Cob Jockey

Ten years and one day ago today, I hit "Publish" on this blog for the very first time, so it seems especially appropriate that I should join in on the "Decade in Review" posts. Here are the top three things that happened each year over the last 1,547 posts.

2010

1. Got introduced to Welsh Cobs when the chair of the equine department begged me to break her Castleberry pony, Shae, in the Training and Handling II class because "you're small and you have a sense of humor"
2. Met Shae's breeder, kicking off a lifelong friendship
3. Graduated with my Equine Studies degree, eloped to Italy, got the job that kicked off my career, and moved to my current city

That's Brown Recluse bite aftermath on his neck and shoulder

2011

1. Started taking lessons with my current trainer
2. Started doing CrossFit seriously, mainly because my trainer was on bed rest with a pregnancy and I was bored
3. Connor became mine <3

2012

1. Went to our first Dressage show
2. My husband lost his job and wouldn't be fully employed again for another couple years
3. Rode Connor's sire, *Tuscani Dundee, in the Hoosier Horse Fair Parade of Stallions

2013

1. Went to our first event
2. Jumped 2'6 for the first time
3. I took a deep breath and full clipped for the first time

Used with permission, PC: Suzanne Fischer

 2014

1. Moved up to rated BN
2. Showed in Chicago for the first time
3. Started meeting bloggers in person! 

The max height/width BN table he jumped from a standstill, marking the beginning of the end of his eventing career, lol

 2015

1. Visited JenJ for the first time.  And the second time!
2. Bought my CWD, a truck, my first trailer (thanks to JenJ), and a 125 year old house.  It was an expensive year, lol
3. Did what would be Connor's final rated BN, finishing with 33.5 after a rail in stadium

Also thanks to JenJ, this badass XC outfit

 2016

1. Our first full season of Dressage
2. Hung out with JenJ at a jousting event in Indiana that involved drinking Scotch in full medieval costumes under the stars, impaling cabbages on tent spikes under the cover of darkness, sleeping in my truck and sending some strangers home to Texas with a taxidermied buffalo head
3. Got a Pixio

 2017

1. Moved Connor to a barn 3 miles from my house, and then my trainer followed me four months later
2. Rode Mr. P!
3. Went to National Dressage Pony Cup

Also hung out with these degenerates <3

 2018

1. Rode Jen's Taran and learned quite a bit about myself from him
2. Flew to Colorado with Connor's breeder to watch Erika and Gavin and another Castleberry pony compete in the RMDS championships
3. Rode with KPG thanks to Karen winning an essay contest!

A fellow Welsh Cob-lover gushing over my Welsh Cob.  Also, an Olympian

 2019

1. Got our first Second Level score toward our Bronze
2. Rode with Mary Wanless twice, which led to riding with CGP
3. Went on the Great Saddle Search

I'd blog about Kentucky, but Leah pretty much covered the whole thing in one massive post, so make sure you read that!  Hanging with these girls is the highlight of the whole thing.  But this post is about what tailgating is like at Kentucky.

Friends!

Tailgating was beyond my wildest expectations fun, and I'm not sure I could do KY any other way now.  It was awesome to have a home base where we could drop stuff, and driving onto the course instead of walking miles from parking was equally great.  Plus I'm sure we all saved money on food (and time!) by not standing in line for concession food.

My husband the chef, and Hank

We bought one of the cheapest tailgating spots, but still had a decent view of the course.  We could see I think 4 fences from the spot, and we were a short walk from a good chunk of the course.  We were also right along a long galloping lane in both directions.



I was nervous about bringing Hank, but he was a good boy, except that every time a horse ran by (~100m from our tent) he wanted to go play with them.  Thankfully Nick was there to anchor him to the ground because he turned into a dog kite, lol.

Young alert dog, old sleepy dog

Poor guy was absolutely exhausted at the end of the day, which is great, because it was Hank's first experience in a hotel. 

I don't crate them for long like this, but they actually both prefer being in there together.  If I tell Hank to go in the crate they often both go in there and refuse to leave.  Works out well for situations like this!

He's at the point with obedience training that I knew it was a good time to introduce hotels, but I still wanted to set the tone with making it a positive experience for him, and it turns out a sleepy dog is a good dog.






This is your 363 day advance warning that I am definitely doing the tailgate thing again next year, so start planning!

I'm always stoked about Land Rover Kentucky Three Day Event (Rolex, sigh) but this year I'm especially stoked because we have a tailgating spot!

Tailgate machine

Me, my mom, Connor's Aunt Mary, various other local horse friends, and a pile of bloggers will be there.  Also and perhaps most importantly, my husband will be there slinging chicken tacos and fresh margaritas.  (Do NOT ask him for a margarita made with the lime green bottled sour mix.  You will no longer be friends, haha).

It'll look like this (from that time we tailgated at Keeneland for American Pharoah's Breeder's Cup win) but less cold.  And less wet.

Also Hank is going to be there, in case you needed more of a reason to go to Rolex:

Derp

And Bitsy the previous Rolex veteran returns for round 2:


If you'll be there, stop by tailgating spot 96 and introduce yourselves!  See you on XC!

Oh and we won this Dover contest.

Blue dot: my house.  Red pin: where Connor is now.  Yellow star at the very top of the photo: where Connor lived for five years.

Changed my whole year

So fat.

It was hard to drag myself out of bed early on Saturday morning to get to Rolex, mainly because I'd gotten home at 8:30pm the night before after spending the previous five nights in a hotel, but by gosh, I was not going to miss the chance to meet some of the bloggers I'd spent years getting to know online!


And I didn't get to meet some of the ones I wanted to meet.  Alanna, Tarra, Liz, I am SO bummed I didn't catch up with you guys!  Equally, I'm bummed I missed the Thursday night tacofest at Amy's campsite, which I hear was off the chain.  Stupid job.

The best dog ever couldn't keep her eyes open on the way home.

I made it for XC day though, and brought my partner in crime, my heart dog, the best dog ever.  Who was a serious trooper given the fact I learned at the end of the day she had a UTI.  Poor best dog ever.  Our vet confirmed over the phone that as long as she was drinking well and not in pain, we could wait til Monday morning to bring her in, but I still feel bad for not realizing something was wrong all day.



I did get to meet Aimee (FINALLY!  After so many years of reading her blog, (hers was one of the first I started reading in 2010ish, in the Izzy days)), and it was awesome to finally meet her in person. I also got to see Amanda and Hillary, both of whom I had met before and it was great to see them again.  Leah, I had never met before, but she makes you feel like you've known her forever the second you meet her.  And I also got to meet the Canadian contingent (Renate and friends), who were SO much fun to be around.  I wish, so much, that I had gotten to stay for dinner and more drinks.  Next time, you guys, next time.

(Also Karen, who I see pretty regularly, but is awesome and totally worth a mention!)

Thanks, Karen for the photo!

Mostly, though, I felt bad for being slow all day.  With three hours of sleep the night before thanks to the toxic combination of our Husky/Malamute mix Tucker and continuous thunderstorms, plus a week in hotels before that, I felt like I was reacting a few seconds slowly all day, especially while Leah and Aimee were shopping for me in the trade fair.  As much as I wanted to be fun and normal, I was just in a fog.

Fog or no fog, I do have Leah and Aimee to thank for two pairs of $20 FITS breeches that made their way home with me, so THANK YOU!  Also Aimee may or may not have a photo of my ass in purple unicorn breeches that should hit the internet at some point...hopefully soon...

Piles of bloggers in the head of the lake water complex!

Finally, speaking of blogger meetups, my next Silicon Valley work trip will be June 4 (landing around noon local time) through June 9 (leaving very early in the morning solely to get back for a horse show...priorities...).  I am definitely not missing out on seeing Olivia after missing her last time, but it'd be great to see others too!  Last year at this event I had all of Sunday afternoon and a couple of weeknight evenings free. I'm staying near the McLaren dealership on El Camino Real in Palo Alto (mmmmmm....McLarens....be still my heart...might be part of the reason I requested that hotel...).  Hit me up via email or Instagram DM if you're local and want to meet up!

It's that time again - time to start planning for Rolex!  Who's going?  Who wants to hang out with me?



I live just over two hours from the KHP (northwest of it) and am planning on going to Rolex this year, so I thought I'd offer the following things to any bloggers who might be making the journey and would like to save some $$$:

(The bloggers in the photo below who will swear to the fact that I am in fact a real person and not a creepy Internet stalker.)

Blogger meetups are fun, Paddy is cute, Brego is huge, boy was Texas cold!!

- Guest bedrooms (I have two)
- Floor space (I have...so much.)
- Pickups from the Indy airport (Promise I'm a safe driver and I don't drive a serial killer van painted with unicorns like L. Williams does) (Just kidding, she doesn't drive one of those, but she joked about how funny it would have been to pick me up from my hotel in one when we hung out while I was out there for my Facebook interview.)
- A ride to the KHP for XC day
- My husband's cooking (This is worth your flight/drive/whatever.  Trust me.)

I took this with my phone.  You can get this close to the horses!

Haven't decided if I'm staying the night on Saturday night or not yet, but I do plan to splurge on a pair of Dubarry's from the good looking guys in tweed jackets this year!

Our SJ seats in 2014

(Who am I kidding, I'll probably get to the cash register, realize they cost as much as entering one rated event, and decide to do the event instead.  But a girl can dream.)

Hit me up either in a comment or at my spam email account: jalean one one at gmail dot com.

Two things about trainer rides:

#1 - they are effective.  Saturday's ride was so amazing, and in full blown Dressage tack, aka the French mouth loose ring:

New show pad - pony sized PRI Dressage pad for the win.  Side note - DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA how hard it is to find a pony-sized Dressage pad?  Good lord.

We had one of those rides that was so good, I quit early for fear of, I don't know, breaking something.  Uninstalling something that had been installed by my trainer the day before.  He was lifting through the back and at the base of the withers, solid yet light contact, changing the bend at the slightest hint from my seat.  It felt fantastic.

Just like in this picture:

(Not really.  I just wanted an excuse to share this photo from the World Cup this week by Rough Coat Photography:)

I first saw it on the McDowell Racing Stables Facebook page, where Laurie's quote was "Mark's personal photographer Valerie was here in Las Vegas too. She summed up Blueberry's (Valegro) essence in one shot. Notice the loose rein, the effortless expression, the showman enjoying his own show. Thanks Valerie for sharing with us all."

(Turns out my trainer had ridden Connor the day before in the grassy field, where he "wanted to be heavy" which gave her a chance to work on that.  Time well spent indeed.)

#2 - they are expensive.  Which is why I jumped at the chance to pick up yesterday's stalls and next Sunday's stalls since the regular girl is out of town.

Bonus: getting to watch this dappled butt eat his breakfast.

I haven't done stalls in six months, so that's a shift, but they're pretty pleasant when it's warm out.  It means I won't be going to Rolex this year most likely, but lets be honest - making money that goes toward trainer rides > spending money on stuff.  Which is what Rolex is all about - besides standing next to a **** XC jump and peeing your pants.

13 days til Penny Oaks!

1. What size horse do you prefer to ride?

Me sized!



2. Do you school in tall boots or half chaps and paddock boots?



3. What do you do with your ribbons after shows?
We eventers get so few ribbons that I actually find it manageable to display them.  The four that I have earned hang on 4 picture frames in my dining room.

4. Do you ride/board at a large show barn or a small private barn?
Somewhere in the middle.  I would call us a medium sized relaxed show barn with a handful of boarders and a handful of lesson students.  We work hard, but we also don't have any crazies or bad eggs in the group.  It's a great vibe.

Two of my teammates and I at the KHP

5. Have you seen a horse give birth?
Twice, and they're both great stories that I can't believe I haven't blogged about.  Once on the Thoroughbred farm in high school, and once alone when Connor's breeder had to go out of town to care for her dad.

6. What is your favorite breed?
Welsh Cob, duh.  :-)

A face only a mother everyone could love.

7. Favorite tack brand?
I guess I will have to start saying CWD in the end of January!

Can't wait...

8. Would you ever buy used tack?
I almost only buy used tack, with very few exceptions.

 9. Ever been on a carriage ride?
I don't think so, actually.

10. How often do you go to the tack store?
Once every couple of years when I'm in the Cincinnati area, I go to The Tack Trunk.  Unless you count Rolex, which pretty much counts as a tack store.  Heck, the Tack Trunk comes to Rolex.

Last Sunday

"Two days after his arrival [at their summer barn in Maryland, after Rolex], during a late-morning habitual roll in the new bedding that had just been placed in his stall before he went out for the day, Smoke became cast against the wall and was struggling. Though Raylyn staff and his longtime caretaker Emily Dufort were immediately in his stall to assist Smoke in righting himself, it became clear that Smoke had sustained an injury during his struggle....Based on examinations, imaging, system chemistry panels and consultations with other veterinarians, Dr. Furr suggests that Smoke had sustained undefined traumatic injury to his central nervous system while he was cast, possibly due to damage to the cervical or lumbar spine sustained during the ordeal."

Confession: I had never been to Rolex (or the KHP) before this weekend, despite living 2 hours from it.  I know, I know!  I fixed that this weekend.


Seeing 4* cross-country live just reinforced the fact that there is a point in eventing that I will reach and say "You know what, not going any farther."  I mean, look at this sucker:

Photo by one of my teammates

Noooooope.  Couldn't pay me to jump that!   My BO was standing next to me here and said, "You think Connor would jump that?  He could jump on top and scurry across it, then jump off.  Or maybe he'd need a ramp..."  My BO, always a problem solver!

I completely failed at taking pictures on Saturday so you'll just have to believe me, but I chatted with Kristen of Stampy and the Brain and Hillary of Equestrian at Hart and Karen from Contact on Saturday, making four bloggers I've met in the month of April!  How cool is that?  I love that this little side project has turned into this social thing by which I meet cool people pretty much anywhere I go.  You guys are the best!

That of course leads me to shopping!  On Saturday I wandered the trade fair by myself for two hours, felt financially guilty anytime I picked anything up (I needed an enabler!) and then quickly put it all back.  I ended up buying:


...the yarn needles I had to buy before this weekend's event anyway, and two checkout line items: a comb and a rub rag.  Totally exciting, I know.

So imagine my surprise/relief/excitement when I rolled over to check my phone on Sunday and saw that I won Hillary's contest!  While she tried her hardest (okay not THAT hard) to see me end up with an Ogilvy, I couldn't swing the cost not covered by the contest, and there are a couple of "needs" on my list right now: hind boots, and reins to replace my broken ones that I still use anyway because...YOLO...or something.  Anyway:


These have been on my list for over a year, so I am psyched beyond words to get to try them, and to no longer be freaking out on the inside when a clinician randomly asks Connor to walk over a 18" log with no hind leg protection, or when we move up to BN.  Thank you so much, Hillary!

After a fun morning walking around the trade fair with Hillary and Kristen and having an awesome chat over lunch (seriously, everyone I've met this month I feel like I could talk to for days right off the bat - that's a great feeling), it was show jumping time!

Sent this one to my mom, who loves Churchill Downs.

Our view of the ring.  It was a gorgeous weekend!

I left before awards to beat the crowd out of the parking lot, but ended up getting distracted by the staging area for the awards ceremony.  I was seriously close enough to reach out and touch the horses:

Even 4* horses reach out to say hi to their neighbors.

So all in all, it was an awesome experience.  I am looking forward to being there all three days next year and hosting an epic equestrian blogger Rolex 2015 party.  Who's with me?!