Cob Jockey

Ever since my trainer's program ended and the barn reverted back to the care of the BO, I've felt strongly invested in making improvements out there. Partially because I want caring for that barn to feel as easy as possible for the BOs so they never try to sell it, and partially because I work there twice a month now, and certain things have been driving me crazy as a sometimes employee.

Like this.

That's our command center in the extremely tiny but surprisingly functional feed room (seriously, the wall you see above is the total depth of the room, which is less than 3 feet deep by maybe 7 feet long). With so many different people doing the feeding and stalls now, we needed "If the BM is hit by a bus, here's the instructions"-level information sharing that didn't involve scratching out and rewriting information on a sheet of paper.

After completely normal (for me) levels of overthinking, this is what I came up with:

 

Everything in black is in permanent marker. Everything in blue is dry erase. At one glance, in one place, you can see everything you need to know to take care of this barn.

But I didn't stop there. I moved the barn calendar out of the tack room and into the feed room, so the feed room (which is open to the aisle in the center of the barn) becomes the centralized communication point.

Both of these are getting hung on the wall as soon as I remember to bring my drill to the barn...

 

I added a corkboard for farrier receipts and checks, which is on the aisle side so our farrier can just reach around and pin things to it easily.

 

And then I cleaned the whole damn thing out, because it was full of "welllll I didn't know whose that was so I just left it" detritus that accumulated between the various management changes.

This wasn't all of it. Also that's the feed room with the ladder inside it.

Once I was done, we had a lot of empty shelves, but that's a good thing. I'm sure we'll find things to put on them, but this room is too small to have a bunch of useless stuff in it.

Tiny but super functional.

Other side. I also shoved the feed bin up against the wall, added a shelf above it, and used a hook and chain to create a way to keep the door open without having it further out into the open space

...ahhhhhh that felt good.

I just realized I never did a follow-up post to our tack room reorganization my barnmate and I did last summer!

As a reminder, these are from before:

The hooks were designed for Western tack and weren't working for our big anatomic crowned English bridles.  Also that tall cabinet was visually making the room feel smaller than it is, and it wasn't doing much for us from an organization standpoint - it was a deep dark pit of stuff we put in there and forgot about.  Finally, the carpet was gross and had to go.

And this is after:


We are pretty well done with it at this point.  We ended up moving all of the western-style racks that used to be on the bridle wall over to the "short side of the L", which is where we're keeping bits, strap goods, vests, lunging equipment and show halters - basically anything that isn't a bridle.


We didn't end up finding a place to store wet saddle pads, which is my only wishlist item I couldn't figure out.  It's a bummer, but we'll continue to store them on our stall-front blanket bars, which is fine.  Sometimes you have to compromise with small spaces.



We decided to keep the freestanding saddle racks, even though we'd love to get some wall-mounted ones.  We decided we wouldn't gain any extra space by switching to wall-mounted racks, so it was really just a preference, and a preference couldn't justify the spend:

These pictures are from July, the racks are full to the brim now!  Two Dressage girth racks are between them.

The super cheap girth racks I found are working great.  It would be nice to have one more rack for jump girths, but unfortunately we can't figure out a place for that.


I struggled with how to hang the four-prong tack cleaning hook, until I looked beyond the horse industry for a solution.  In the end, I spent $10 at Lowes for this wall-mounted plant hook and a tiny length of chain:

All the horse suppliers only had an over-the-stall-wall style mounting bracket for these, nothing wall-mounted, which is weird.

Interestingly, having a dedicated, permanent tack cleaning station (the short cabinet just below it contains our tack cleaning stuff and provides a good place to clean saddles) seems to have increased the amount of tack cleaning that goes on!  To be honest, having my girth hung on the wall for all to see instead of laid over my saddle like it used to be has shamed me into using the tack cleaning station regularly, haha.

Finally, the idea that started it all, my barnmate's desire to keep her sweaty helmet somewhere in the open to dry, has worked great.  Even though we mounted them as close together as we could get, we have had no issues with them getting knocked off.

Tack cleaning cabinet in the foreground, with the hook barely visible above it

We started with a great space and some good equipment that just needed rearranging, so this didn't end up costing that much even though it's a dramatic change.  Here's a cost breakdown of what we spent plus some non-affiliate sourcing links.

Wall-mounted helmet hanger (State Line Tack): $4.15 x 7 = $29.05
Bolt-On Tack Rack (Jeffers): $4.99 x 3 = $14.97
Coated Metal Bridle Rack (Schneiders) = $2.49 x 20 = $49.80
Plant hanger and chain to be used with tack hook my barnmate already owned (Lowes) = $10-ish


Everything else we already owned! 

Anyone else doing some fun organization projects over the winter?

My old horse show garment bag was the last thing that wasn't working about my show setup.  It was an eBay score probably made in the 1980s that hung so far down on me, even folded in half, it made it hard for me to walk.  When I found myself actively trying to avoid using it, I knew it wasn't working for me anymore. So I replaced it with a convertible garment duffel:

There are straps at the bottom to keep your clothes taut so they don't fall down and wrinkle.

 As well as a side pocket meant for shoes, where I keep my stock tie:


 And a couple of inner pockets where I put things like stock tie pins:


As an unexpected bonus, it's the perfect size to store my tall boots inside as well, making it a single grab-and-go bag for all my show clothes.  Any taller than me though and this won't work for you!


The only thing I wish it had was a hook for hanging.  I could solve that pretty easily with a carabiner through the handle though, or by getting dressed with it hanging in my trailer's dressing room depending on how close I'm parked to my stall.



Bottom Line:  Necessary?  Not entirely.  Improvement to my show life?  Definitely.  Knowing all my show clothes are kept in one place in an easy-to-carry bag is a major de-stressor when packing for shows.  Grab and go!

What: Convertible Garment Bag with Shoulder Strap, Modoker Carry on Garment Duffel Bag for Men Women - 2 in 1 Hanging Suitcase Suit Travel Bags
Price: Currently $40.99 with coupon, I paid $32.99 during an Amazon lightning deal
Where to Buy: Amazon

Told you it's product review week.  Although to be fair I've made all these purchases over the past two months so it's not like I just dropped a bunch of $$ all at once!

Pretty quickly after I started shopping for a stepstool replacement, I knew I was going to end up with something "extra".

I'm very short, so I need all the height I can get, but none of the stepstools were doing it for me.  The tallest ones were A-frame which meant I wouldn't be able to get as close to the horse as I wanted to, and the non-A frame ones weren't as tall as I wanted.

So I turned to the home improvement section.

Pony for scale

I ended up with an aluminum work platform.  It's just a smidge taller than a 2 step mounting block at nearly 20" tall, 31" wide and 12" deep, and has a rung on both sides so that you can get onto it easily.  It also folds nearly flat, has a nice carry handle, weighs only 11lbs, and hangs nicely on my gridwall.

Things a mounting block can't do

Of course it made things like hanging my fan easier (and safer), but it also made my braids come out nicer.




The #1 rule of Dutch braids is that you always braid up toward the sky, because that makes the braids sit on top of the neck rather than against it.  The 20" tall walkboard made it easy to get way above Connor in order to do that (YMMV on a full-sized horse, of course).

And - since the walkboard is long as his neck, I didn't have to get down and reposition it every two braids like I did with my old stool.






In addition to all of the above, it also made a great mounting block, table and foot rest.  It was nice to have a flat surface off the ground where I could throw things, and I had several people walk by it at the show and murmur to each other what a good idea it was.

World's Tiniest Horse Trailer next to some normal-sized trailers

Shown next to a haybale for scale

The only downside to this is the price.  At $62.99 I felt it was steep, but justified it by how much I'd use it even outside of shows.  And that's definitely been true, so far I've used it for painting at home, for washing the horse trailer and for all kinds of grooming situations at the barn.  There are cheaper ones, but the reviews weren't as good, so I went with this one.

Bottom Line: If you're a shorty like me, this is a great multi-purpose option to replace your mounting block/braiding ladder/table at shows, and you'll probably find other uses for it around the house and barn too.

What: Finether Aluminum Work Platform Drywall Step Up Folding Work Bench
Price: $62.99
Where to Buy: Amazon

I had a show last weekend, but I'm still getting through the media in order to write a post, so enjoy a series of show gear review posts in the meantime!

After my July show, I posted about what was and what was not working in regards to show organization.  Last weekend, I got a chance to put my new gear to the test. First up, this rolling gear cart from State Line Tack.

Dog for scale

This. Thing. Is. Awesome.  It comes with two saddle racks, a basket, a velcro grooming tools organizer, and a bridle rack - and all of that comes off the cart so you can use it to haul hay and shavings.

There are a lot of tack cart options out there, but I chose this one for a few reasons.  First, it has big pneumatic tires, which will make rough ground easier to handle than solid tires.  Second, all of the attachments are removable so that you can use it as a hay/shavings cart too.  There's nothing I hate more than schlepping individual bags of shavings down the barn aisle at places where you can't get your trailer close to your stall!  And third, it came with some nice extras that not all the carts had, like a 5 hook bridle rack and a Velcro grooming bag.

It has two handle positions and I have it in the shorter one, so it actually can be up to a foot taller than this if you want it to be.

My first trip from the trailer at the show, I hauled 3 bags of shavings and his water buckets.  Next trip, I hauled a hay bale on it.  Third trip was the stuff in the photo above (And my trailer was only parked 30 feet from my stall, so I probably could've condensed these trips more but didn't need to).

Later that evening, I prepped it for the following day by putting my bridle, helmet, saddle, grooming stuff, whip, morning grain and bathing stuff in it before wheeling it up the ramp and into the horse area of my trailer, so that in the morning all I had to do was wheel it to my stall and I was done.

Prepped for day 2 and ready to spend the night in the trailer

During the show day, it worked admirably too.  Honestly I was surprised by what I found to be my favorite feature - that tiny Velcro grooming bag, which I took off the cart and hung inside his stall while tacking up so I didn't have to go back and forth to my bag.






Between this and the backpack, all of my show stuff was easily visible, easy to reach and well-organized.  Two thumbs up to this thing, it saved me a ton of time and reduced my show day stress.




Now on to what I didn't like, although none of these are dealbreakers.  First, the instructions absolutely suck.  I had to sit down and logically think through which screw should go where and why in order to put it together.

Second, the powdercoating is not the best.  Out of the box there were two places where it was chipped and rusting.  Not the end of the world, but it means at some point I'll have to spray paint this whole thing.

Third, it's poorly balanced without the attachments, and will fall over.  This meant I had to lean it against something when I went to put hay/shavings on it.

Fourth, the holes are baaaaaaaaaaaaarely lined up, and it took some real effort to get the handle installed as a result.

Finally, I wish the handle had grips instead of just bare metal, so I'm going to be taking some bicycle grip tape to it at some point.

Packing to go home with the saddle rack removed

Bottom line: If you show off your trailer, this is probably useless to you, but if like me your area more or less requires show stabling, this thing is invaluable in terms of the time it saves and the organization it provides.

What: State Line Tack Rolling Tack Cart
Price: $175.99 list, I paid $123.19 plus freight charges
Where to Buy: State Line Tack

I've talked in the past about how much being organized at shows matters to me - it's the difference between out of control nerves and tiny butterflies for me.  This past weekend was my first two day show since I got the new trailer in 2017, and I'm noticing some things that I want to tweak.

Working: The Gearmax Equestrian Backpack
Ahhhh, the backpack.  I've had this since 2012 and it's still the best, I wouldn't dream of going back to a tack trunk.  Sadly no one seems to sell them anymore.


Working: That Collapsible Rack/Basket Combo
Having hooks AND a basket on the front of my stall where I could throw smaller things was an amazing upgrade over my old hooks.



Working: Foldable Muck Cart
It's annoying to dump, but it's worth it to have a manure cart that has wheels and folds flat for storage (I bungee it to the gridwall in my trailer, on top of my spare tire).  I do wish it locked open for dumping though.


Working: IKEA Bags
IKEA bags and the barn, name a more dynamic duo.  Mine go with me to the barn almost every day to carry things back and forth from my house, and are possibly even more useful at shows.

Not Working: Putting Too Much in the Backpack
When I pack the backpack, I put my entire heavy grooming case into the bottom of it - and then only ever use four items out of it.  Why am I schlepping things I'll never use to the show?

Not Working: Not Putting Enough in the Backpack
The way I have my stuff organized in my trailer right now would be perfect if I was showing off my trailer, but showing off your trailer just does not happen in our area.  I need to store things I only use at shows in the backpack so I'm not making so many trips back to the trailer.


Not Working: My New Collapsible Saddle Rack
I LOVE this saddle rack, but the stall walls everywhere I show are tall and I'm struggling to lift my saddle on and off of it. #shortpeopleproblems

Not Working: The Saddle Rack in My Trailer
My trailer came with the saddle rack mounted several inches above my head, which is great because it gives me a lot of usable space in my tack room, but makes it nearly impossible to get my saddle up there - which is leading to some near-misses where I almost damaged my saddle.  Not worth it.

From the day I brought it home, boot for scale

Not Working: My 1980's Garment Bag I Got Off eBay
It's big, awkward and actively wrinkles my clothes, so it's time for it to go.

Not Working: My Tiny Stepstool
Time to admit that buying a taller stool is going to be cheaper than the ER bill I get after the leaning tower of stuff I stack to reach the outlets to plug in my fan falls while I'm standing on it!

In a future post I'll share the shopping I did to fix these problems (yay, shopping!)

Since we moved into this barn, one of my only complaints has been the tack room.  When this place was a Western Pleasure barn, as it was originally designed to be, it functioned well, but now that a bunch of eventers have moved in and everyone has two or more complete sets of tack, well...

This is actually from before my barn moved in.  Picture a bridle explosion on the left and you have it, lol.

Western-style metal hooks were high quality but just not the right shape for English tack.

It's small, but that wasn't the problem: it's more that we aren't using the space efficiently.  So my barnmate and I asked our trainer if she'd let us go nuts on the tack room, and she said yes.  Barnmate is a Six Sigma ninja, and I thoroughly enjoy organization projects, so of course we've over thought this to death.

Still before everyone moved in

Her wish list:

• Better strap goods organization
• A place to store girths
• A place to store helmets so that they can air dry rather than getting gross in our tack trunks (that's actually what started all of this)

My wish list:

• Bridle racks wide enough to store everyone's anatomic crowned English bridles
• A tack cleaning station
• A saddle pad storage/drying solution
• A bit storage solution
• Better utilization of the space near the ceiling for long-term storage of things we don't use often

It's definitely a long term project, but yesterday we went to town on Phase 1.  First we cleaned out the tall cabinet and moved it out in favor of a short cabinet that will become a tack cleaning station. 

It was HOT in there!

We removed the existing strap goods racks and hung up 20 bridle racks to replace them.


We also put up helmet holders, so that our helmets can air dry in the open.  (This is about as dust-free of a tack room as I've ever seen, so that's not an issue).


Some of the smallest things we did made a big difference, like gaining an extra 5" of wall space by moving the saddle racks closer to each other and the wall.  They were originally placed for big Western saddles, but we don't need as much room to maneuver our saddles.






That was as far as we got on day 1!  Next up is rehanging the old bridle holders as strap goods holders around the corner from where these pictures are taken (the tack room is L shaped), creating some bit storage, organizing bottles/medicine, hanging girths and finishing the tack cleaning station.  Eventually we'll add those shelves by the ceiling too.

The only thing I don't know if we're going to be able to do is find a place to dry/store saddle pads, but I won't be too upset if we don't get that one done.  Gotta compromise with these small spaces sometimes!