It’s been three weeks with Archie the Tiny Terrorist. (He’s not actually a total terrorist, but he is a small horse and the smaller they are the closer to the Devil so….)

We’ve established that tantrums only result in working harder, that I can’t steer and that dressage is like, really hard work. He’s also learned water is fun, banks are fun and the cows next door are not going to eat him (okay, the last one is questionable).

Archie has been a gem in our lessons while I have… uh, not. Turns out staring at the standards/jumps/taking your leg off and just becoming dead weight is not conducive to success. Oops. Fortunately, my trainer resolved this by having an entire lesson where two strides out from each fence she yelled, “ATTACK!” in my ear. Unconventional, but successful? I know what my next bonnet is going to say…

He’s also getting a training ride/week to just help things along. It felt like a good way to help ensure a successful start and it’s turned out to be a great decision. It helps reinforce what I’m learning in lessons, gives me good homework to work on during the rest of the week and gives me a chance to see that, yes, in fact, my horse can do xyz if I ride and ask correctly and insist upon it.

I recently acquired a Pivo and have been playing around with it as well – it’s worked well in schooling rides, but I have yet to get it to fully cooperate during a lesson, so my video over fences is severely lacking. I’m hopeful with some additional experimentation I’ll have success one of these days.

That’s essentially the extent of Archie’s first three weeks – not a whole lot of exciting stuff going on, but hopefully building a good foundation for the future.

If you follow on Instagram, you’re already well aware of this news, but it only felt right to write it all down and share here too!

After sending Iggy off to retirement (he’s loving it btw), I pretty much jumped into horse shopping immediately. I couldn’t stand the idea of being horseless. I also came to the conclusion that after two wonderful leases, I was *gulp* ready to buy something.

A handful of Facebook ads later, I had about nine horses to go through which quickly got overwhelming enough, a full on Google Doc had to be created to keep them all straight. I’ll spare you all the rest, but one in particular stood out: a cute 9 year old chestnut gelding doing the hunters located in… Kansas.

Well. I didn’t really want to drive 10 hours, but I also didn’t really want to get on a plane mid-pandemic. Which meant… social media to the rescue? I tracked down his previous trainer, who happened to be an eventer, and then a friend of a friend (okay, so acquaintance of an acquaintance?) who is an undergrad at KState went to go see him for me. She came back with good reports, the owners offered me a trial and so – he got on a trailer and came to Indiana.

And that’s how we meet Archie, a 9 year old solid Paint gelding, registered as Impressive Red Raider, but newly registered with USEA to show as Here to Party.

He hasn’t really been expected to have manners and behave like a grown up adult horse except for maybe 7-8 months of his life, so it’s not exactly surprising he thinks he’s a toddler. Add on to that needing teeth done, ulcers and limited turnout – I was willing to forgive some of the issues. Within a week of being at the barn, getting acclimated to turnout (on grass! with friends!) and being on ulcer meds, he was already a happier horse.

He’s an absolute JOY to jump though – and it only carried over into his very first XC school where he didn’t step a foot wrong. Everything I pointed him at, he was game and acted like he’d been doing this his entire life. I was about to explode with happiness by the end of my lesson. You know, just in time for him to trip walking back to the barn and pull a shoe.

Of course.

So – that’s the latest chestnut gelding with a white face around here, and will be for a good long while. I’m excited to event him, we are already well on the way to get him happier and enjoying his job and of course – we’re really just here to party.