August Wrap Up

Better late than never? And heeeeyyyyyyy, look who is back on the chart!!

	Ben	Goggles
Training rides	0	5
Lessons	0	2 – 1 each jump and dressage
Hacks	1 – ponied	2 – 1 ponying Ben, 1 at JT’s
Ground work, lunge, long line	4 – lunge sessions	0
Flat rides	2	2
Conditioning rides	0	0
XC school	0	1 – training ride at Magnolia Sands
Shows	0	1 – Majestic Oaks BN

Random side note before getting into their individual recaps, I tried out the spot on fly/tick repellant (Farnam equispot) in August. Neither got ticks for the rest of the month, but apparently high dose permethrins do something to sweat glands. They both had dry spots in the spots where it was applied. This lasted for several days before going back to sweating all over. I will still use it in the peak tick months, but I certainly would NOT put this on a horse who had any tendency towards anhidrosis. Strange stuff. 

Random dry patch right under the withers where it was applied. You can see it a tiny bit on the shoulder too.

Goggles: This was a tricky month for shoes and this kid. He spent the first week down at JT's in training still, but then lost a shoe there and couldn't get it back on for a few days because of the hurricane. He came home after the Majestic show and promptly lost a hind. I was ignoring that, but a few days later he lost a front. Three days after that we finally coordinated with the farrier to get them both back on. Spoiler alert, they then stayed on until his 5 week appointment a few days ago, thank goodness. Overall though, he benefitted from the time at JT's and had a new found softness in our work at home. 

He's trustworthy enough to hunt for shoes bareback. Unfortunately the tall perspective still didn't help me find them. One turned up a few days ago, but this field has about 5 at this point. 

Looking forward for him, hopefully September will be the month where he finds himself a new person. He threw a wrench in that plan by getting quite a cut that didn't stay closed so now is in the open stages of healing. But we'll get there. Being in a stall for a bit probably wasn't the worst thing to stop his quest to remove all of his shoes either. 

Ben: YAY! My best dude went back to work. He got wraps put on by a trimmer on the 12th and was immediately walking better. 

Spoiler alert: these stayed on 4.5 weeks before both coming off the same night/day

Hind

Soaking the hinds with white lightning for some white line

I gave him a week to get back to feeling right through his body, and then we started back with a few short lunges. The last week of August I popped on him, and he's been feeling pretty good since then. His canter reaalllly wanted to be stuck, but as soon as I remembered I needed to move my own back and not just sit and ponder how stuck he felt, things got way better. 

Work?? Why tho? 

For him September will be another month of building back up. He's getting his wraps reset on the 16th and then I do plan to get back with his farrier to get him in some composites before he starts over fences. He feels really good in the wraps, but I can tell he's wincing a bit on hard ground still. He's also going to get adjusted in the middle of September which should help his overall feeling too. 

Butterball: Obviously the most important news of August was buying a golden hony at the end of the month. September will be a busy month for us as we get to know each other and then end the month with our first recognized outing at Stable View! 

Week 1

As noted by our appearance at the POP show, we launched right in to doing the thing our first week together. I also scheduled him for some aquatredding since I had leftover sessions from when Ben went. He was great about it. They asked about sedating him, but given that when he got 0.2cc of dorm for his foot rads for his PPE he was soooooo sleepy he let the cross ties hold him up for a solid thirty minutes, I asked if they could try without. They walked him through a few times and then started the belt moving a bit, then stopped that and added some water. He was such a good dude for the whole thing. 

I've also been letting him ride in the "box stall" version of the trailer like the princess he is 

Heading on in

Good lad! 

On technically day 8 of being his person, we headed to the Local Champions Tour. We signed up for one round at 0.8 and one round at 0.9. I had wised up since my trip with Ben and while I looked at their projected schedule, I decided to arrive at the scheduled end of the 0.8m section. I worked late the night before so wanted every minute of sleep I could get. It worked out and we arrived just as they were finishing the 0.7m. I wandered around, scoping out the course, and BB munched grass. 

While the warm up ring was every bit as chaotic as it was when Ben and I went, I felt more confident and settled on BB. He also is just a doll about traffic and gives no shits about approaching other horses. We focused on going forward in two point after landing and then sitting and rocking that forward power back onto his hocks through the corner and on approach to the fence. It mostly worked well and our 0.8m round was pretty smooth with just one rail when I got... casual to a fence. JT told me to ride him like a big powerful horse not let him slip into a pony feel. 

There were a bunch in the 0.8m class and then a drag break, so he got his bridle off and ate more grass. 

#spoiled

We geared back up for the 0.9m class by popping a sizeable oxer in warm up. It came up perfectly both times, and we headed on in. The round went... Okay. JT said I was riding much better than at the POP show, but I just kept missing. He wasn't bothered by it much but I couldn't see a distance to save my life. The line that went the best was a one stride then a forward six to an oxer. Since I had concrete advice (ride forward on the inside turn) we did the one stride and then did a lovely forward six to the oxer. We ended up with just one rail down, but a ton to smooth out on my part. This is part of the reason why he is living at JT's for this month - plenty of lessons. 

The next day we went for an hour hack with a friend around the back field. The next day we tacked up with that same friend and headed to Sweet Dixie again for some galloping/slogging up hills. It was a bit tricky to find the driest areas because they were not necessarily the higher ground. But we sorted that out mostly. 

All ready to go. So cute. 

We did 20 minutes of trot and then 3x3 minutes canter, incorporating the large hill into each canter set at least once. The two horses made a GREAT pairing. My friend's horse is a TB who can be a bit firey and BB sometimes needs encouragement to keep going up the hill. So they complemented each other quite well and we had a great time getting some fitness work in. 

All in all a delightful first ten days with him. He is such a pleasant dude to do all the things with <3 

Rides 5-7 aka This Pony is Amazing

BB and I snuck in a last minute entry to the POP show this weekend and had our BN debut. His highlight of the day? Trying and succeeding at stealing alfalfa from an open hay bag I thought I'd hung far enough away from him in the trailer. Mine? One of the most fun XC runs I've had in a long time. 

I'm not posting videos for two reasons, one is that they're a bit shaky. My husband was kind enough to come along to meet BB and film, but when zoomed in his phone video is quite shaky. Two, our dressage test was ride five and stadium was ride six, so for his video blog debut I think he deserves to be shown off better. 

Dressage: I'm an idiot and misread times and showed up for dressage warm up with eight minutes not eighteen. We trotted a few circles, cantered both directions, then went in. We hadn't done a run through of this test, and I hadn't ridden it since Ben and I did one BN run back in 2022. But the lovely thing about going from a 17.1 creature to a 15 hand one is I had all the time in the world. Our canter transitions and canter work in general needs the most work. I have a really hard time not shoving into the transitions and I've been working on it, but there's still a long way to go. The rest of it was really pleasant but with plenty of opportunities to show more and be more consistent. Which makes it pretty exciting that we scored a 32.9. 

Stadium: In warm up JT encouraged me to get up off his back and ride him forward between fences. I am struggling with keeping my hands forward through the landing but not snapping forward too quickly on him and jumping ahead. We popped over a few warm up fences pleasantly and then went in to do the thing! The downside of going down in height is that the fences do look bigger in spite of him being a super scopey and talented jumper. I spent the first half of the course kind of gawking at things and then remembered I do kinda sorta know how to ride for the second half. We had two and four down, two I buried him at and it was an unimpressive vertical he just didn't get his knees up over. Four was a very similar story. Five through eight rode great though. 

Cross Country: I walked the course between dressage and stadium. JT essentially said he's trustworthy, just go out and have fun. And we did! 

#1 - Log box

#2 - Step table

#3 - Oreo coop 

#4 - The Villages

#5 - Bunker

#6 - FHP splash - his only squirrely moment, he broke from canter and then dawdled a little sideways before heading through the water

#7 - Green roll

#8AB - Turning tables (7 stride line)

#9 - Log

#10 - Ditch - I probably should've gotten his shoulders up more for this. He's so good and honest, but we kinda bombed over the ditch. 

#11 - Ramp - set purposely in the shade

#12 - Golden roll - I could feel him starting to get a bit tired around this point 

#13 - Hitch your wagon

#14 - Ocala water - he'd gotten his feet wet already so galloped on through this 

#15 - Log too

#16 - Lincoln logs

It was so much fun just galloping around and playing. Again, we learned more about each other as we went. If I kept him straight, he jumped SOOOO well. And any wiggliness didn't feel like he was looking for an opportunity to run out, it was just... slight crookedness? I'm not sure how to describe it. He is the most pleasant, talented pony, and I'm so excited to keep getting to know each other. He did pick up quite a forward gallop mostly of his own accord for the whole first 2/3 of the course before he got a bit worn out. We made it around 40 seconds faster than optimum time though, and we have a plan for his fitness going forward (aquatredding... long walk hacks...). With our two rails we dropped back to 9th place of 12. We would've finished in 3rd without those rails though. We've got an outing planned at a jumper show on Friday to practice that phase. 

A bit more about Butterball

How we met:

Butterball has been at JT's barn on and off for the past two years. I thought he was PERFECT the first time I laid eyes on him a year plus ago when he was popping over some fences with a working student on board. He was one of the three horses AT rode in BN at Majestic a few weeks ago and his owner was there. I was standing next to her watching Goggles go and mentioned how delightful and adorable I thought BB was. She responded that he was for sale. I had NO IDEA that he was for sale and once I heard that, the wheels started turning. I went home and told Ryan that I wanted to sell Goggles and buy a pony named Butterball. He responded "Why don't you?" 

"Yeah, why don't you (feed me that cookie)??"

We set up a trial ride a week later. AT brought him out and jumped him around. She described him well, "He's straightforward and trustworthy over the jumps. If he starts to get wiggly in the bridle then just kick him forward." Then I popped on him. I was honestly hoping there would be something unpleasant about him. I don't love horses that are really wide, and I don't love kick rides. But... he was neither. He was perfectly sized under me and responsive to the leg. And he was so freaking trustworthy. I just felt completely at home. We jumped around some fences larger than I've seen in 9 months. 

The next week we set up a day for me to take him XC. He arrived at Majestic solo and walked off the trailer and started grazing. He called once while we were walking out to the jumps, but then settled down to business. Again, it was just delightful. We popped around with one oops at a corner where I didn't get him straight to it and he realized at the last second it was wider than he thought. But when I opened my left rein to correct a runout, he dove back between the flags and over the corner. The next go round he read it perfectly. The one adjustment will be his gallop and fitness. On the thoroughbreds it is, obviously, so easy to just let them open up and flow forward, BB needs... a bit of encouragement and would happily canter pleasantly around without realllllly moving into that forward XC canter/hand gallop. On the other hand, he goes XC in the same french link full cheek that he jumps at home in and is a perfect gentleman with no diving down into the hand or spooking at other fences (ahem Ben). 

From there, there was a PPE, which he passed with flying colors*, and then a wire transfer, and then I was the proud person of one Butterball. *I did get told that there was some fat around his sheath and on his crest that was not ideal. I will be going through a massive adjustment period learning how to feed (or not really) this dude. 

Now a bit more about him:

He has several names - his registration papers say WPF Who's Your Daddy. His USEA is WPF Westerlie. His USEF is WPF Golden Boy. His owner and I agreed that there was no way we could ride in the ring to the announcer saying "...riding Who's Your Daddy." I'm not sure whether he'll be WPF Golden Boy or WPF Westerlie going forward, might also depend on how much money USEA wants to change his name. He also has gone by West as a barn name, but got nicknamed Butterball when he came to JT's and I kinda love it. 

He was bred by Whispering Pines Farm and sold as a three or four year old. Since then he's had the same owner. He is by the Hanoverian stallion Westporte and out of a Welsh mare, Lorelei Socialite. (Sorry Jen, I don't know more about his dam's breeding, maybe you do?? Or know where to find such things?). He's 15 hands and seven years old. Funny enough he shares his birthday (March 26th) with my dad. He's competed at beginner novice and done jumpers including at WEC in the indoors. 

He is just a delightful, easy, charming creature. He is just pleasant to be around in addition to being incredibly talented. In our trial ride, I did get a little lecture on not letting him poke around in a pleasant but not through trot. He's got a nice floaty trot so it is easy to get lulled into just enjoying it rather than asking him for what he is capable of. But man, when he connects, both in the trot and canter, it is just amazing. And the vet who did his PPE kept commenting on what a great walk he has and what great feet he has. I'm so excited for our journey together. 

And this does mean that Goggles is for sale. I seriously do not need (do not have time for... do not have money for...) three horses and he's at a great age and stage to find a new person. He has turned into quite a fun, trustworthy horse himself, but he'll always be 17.1+ hands and he'll always be a bully in group turnout, two things that just don't necessarily work with my horsey lifestyle.