep the rideability. Neither of my lengthenings were particularly bold (which the judges did not like lol) and overall I think I could have pumped a bit more flair and energy into him, but it was a solid and obedient test. Megan and I were thinking it’d be closer to the 30 mark, but it scored a 33. They really wanted more boldness at this level. Fair enough.

Either way, I was pleased with him, and it put us 10th after the first phase, which wasn’t bad at all considering the company.

Since dressage for the FEI divisions ran over two days, Friday was a day off for us. I spent it walking and handgrazing Presto (who was really not pleased to be stuck in a stall), walking my XC course a couple times, and we also had a very very short jump school. Like literally 5 jumps. They allowed us to book a time in one of the grass rings with a steward present so we could jump school if we wanted, and I mostly just took the opportunity to make sure I was clicked into my forward-thinking XC ride. We got that done in like 10 minutes and then went for a long hack.

That night we had the FEI rider meeting where they went over what the vet box procedures would be following XC, and we got free food and ice cream and trivia. Hillary and I and one of the TD’s were on a trivia team (the smallest team, I might add, everyone else had 4-5 people!) and ended up second. I’m still certain that Kyle Carter’s team cheated somehow. But we won a little Triple Crown goodie bag anyway, so I guess I can let it go.

And that takes us up to Saturday, cross country day! Stay tuned…

Well, whoops. I started drafting this post last week and then never had time to come back and actually finish typing it. I feel like that might just be how things go for the next month or so.

Between all the regular horse stuff, having people in town to visit, and the beginning of breeding season, I just don’t find myself with a lot of time to sit down in front of my computer. Or by the time I do, I have lots of other things I have to do before I can get to the blog. Such is life, I suppose.

Now that Michelle is back in town we’ve been keeping pretty busy with scanning mares, organizing all the breeding equipment, making sure we have everything we need, etc. A lot of the mares are in their transitional period right now, just coming into their actual breedable cycles, so we’ve been checking them often and keeping a log so that we can track where they are in their cycles. And there are a lot of mares on the docket this year to try to get bred, so it quickly becomes pretty time-consuming! But hopefully in a couple months we’ll have lots of preggos running around. Fingers crossed.

We haven’t actually scanned Fey yet, we’re taking the slow and positive route of getting her used to the stocks, the equipment, and all that stuff. Once they learn that the stocks are a good place (lots of cookies!) they’re much happier to come in and stand much better for all the scanning and stuff. The end goal is that by the time we actually scan her she’ll be happy and confident in the stocks. The less we have to sedate them, the better, obviously.

The first day we just let her look at everything, led her through the stocks a few times, and then led her through a few more times, pausing to stand for about 10 seconds before walking out. Yesterday was her second time, and she walked right in a few times and stood for a bit, then we walked in and shut the door behind her, then finally capped it off by walking in again, shutting the door, and then putting up the chest rope. I only asked her to stand like that for about a minute, she got some cookies, and then that was it. She’s been quite good about everything so far. Granted, she is REALLY food motivated, so the cookies-as-bribery thing works pretty well on her.

The next step will be actually scanning her, which we’ll sedate her for the first time. She is relatively terrible about shots, so we’ll have to work on that with cookies too.

So far we’ve only actually bred one mare – Peyton, last week. That was my first time helping with the actual breeding part, so it was kinda fun. Fingers crossed those British swimmers do their thing… we’ll find out in about a week.

It’s been kind of weird not having any foals on the farm this year, it’s the first year with no WTW foals since she started breeding. Taking a year off was the right choice so that everything could settle and reboot after the move, but I think we’re all definitely missing the babies.

Granted, we do have a couple fluff butts on the farm at the moment, in the form of baby Sandhill Cranes. Maybe instead of Foal Friday we should have Fowl Friday?

They’re really cute and fun to watch. Last year this pair only had one baby, but this year they have two! I’ve been calling them Fluff and Floof, but they’re growing so fast that I fear they won’t be very fluffy for much longer.

On the riding front, things have been chugging along pretty much like normal. Well, okay, we’re majorly in a “step it up” phase where we’re asking Presto for more. More effort, more rideability, more suppleness, more precision, etc. Which also means that I am solidly in a learning curve phase right along with him. It’s a bit awkward at times, as expected when you’re in a growth phase, but it feels good too. It feels like progress. Or ya know… it hopefully will eventually. I can already see some change in him though, and he does feel more rideable. I mean, do I always make the right choice? No. Sure don’t. But I have more choices available to me.

Last week we had a jump lesson over at Majestic, and then this past weekend we had a flat lesson. I think we’ve got more jumping lined up this week, and hopefully early next week we’ll be able to squeeze in a flat lesson with Peter Gray again if we can make our schedules work.

And then next Wednesday we’re off to our next show, which is also our first FEI. This will be a totally new experience for both of us, and I’m already super anxious about making sure I do all the FEI stuff right. At least that’s kept me from getting nervous about the competition itself, although now that I think about it I should probably learn the dressage test. Heh. Minor detail.

I hope everyone has been doing well and is settling into spring!

The good news: we’ve made it to the fun part. The bad news: I stalled on this post hoping for lots of good show photos and there is precisely one that I liked enough to buy. Luckily there were lots of friends there so I have plenty of screenshots and some video too!

First off: the course. Presto ate it for breakfast.

To be honest, this was IMO a very soft Modified, possibly the softest we’ve run. Majestic is known for having friendly courses, so I expected something on the softer side (I entered this show because the timing was what I wanted, not because I expected a challenge) and this was definitely it. The only real question IMO was the big brush table bending line to the corner which came near the end of the course.

Anyway, I walked the course with Megan on Friday after showjumping. There were lots of instructions, mostly about straightness, keeping my eye up, supporting with my lower leg, and making sure that I’m pushing my crotch into the saddle more than my pockets. Supporting, not chasing. I also planned to make time on this one, compared to our slow lope-around the week before at Ocala, so I was keeping my eye on where my track and turns needed to be in order to save some ground.

On Saturday I ran XC at almost noon, which worked out great because it rained more overnight. Their XC field takes water really well (thank you Florida sand), but I still studded up a little bit more than usual. By the time we got to warmup the ground felt really good. I opened and closed his gallop a bit, jumped 3 jumps, and then went to the start box.

I was really hoping that things would start feeling like they were clicking again at this show, that we’d have our momentum back and feel more in sync again. He came out of the box like a little pro, and we hopped over 1, 2, and 3 out of stride. The first combo was 4AB, which was just two cabins that you could either ride on slight angles and do 4 strides, or ride them head-on and do a bending 5. We planned to do the 4, and that worked out easily. Next it was to a log stack which was potentially a little tricky, it had a pretty vertical face and was slightly downhill and in the shade. Just a little extra leg on to that one, easy peasy. I saved some ground in the turn to the next one, a brush roll that looked small and I knew he’d give zero thoughts about. I was correct.

Then we were to the coffin, which was shared with Training, we just jumped it the opposite way. Very soft coffin question for Modified, IMO, and one he’s seen so many times I think he could do it in his sleep. Pinged right through that. Then we had a big step table with mulch, again easy, and then another efficient turn back to the ditch wall. We had the smaller one, which he’s jumped as part of the Training course here before. From there we hopped over the big blue ramp (almost taking out KOC on the way, who had wandered in front of it) then it was down the hill to the water.

Here my objective was to jump smoothly through without losing any momentum at the jump in the water like he did last week at Ocala. I stuck my crotch to the pommel, supported with the lower leg, and he was brilliant here.

Right after the water we had the down bank combo – a rolltop, two strides, down bank, and then 5 to a skinnyish brush wedge. I rode positive and supportive into it and he was quite professional – didn’t do any kind of major wahoo off the bank. Still though, I knew the 5 would ride short for me and it did, so I just stayed back and kept the balance up and let him figure it out. He plopped over the wedge in the least impressed possible way.

Then we were galloping down to the bottom over the field, over the open MIM oxer (we shared the Training one… at his very first Modified we shared the Prelim one, so this one was considerably less terrifying) and to the next combo, the angled brushes. To be fair these were quite big, but the half-roll face and perfect two strides made it a lot friendlier. I just found my line straight through and it rode great.

After that we had a long gallop up the hill to the big brush table/corner combo. That table was big, y’all. I did not make direct eye contact with it because why. I rode the whole way up to it going “please let me find a good distance to this, please please please” and the gods were on my side because it materialized perfectly. Obviously with a table that big you do have to keep coming at it, it’s more of a gallop fence, but having a corner on a bending line after it meant you had to rebalance quickly and get their eye on the corner ASAP. Knowing that my horse would eat up the distance in the line, I bowed my bend out just a teeny bit more to give us a bit more room for the 6, and it rode great. I mean, he jumped the snot out of the table to the point where I might have a touch of whiplash, but it’s the first real effort he gave all day. Finally found one big enough to suit him, I guess!

From there it was a fairly simple gallop home – we had the picture frame which he’s jumped before but in the opposite direction, the trakehner which he’s also seen before, and then we cut through some trees to take out as many strides as possible before the last one, a friendly ramp.

We crossed the finish with 11 seconds to spare and a very confidence-building run. It was in sync, it was executed to plan, and felt very easy and textbook, which is exactly what I’d been wanting. I feel like he could have hopped happily around the Prelim, and that’s what I wanted to feel.

Presto got an entire container of cookies for his double clear, plus a post-bath roll in the sand, as is tradition for him at Majestic.

Overall I’m really pleased with the progress we’ve made over the past few weeks – it feels like we’re not just back on track but also making improvements in areas that I’ve felt “stuck” on for a while. Now we tuck in and do some homework over the next few weeks before the next one!

Ok, well, I was waiting for recap posts until show pics were posted but turns out they left dressage about 5mins before I went in, and Presto casually loping over Modified didn’t make for any SJ pics worth buying. XC pics aren’t posted yet, hopefully some of those are good. But for today’s portion of the show recap: screenshots it is.

First and foremost, the weather was ick. Like big big big ick. It rained BUCKETS the night before and the morning of, just a torrential never ending deluge. I’m not sure I’ve ever been less enthused to braid and head to a show. Especially because I had multiple friends in town, plus people here trying Argo… it was a lot going on for my brain and it wasn’t super focused on showing. Especially not in the rain.

But, ya know. We’re eventers, we do the damn thing even when it’s soggy and we have no enthusiasm, mostly because we’ve already paid our entry fees and there ain’t no getting it back.

I had Megan coaching me again at this show. She didn’t have anyone else entered so I told her I didn’t really need her until SJ course walk time. Dressage warmup is fairly standard for us by now. Luckily by this point the rain had slacked off enough to where it was more of a heavy drizzle. Granted, we were already super moist, and it was still raining enough to constantly be dripping off my helmet or smearing into my eyeballs. I was very much in “let’s get this over with” mode.

The footing in the dressage rings at Majestic is notoriously not great. They’re grass, but uneven and rutted and tend to be slick no matter what. You may remember this is the place where we had the test last year where Presto legit almost fell down multiple times. I always stud him a little extra for these rings, and I pulled out some bigger ones for this day in particular, having a feeling it was going to not be great. Truth be told, I got in there and mostly tried to avoid the worst spots. I’d rather have a less accurate test and keep my horse out of the muddy corners, so that’s what I did. I definitely left plenty of points on the table when it came to boldness, accuracy, and geometry, but I mostly just wanted to ride a safe and quiet test and keep my horse confident on his feet. It was nothing to write home about, but fine. We scored a 30 to be tied for 4th.

After that I hunkered down in the truck for a while to try to dry off a little bit. Ya know when you got juuuuust wet enough for it to seep through to your bra and underwear? It was like that. Showjumping honestly couldn’t come soon enough.

Megan got there about an hour later, and we headed over to look at the course. It had a couple wonky turns, mostly the one from 1 to 2, but otherwise was standard fare. She reminded me to put my eye on the inside standard through the turn, and then shift my eye to the takeoff as we came out of the corner. She also said I needed to make sure to keep riding him forward, because the footing was really deep and sticky in front of a few jumps, and a little bit of balanced momentum would be helpful. She didn’t want me to get bogged down and backwards (it’s almost like she knows me or something).

We watched a few go and you could definitely tell that the footing was playing a part. It had mostly stopped raining but it was WET WET WET and the takeoff spots in front of some of the jumps were getting deep. Some of the horses dealt with it fine, others seemed to really stick off the ground and require a lot of encouragement. I wasn’t really sure what to expect – Presto has been lucky enough to always jump on pretty good footing. The part I was most concerned about was all the standing water/puddles scattered throughout the course, especially the giant lake in front of fence 2. He’s got a tendency to want to jump over puddles, or at the very least he gets a little “stuck” going through them. I knew I’d have to be ready to ride more positively forward through those spots than usual.

He was a bit of a situation in warmup. Last week at Ocala someone almost ran right into us (and a few other people) multiple times, which freaked Presto out a bit. So when we got into showjump warmup this weekend he was wanting to prop and spin when horses came directly at him. That was super fun. I was trying to avoid traffic as best I could, while also keeping him on the better ground, while also trying to get him positively through as many puddles as possible, while also warming up. By the time we had jumped our last warmup fence he’d stopped wanting to spin so much and wasn’t being as dramatic about the puddles, so… small wins?

Once we were in the ring I trotted him directly to the big puddle of standing water in front of jump 2. That was my biggest area of concern, considering it was already a fairly sharp turn and not a very long approach. He peeked at that puddle but went through it fine, so off we went to the first jump. He was good, but it was just kind of like riding a whole new horse. He was being super genuine about it, but you could tell he wasn’t accustomed to jumping out of that kind of muck and was trying to figure it out. The turn from 1 to 2 rode really well though, I kept riding forward and he mostly ignored the big puddle.

Honestly it all went well until the triple at the very end. I just… missed coming in. Plain and simple. I was a couple strides too late looking at my takeoff spot, so when I did finally look I saw the perfect half stride coming in and didn’t have enough time to fix it. So we had the rail at both A and B. Totally and 100% my fault, I was too slow with my eye. Trying to retrain where I’m looking takes a lot of conscious effort that I haven’t quite mastered yet.

I was really happy with how he was otherwise though. Pretty rideable, and he kept trying for me despite it being a bog. It was character-building for him I think, good for his education to have to jump on footing that isn’t so ideal. He definitely felt like he improved from start to finish in how he handled it, which is all you can really ask for.

All we had on Friday was dressage and SJ, so we were done for the day after that. I left Presto at the trailer with Hillary (his BFF babysitter extraordinaire) so Megan and I could run out and walk XC. I’ll be honest, I was mostly just really really really looking forward to going home and putting on dry clothes. More about XC tomorrow!

Presto and I had another show this past weekend, but before we just jump straight from one show recap to another, I should probably fill in a little bit more about what else has been going on. Plus I need to stall a little bit in the hopes that show photos might be posted in the next couple days.

First and foremost, our intrepid young hero officially turned seven. SEVEN. Can you believe it? Time is starting to feel like it’s flying by. He is, dare I say, a Real Boy now. Well… on paper anyway.

He celebrated his birthday in proper Presto fashion, with a gathering of friends, a birthday outfit, and a pinata full of cookies that he smashed to absolute bits, much to the delight of the crowd. He also got an FEI membership for his birthday from me, which he seemed less enthusiastic about.

In other news, Argie boy has continued to prove what an exceptionally good egg he is. He’s had several more friends come take him for a spin now, and he’s been well-behaved for all, but he does seem particularly adept at caring for the less-experienced or timid rider.

A friend of a friend flew in last week to try him, his first official sale trial, which was a really nice older woman looking for her first horse. On paper you probably wouldn’t pick an 8yo OTTB that’s been off the track for 6 months, but he really loved her, and she loved him too. He was an absolute saint, so well-behaved for her and her trainer. He’d be in a trainer program so I think it would work fine, but she’s got a few others to try (that are, admittedly, probably better-suited on paper) so we’ll see. There are other people interested in him too, and he seems to gain new fans pretty quickly.

My friend Stacy is in town from Texas and she’s ridden him twice now (out of the whole herd, he was her pick) and also loves him. He’s just so kind and pleasant, and ok perhaps a bit of a leg workout.

If she wasn’t at capacity for horses she said she’d be buying him (and perhaps jokingly may have asked her husband if he would consider offing the grumpy elderly retired one to clear up a space… don’t worry, he wouldn’t), which seems to be the consensus of most people that swing a leg over. She thinks he’s the perfect type to take a timid ammy around the 2’6″ while also trotting around the crossrail classes with the kiddo at the same show. She’s right, he is. This horse will be absolutely worth his weight in gold to someone, and he will probably consume a relatively grotesque amount of treats in the process.

Henry got to come out and play last weekend on the day of Presto’s party, when all his friends were in town. He gained a new fan I think, because obviously he’s also perfect. He told me that himself.

As I mentioned, this past weekend was another horse show, which I’ll post about later, and I also go to go to brunch at WEC with Michelle, her husband, and Stacy to watch a Grand Prix. McLain Ward won. Everyone be shocked. It was fun though, I’ve never gotten to sit up in the VIP bougie seats area. Can’t beat that on a Sunday morning.

This was the last week of winter circuit at WEC, which means my extra retail income will be driving out of town to head back to Texas. I’m equal parts sad and relieved – sad because the extra money is nice, but relieved because I’m freakin exhausted. Season is basically just four months of running myself ragged, and that’s one thing off my plate again for a while, albeit to the detriment of my wallet. But I did manage to sneak in one more fun purchase thanks to my employee connections… here’s a hint:

You’ll have to wait and see what it is!

Last week I experienced every social media manager’s worst nightmare: my facebook got hacked. Not just hacked, but the person linked my facebook account to an instagram account that went against terms of service, so my whole facebook account got banned. Booted. Disappeared. Unalived.

Superb.

Thus far it’s been entirely irretrievable despite my best efforts. Ever tried contacting Facebook/Meta? BEST OF LUCK. It’s infuriating. I can’t even appeal it online because it won’t allow me to go past the point of logging in. So now it’s just… gone.

Which at first made me mad. Now it’s just become incredibly sad. That account had 15 years of pictures and videos (most of which I don’t have saved anywhere else), and posts and comments, and connections and friends, and groups and community. Just… poof. All gone. Every day I think of something else I’ll probably never get back and it’s upsetting all over again. Honestly it even feels like a blow to my reputation in general, because there was just so much history there and so many connections… now if someone looks me up there’s just nothing much to find. That’s something I can’t back.

Not to even mention the issues it’s caused with my work. I manage or run several business pages, some of which were also impacted. After a few days of getting absolutely nowhere I gave up and created a new facebook account, so I could at least reconnect the business pages and do my job while I tried to retrieve my original account. But now it seems like that new account might just be my only account.

It’s weird to feel like you’re in mourning over something as seemingly silly as a facebook account, but here we are. Turns out it was more important than I thought.

I briefly considered just taking that as my cue to exit facebook, and only use the new account to access the business pages I need and the Patreon group. But the truth is, I do actually need it in my line of work, and I do really enjoy it. The groups in particular. So I’m rebuilding, slowly but surely, trying to find all my old groups and friends. Except I’m scared to send out friend requests because the first time I tried, several people reported the new account as fraud. Also a lot of groups won’t let me join because my account is too new. It’s beyond frustrating.

So if you’re looking for me on facebook and it appears that I have gone POOF… I did indeed go poof, and teleport to an entirely new location. You can find me here.

The best thing about shows during winter season is that XpressFoto is in town doing the show pictures, and their All Images deal is cheaper than buying just a few single photos by themselves, so… there’s LOTS of media! After we talk about the course, anyway.

The course opened for walking on Wednesday at 3pm, so I was there at like 2:50, ready to rock and roll. Hillary came with me, and I was glad for a walking buddy as I mulled over approaches and lines and strategies. My regular trainer was out of town at Carolina, and Megan was lined up to coach me day-of, but she wasn’t there for my first walk on Wednesday. Which is fine by me, because I liked having time to look at things on my own and consider my options.

There were a few things I wanted a second opinion about after my initial course walk – mainly the line from 5 to 6 (it was offset and wonky), the coffin combo (I hated it), and the second crater combo with the corner (I was pretty sure what the best line was through there, but wanted to double check). So on show day Megan walked those with me after dressage, I solidified my plan, and we were all set. For the most part it felt definitely doable, but there was also plenty of work to do in the combos where you really needed to be on your line and committed.

After we finished showjumping I went back to the trailer, put his boots on, gave him some water, put on my vest, and off we went to XC warmup.

Now, remember how I said that Presto had been quiet all day? Like to the point where I really thought the heat was bothering him? Turns out that was A LIE. We got to XC warmup and Presto lit up like the Fourth of July. Turns out he was just saving himself for the fun stuff. I can respect that. Even when he’s trying to run off with me and squeal and crow hop his way around warmup like a lunatic. He was a bit rank. Kind of funny how well he’s figured out the game by now.

Because of that, he got to come out of the start box and do the first part slowly, just to make sure he understood that he still had to be rideable. As you can see from the map, the beginning was winding and felt like it was jump jump jump jump in rapid succession. Really straightforward jumps for the first few though, standard fare to get you into the flow. He was quite respectful about all of it, and had his ears pricked just as hard as they possibly could be.

The first interesting thing came at 5, 6, 7.

The wagon was offset to the brush in such a way that if you wanted to jump both of them straight-on, you’d have to do a wonky little S curve in between the two. Obviously you need to be straight to the brush into the water at 6, since you had to land and bend left to the skinny in the water at 7. So if you wanted to straighten the approach to the brush without having to wind all over the place, the solution was to jump the wagon angled a bit from right to left, which then created more of a bending approach to the brush.

I feel like I had a hard time explaining that, so I drew a picture. I know, my graphic design skills are top tier.

Presto was superb about that… I made the turn, found the line, and it came up nicely. When we jumped the brush into the water he did do his patented little leap step that he loves when he’s feeling full of himself, which caused a bit of a misstep, and I had to really be like “Hi hello you’re not done, there’s a skinny for you in here, get to business”. He was like OH OKAY, GOT IT. It’s the first real question he’s seen since last fall, and I think he needed it to remind him that Modified is harder and he has to stay on task.

After that we only had one let up fence, a ramp, and then we were at the coffin. What I didn’t like about this combo was that the Training line went straight through and was the obvious path to catch the horse’s eye. Both courses had the same A and B, but Training just went straight ahead 3 strides to a brush at C, whereas we had to jump the ditch and do a YOINK to the left three bold strides to a brush skinny at C. I knew Presto would lock on to the Training C and I’d really have to make sure to get him off that line and onto the Modified line. Megan said to open my rein over the ditch, put my eye on it, and “just get it done”. Grit, it’s what’s for eventingdinner.

One thing helped me out a little bit here – there was a truck sitting in the trees to the left of the coffin, and as he took off at the rail he kinda slid his gaze slightly to the left. It worked out for me to get his focus to stay left, opening my inside rein over the ditch, and as soon as his feet touched the ground from the ditch I really closed my leg and was like THAT ONE OVER THERE, GO GET IT. His focus shifted to it immediately and he was superb over the skinny.

Then it was a hop over the collapsible table… I always love to see the frangible fences out there.

And on to the first crater combo. These two Law Firm Ocala jumps were new to us, we haven’t jumped them before. The first show where they made their debut last year, I remember them being a bit spooky for several people. The faux books on the front side of the first jump are a lot to look at, especially since you headed from light to dark with a downhill landing. I rode positively to that one, but Presto didn’t even give it a second glance. He jumped it and landed with his ears perked, looking for the next. By this point in the course he remembered that things can be harder and come up quicker, and he was eating up the challenge and looking for the next. Exactly what I wanted to feel, him getting sharper and more clever.

He popped up and over the mound out of the crater and locked right onto the hanging log. I got him there on a bit of a gap and it was on an angle but he was like I’VE GOT IT NO PROBLEM and off he went, no questions asked. After that we had a quick turn to the right to jump the trakehner. This was another thing he’s never jumped at the horse park before, and it’s right in a tree line in the shade, with a big dark ditch. It’s a spooky AF trakehner. True to form though, he didn’t even seem to notice any of that as he pinged right over, looking for the next.

I finally let him gallop a bit after that, since we had a long stretch to the MIM oxer (which he jumped out of stride like a little champ) and let him keep rolling a bit on the way to the next crater. He came back pretty nicely before the first jump, and I could feel him looking for the question he knew was coming. We jumped the house down into the crater on a slight angle so that we didn’t get hung too far down the slope, then turned to pop up the steep mound over the log.

And y’all… this mofo locked his eyes on that skinny and bounded up the side of the mound like a rabbit on steroids, leaving one out to the skinny. I think in his mind he was like I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING WOW HERE I GO but in reality it wasn’t great because we had 4 quick bending strides after that to a corner. I had to really work the brakes and the steering wheel to get to the corner, and as soon as he realized there was another element he literally threaded his body through the flags on the corner to make it happen. It was a superb cross country horse moment in that he tried his absolute guts out to put us through the flags like he knows he’s supposed to, but also… his overenthusiasm is the reason it was harder than it should have been. I don’t think he was particularly deterred though. Does he get extra credit for the exceptional effort even if he’s the cause of needing to make said exceptional effort? I’m not sure. Either way, next time we will try to be a bit more conservative up the mounds (at least I will… no promises about him).

After that the hard parts were done! We just had a few more until we were home. I really expected him to start feeling a little heavy by that point since 1) hot AF outside 2) he’s not at peak fitness, just coming back to the level. But no. I mean I’d run him pretty slow for the first 2/3 but still… he was plenty full of running, if he’d been allowed.

We galloped over the box, then came down the hill to the second water. By this point he was so full of himself I think it could have been on fire and he would have jumped it. He was positively GLEEFUL through the water, out over the skinny, and then over the last two tables to the finish.

We finished with a buttload of time faults that dropped us way down the placings, but that was the plan in the first place. My main goals for this show were 1) let him see some more challenging things again to get a feel for where we’re at before planning the rest of the season 2) maintain the rideability 3) get us back in sync 4) keep a balanced gallop the whole way around. All of those things were accomplished, so I’m super happy with that. He was so freakin happy to be back out, and he definitely needed to be challenged a little bit. Most of all though, I was just so relieved/elated to be sitting back on my super happy boy XC Machine again… he felt just like the Presto I know and love. All in all, a great day!

He’s baaaaack! Almost 6 months after our last Modified (at Stable View), we had our first run back at the level last week at Ocala Winter 2.

I opted for the Thursday One-Day division, because I’ll almost always take a one-day option if it’s available. It’s quicker, it’s easier, and it’s less impactful to the rest of my schedule. Love it. Love love. Of course, those one-days are always Open divisions full of pros, but whatever. I’d rather be in a more competitive division and not have to be spread over two days or have it take up the whole weekend, since I’m almost always working on the weekends.

The downside of Thursday this time is that it was hot. Hot hot. Like almost 90 degrees.

Presto was oddly not too obnoxious to braid that morning. Usually he’s a nightmare, spending the whole time wiggling, trying to knock me off the stool, or bite me. This time he mostly stood still. I almost took his temperature to make sure he wasn’t sick (true confessions: have done that before when he was being a little too normal). I got him braided in record time, and off we went on the 45 minute trek to Florida Horse Park.

My ride times were superb… 11:39 dressage, 1:22 stadium, 1:41 XC. Close together, but workable, and late enough that it meant I wasn’t in a rush in the morning. I got there with plenty of time to spare and Presto just chilled (quietly???) at the trailer while I slowly got ready. The only time he really perked up was when two horses got loose from a neighboring trailer and took off down the road.

I got on to head to dressage warmup and he was STILL QUIET. I was like um ok is he about to have a heat stroke or something, why is he chill? He was fine, just like… acting so normal and trained and seasoned. It was unlike him. I only trotted and cantered for maybe 8 minutes and then just walked until it was my turn. They were running early, so it worked out.

The test was fine. Like it was accurate enough, and he went around pleasantly, and there was nothing majorly wrong with it. I thought (and Megan agreed) that it just lacked the usual extra sparkle he has when he’s really in the mood to show off. I assumed it was probably because of the heat. Like my lengthenings were all blah, one of the leg yields (usually one of our best marks) was crooked, and a few transitions were a bit abrupt. It was a good enough test but we left points on the table for sure.

We ended up scoring a 28. After a lifetime of having horses that weren’t particularly talented in the first phase, I’ll never be sad to now have one that can go put down a blah test and still score in the 20’s. We were tied for 4th after dressage.

Hillary was able to come out that day too, which was super helpful because she babysat Presto at the trailer after dressage while Megan and I went to walk courses. I had walked XC the prior afternoon and just wanted her to look at a couple lines/combos with me. We ran out and did that, then went over to showjumping and were able to walk most of that on a drag break before we got booted out. Good enough!

Warmup was brief and uneventful. The gate was sitting open waiting for some people that were supposed to go before me, so I volunteered to go early again. I’m all about shortening my day.

Presto went in and jumped really well. Like I think it’s one of our better rounds at the level, he was really trying and being super rideable. It felt like we finally had our mojo back from last summer.

We did roll the front rail at 7… I just needed to keep his balance a tick more uphill to it, but not a major mistake. I was honestly super happy with the round because it felt smooth and rhythmic and in sync, and he jumped so super otherwise. Not losing sleep over that rail.

After that it was a quick pit stop back at the trailer to put on his XC boots and my vest before we got to the good part… but that’s a story for tomorrow.