Horse of the Year 2025 Part 2: In-hand

We returned to Kyalami Park the day after the Arab classes with Wynnie and Charlie in tow. After the wild flurry that always precedes HOY, with so many horses to bath and plait and load and pack for, it was a huge relief to finally be on the road and ready to do the thing.

Charlie is a client's super cute partbred gelding and has actually never been to a show, but he's one of those people who just aren't bothered by anything, so I was confident about overnighting him. Wynnie was our earliest horse of the day on Saturday and I knew she'd overnight well because she has done so several times before. She loaded and traveled like an absolute superstar, although I'd put her ninja outfit on to keep her plaits clean and this proved to be a mistake. The poor girl sweats like her mother. She was sodden but unbothered when we got there, and neither of the two youngsters put a foot wrong when we arrived.

We found the show stables had suffered somewhat after weeks of rain and the paths in between were pretty muddy. The stables themselves were fine, but the amount of bugs gave me the heebie jeebies, so I absolutely drenched both horses in Tabard to keep the disease-carrying little blighters off. Both horses settled perfectly and were happy to nibble their hay while I got the stables set up and ready for what promised to be a chaotic following day.

We got an early start on Saturday morning. Erin kindly found time in a truly hectic schedule to come over and help with turning out Wynnie. Although Wynnie is solid bay and thus makes my life much easier, I was determined that she should look utterly spotless. If we weren't going to win the in-hand class, it sure as sugar wasn't going to be because of her turnout. I knew she had it in her to win the class and really wanted to do her justice, so I'd made an effort to improve my turnout game, which definitely included dragging Erin into it.

Before she got there, though, I made a bold effort at washing the sweat and Tabard off her from the night before. This proved easier said than done. First, when I went into the stable to feed her, Wynnie (very rudely) barged out the door and hooned around the stables, naked and feral.

"Loose horse," people yelled as she merrily trampled over the nice, professional grooming area that the Proper Showing People had set up.

"Loose horse!!" they shrieked as she almost mowed down a kid and pony.

"Don't worry," someone said, "there's the owner."

There the owner was indeed, following dejectedly behind with a rope halter, making despairing little cooing noises and brandishing a carrot. Wynnie didn't give a crap about me or my cooing noises or my carrot. She was having too much fun sowing chaos wherever she went.

"Oh, hey, Firn!" someone yelled.

There was a chorus of greetings from the other Nooitie people with their normal, sweet, well-behaved Nooities while I followed in the wake of the dragon spawn I bred.

She eventually dived underneath a half-unfolded gazebo for some grass and I managed to wrangle her halter on, whereupon she followed me back to her stable as meekly as a lamb.

The meekness didn't last. After her breakfast, I took her up to the horsebox to use our handy-dandy portable wash bay to get some of the stickiness out of her coat. This was a big ask - there were very few other horses visible and the box is a long way from the stables - and Wynnie did make a bit of a scene about this. She called, pawed, tried to push me over, and reared once in protest when I corrected her sharply with the halter. She did settle somewhat after a few minutes, but it wasn't productive, so I called it quits with only her shoulders and flanks clean and then attempted to graze her in the sunshine and get her dry.

We had variable success with this part. She spent much of that time grazing like a good girl, and the rest of it leaping around on her hindlegs in a very annoying manner. To her credit, it wasn't separation anxiety - she was fine about that once she could see other horses close by. It was more a case of being wet, fresh, and bored out of her skull. If I'd given her a five-minute lunge or even just some groundwork in the warmup, I'm willing to bet she would have chilled the heck out.

Anyway, she was at least well-behaved in the stable once we got back and she could entertain herself by eating hay instead of homicide. I polished her coat with Brylcreem - well, that's what I thought I was doing, anyway; turns out I was making artsy little streaks of oiliness all over her - and she was actually very good for me to plait her forelock. I also managed to clip her ears with a bit of clicker training and patience, which was great. Erin fixed her tail, which I hadn't clipped properly, and put on her beautiful checkerboard quarter marks.

Then, while we were still working on the finishing touches, they called our class ten minutes early. This happens to me every single year. I forget that dressage is dressage and you absolutely cannot be forced to go in before your ride time, but showing is showing and does what it wants. Ten minutes isn't a super long time, but it was the time I had set aside to walk Wynnie around and get her brain in gear, and that was the time we ended up not having.

Erin ran a last brush through Wynnie's tail and shoved us in. Rather, Wynnie dragged me in, plunging and snorting in all her draconic finery. She is her mother's daughter in many good ways, but also a few regrettable ones. It felt like wrangling a young (well... even a not-so-young) and angry Arwen as we absolutely charged around the arena with Wynnie doing her best to remove my arms from my sockets and me doing my best to keep a lid on the beast.

There were two key troubles here. The first was just that I hadn't taken enough time to get Wynnie moving around and focused on her job before we went in. The second was that Wynnie did not, in fact, understand the bit as clearly as I thought she did. She'd been so good for her in-hand work at home that I'd barely used the reins at all, only my voice and posture, keeping a smile in the reins like a good little horsewoman. We'd done a lot of lungeing in the stretchy thing, which gives only a really soft and gentle connection and really encourages the horse to go into the bridle and stretch down without any fear of their mouth. This is awesome and everything, but it left me almost entirely without brakes. The more I pulled, the more she merrily pulled, too.

It took me a hot minute to figure this out. By the time I did, we had wrestled each other around the show ring and then had a fairly catastrophic trot during which she exhibited none of her loose and beautiful movement but a few very credible airs above the ground.

To her enormous credit, though, Wynnie never once fidgeted in the halt. Once homegirl was standing, she was standing. It was the moving that was the problem. I stood her up for the judge, who looked her up and down and said, "Walk away and trot back, please, and pray that she behaves."

I did, and she did. We walked away and trotted back without turning a hair, but it was already too late. Wynnie had proven herself a misbehaving renegade and came second to another very gorgeous filly. By the time they handed out the ribbons, I had made the tremendous leap of intellect that perhaps I should stop pulling on the reins and use the same training principles with which I had, in fact, raised the horse. I started to use click and reward every time she behaved instead of merely hauling on her mouth. Miraculously, the horse started to behave the instant I was consistent and clear. Amazing. What a shocker.

I was tired, annoyed, and a little bummed out as we left the arena. Wynnie has been so well-behaved at previous shows that I didn't put much thought into how she would be at this one, so I wasn't expecting to have any difficulty with her. I had the feeling she might have done better if only she'd been more chill when we went in (read: if only I had done the stuff that I should've done, I realize, with my 20/20 hindsight). Also, I was just over it, because we all know how incredibly fun it is to get squished, trampled, and pulled around by an increasingly big and strong young horse.

She stood mostly still as we waited to go back in for the championship, and once we did, she behaved perfectly. When my expectations were clear, she met them. (Amazing how horses behave better when we, like, do the thing correctly). We didn't get any ribbons in the championship, with the first-placed senior mare winning it and the junior winner getting reserve, but at least Wynnie was good and I could look forward to the group class later.

I showed dear old Charlie, who was perfect in every imaginable way and a wonderful experience after wrangling Wynnie (we won't mention that I have fussed over Wynnie's training for three years and this is her fourth HOY, while Charlie had never shown before and we'd only had him four months). Then it was time for little Raya's first ever show.

Raya had been a superstar leading up to this show. My expectations for a baby's first show are super low: load politely, travel without incident, and then have a positive experience the rest of the time. I had her in the stud group class with Wynnie because then she wouldn't even have to trot up by herself - she could merely follow Wynnie. Life was so hectic with prepping eight horses for HOY that we only actually got around to teaching Raya to trot in hand the week before, but she just did it like the perfect angel child she is. She even stood, snoozing, for me to plait and sew in her hair on the Thursday afternoon.

The stud group was right after the geldings, so I didn't even have time to get her ready myself. K and BarnRat did so with variable enthusiasm. I had just enough time to notice that no one had thought to, well, run a brush through Raya's tail before the ring steward was calling us in. I grabbed Wynnie, K grabbed Raya, and in we went.

This time, Wynnie had had the chance to settle, and she was pretty much perfect from the first step. Darling little Raya was an absolute angel from start to finish. She's a quiet little soul, friendly and calm, happy to cooperate as long as she gets a little attention and maybe a treat or two. She followed Wynnie around without a single misstep.

They both stood up beautifully for the judge, who asked if Raya was Wynnie's baby (no, ma'am, she is not, but the resemblance is strong). We then had to walk away and trot back together. We executed a lovely walk and symmetrical turn, and then things went a bit pear-shaped when we started to trot. Wynnie accidentally stood on the edge of one of the tekkies (sneakers?) I'd elected to wear for the in-hand, and it came right off. She barely even stepped on it, to be honest---her foot grazed mine when we trotted off. The show must go on, I decided, so I ran across the show arena with one tekkie and one bright blue socks with cute little dogs wearing sunglasses on it.

I giggled. K was appalled. The judge informed me that I could go back and get my shoe, so I ran back across the arena as everyone watched, grabbed it, shoved it on, and returned to Raya's side. Wynnie, to her credit, was angelic for this part.

A lot of weird and silly things have happened to me in the show ring, but that was definitely a first.

We didn't get any placings in the stud group class (not a huge surprise, as all the different breeders show their very best horses in the group class, and that doesn't usually include growthy little yearlings and misbehaving three-year-olds), but I was just so happy with how little Raya had behaved---and with the fact that Wynnie had finally screwed her head back on straight---that I honestly didn't care.

That wrapped up the stressful in-hand part. It was time to relax, focus, and enjoy the grownup horses in the riding classes.

God is good.

Back Again

Here's a really quick recap so that I can get back into the swing of things with posts for 2025.

As fantastic as 2024 was, our plans did fall off the rails a little toward the end of the year. Although Arwen rocked our socks in October by winning Medium 3 at Champagne Tour and we had another really fun show after that, we didn't quite manage to get our ten grading points for Advanced yet. No regrets - we had an amazing year of showing together.

Thunder also went to Champagne Tour and had a very tense warmup, but settled in the test for a decent score. He started his 2025 three-legged lame with the kind of swelling that makes your heart turn cartwheels, but after a set of ($$$) x-rays, the vet proclaimed that he was merely bruised and would be sound within ten days. I was riding him again the next week and he is completely fine now, having lost much less fitness than I expected over the holidays and after his injury, so good for him.

Lancey went to our provincial Arab show in the end of November to finish off our show season. He was absolutely superb in every way, not putting a foot wrong for three full days of classes, and we brought home a little bit of satin to boot. Our highlight was coming third in a large and strong hunter pleasure class even though, truth be told, I have absolutely no idea what hunter pleasure even is. Someone told me to ride forward so we just zoomed around basically. He makes everything so fun.

Faith was diagnosed with bony change in her left front navicular, the result of an injury she likely had as a foal before we got her. It explains the chronic short-stepping issue she has, as well as the tightness in her back. We gave her a shot of Legend and put bar shoes on in front and I put her into boot camp with me for four or five weeks to lose weight, get supple, and regain the musculature she needs to move comfortably. It worked insanely well, and Faith was going the best she's ever gone by the end of November, when she somehow ripped a hole in her right front. After (more $$$) stitches, it healed like a charm and she lost hardly any fitness. She and K are looking incredible together.

Skye is beautiful, perfect, and still living her best life with no apparent signs of slowing down even though she'll be about 37 this year at our best guess. Her joints remain creaky, but honestly, I'm not seeing anything get worse. She had biliary when the first round of ticks came out in the spring and recovered like any young, healthy horse would. I even had to reduce her concentrates because she was getting rather portly on the summer grass. I know she won't be with us forever, but I'm grateful for every happy, healthy day we get to have with her.

this is me teaching K to ride on Skye like a thousand years ago

Raya handled her weaning with aplomb and is living out now with a cute little two-year-old colt friend who is, in fact, smaller than she is. She has a super-sweet, submissive, totally calm personality with nothing pushy or dominant about her - very similar to her mom's, but more expressive and personable.

Finally, and most excitingly, I started working with Wynnie in November. She already had all the citizenship skills nailed down (after all, she's been to three Horse of the Year shows), but as her third birthday approached, we started playing with ponying off Lancey and then little bits of groundwork. Wynnie has an insanely active and agile mind and is the only horse I've ever seen who actively gets bored in the field. I also took one look at her big personality, loud opinions, and girl-boss energy and decided to sit on it sooner rather than later, thanks. Her physical maturity was there, too, so we did very gentle and basic groundwork and then I popped on for a few little sits in December and January. I'll try to do a full post just about backing her, but in case I don't, here is proof that the baby dragon did not, in fact, launch me during her first few rides.

The stableyard is chugging along fine, with plenty of training horses to keep K and I busy and a few new darling retirees. We nearly closed our doors in November when the terrible drought persisted, but Abba provided the most beautiful rain in December, and now we are full steam ahead with breeding plans for this season and a string of ponies getting ready for HOY.

this child raked in the ribbons on Sunday riding dear old Mawarda

Looking forward to staying caught up as much as possible now, although with so much richness in our lives, it's not surprising when we get too consumed with life to journal it.

God is good.

Sometimes Love is a Bridle

 February kicked off with the show at Penbritte and then grew somewhat quiet on the equestrian front. Thunder recovered from a pulled tendon early in the month and then promptly damaged his other front leg by getting into an argument with Diablo (25, one-eyed) about who was Rene's boyfriend. (Rene was content for them BOTH to be her boyfriend during the most violent and raging foal heat I have ever seen). It wasn't major, just a lump on the outside of his cannon bone, but Mr. Stoic got time off until it healed anyway.

Raya continued to be super adorable. She got herself into her first trouble (of much trouble, judging by how the horses have behaved lately) when Samule got away from Kathleen during his lunging session and decided that he HAD to capture and investigate Raya. He ran through a couple of fences (did I mention that a lightning strike took out our energiser, too?) and chased poor baby Raya through a couple more, separating her from her mom. Thankfully, Dusty showed up, chased Samule away, and kept Raya by her side until I got to them. Raya was none the worse for wear except for a small scrape on her nose. Samule spent the rest of the month in jail until we got the new energiser.

Lancey only had a couple of rides in February, but he was fabulous. Amazing to hack - obviously - and even better in the arena. In fact, I would have loved to take him to Horse of the Year, but the Arabs are on a weekday which is difficult to swing at the best of times and impossible given all the vet bills these dudes incurred this month.

Arwen had a chill first week in February. She went for a long hack after the show and behaved impeccably - solo is no problem for her these days. Is the dragon maturing? Perhaps we can hope so now that she's 17.

Rene had a photo shoot with her actual owner, who's hopelessly outgrown her now but had a few beautiful years riding her. Raya photobombed accordingly.

Despite Raya's best efforts, the photos still turned out totally spectacular.

photo by Erin Vogler Photography

BarnRat has her lovely new horse but is still competing Midas at SANESA this year as long as she doesn't grow too much more. He's jumping like a beast for her. We took them out to a clinic at E2's yard in Meyerton and he stopped hard at first, but kiddo rode him thoroughly through it, and they ended with a .90m track in fine style including fillers and things.

He's given this poor child a hard time, but she's also developed a fabulous seat, so there's that.

Raya's overwhelming cuteness made it really hard to get anything done. She's been one of the easiest foals we've had, although we had some trouble getting her to quit eating her mom's concentrates - I've never seen a foal eat so much solids so fast. This girl was two weeks old and chowing down on grains and hay already.

Lancey was out of work for most of February because I had a pea-sized melanoma cut out of his butt early in the month. It was the only one I could find and I wanted to get on top of it, so the vet cut it out with nice big, clean margins. He was shaky under the sedation and gave me a fright, but came out of it easily. The wound healed with no fuss at all.

The vet asked if I wanted to biopsy the lump, but like... it was a nasty black thing with octopus tentacles on a grey horse. It was a melanoma. I opted out.

Everyone had flu shots on the 7th as well, so Arwen took it fairly easy that week. The next week, though, we got right back to work and kept ticking over nicely for the rest of the month. We did a ton of work on her halts, trot-canter and walk-canter transitions, and flying changes.

Honestly, I'm not sure how we got anything done at this yard in February because of this Raya cuteness.

This is my new friend and client A's horse, Mawarda, a picture perfect little Arabian. He was kind of ribby when we got him in the winter, but these days he's a shiny, round boy.

(Relax, it's khakibos, an invasive but weirdly beneficial weed. Not that kind of weed.)

Faith was incorrigible at the show, so much so that I didn't even put her kid on her. She wasn't dangerous, just really tense and wiggly - definitely not suited for a 10-year-old. So I switched the kiddo onto Flashy instead. He's been a bit of a dunderhead lately but improving with every ride.

Hubby was allowed to start cycling in the beginning of February, and riding with him has become one of the most exquisite pleasures in my life.

Toy Town and BarnRat joined us on this particular ride, which always introduces an element of chaos. It was some of the most fun I've had on horseback this year - and I've had a lot of fun this year.

Running this place can be stressful, but it's got to be some of the most beautiful land the Lord ever made.

Tarka, also belonging to A, had difficulty gaining her weight back after she arrived with her foal Azai at foot last year. These days, though, she's starting to look a little like an overstuffed sausage.

Despite some very dry weeks in January and early February, the grazing is holding up fine. Perhaps a little too fine - I'm more worried about fat horses than thin ones right this moment.

Despite being in full work, Arwen is one of the fattest ones. We're working on restoring the fences now that we have the new energiser and we're going to move the fat ones off the best grass, so we'll see how that goes. They'll lose much of it naturally in the winter.

Wedding Bliss and BarnRat have gone from strength to strength. Wedding could be quite rude and throw a few bucks, but E2 jumped on her for me and sorted her out with one ride. Kiddo handles her extremely well. They've been jumping gymnastics and tracks of 0.80m already, which Wedding finds practically effortless. She's also finally gaining some weight on the nice grass - hopefully we'll get the ribs totally covered before winter.

Arwen and I took our new livery, Donker, and his lovely owner, IG, on a hack with Flash and her non-horsy boyfriend. He was admirable about the whole thing and Flash, of course, took perfect care of him - despite having launched a poor little kid only a few minutes earlier. This is the first kid to fall off Flashy, though, in four years of riding school work, so I can't be too mad.

Our neighbor is renting our southern pastures this autumn and winter, so he put up a new fence for us.

I'm not sure I ever introduced Samule. Hubby has been pestering me for months to get him a horse of his own, but I did not. Instead, I got him a tiny, somewhat feral mule. He's much less feral these days - we've had him a few months - and becoming a really cute pet. K is training him for me and we plan to put him in harness eventually. His talents include following us around the pasture and escaping from absolutely any fence that isn't loaded with at least five thousand volts.

I sent this to Erin joking that his front legs kept getting injured so I'd just chopped them off. This was actually his first time back at work with two functioning forelegs - a lungeing session that involved a lot of squealing, leaping, and even, embarrassingly, getting away from me and running around the arena while K was trying to ride Faith. Good to know he was feeling fine, I guess.

My birthday was at the end of February, and I wandered into my house after running around all afternoon to find K, Rain, hubby, and Erin (via video call) gathered inside yelling "Surprise!" like in the movies. They'd all chipped in to buy the most epic birthday present.

After buying Arwen's brown Wintec last year, I didn't really have brown tack to match. It came with a snaffle bridle that mostly matched but had a crank noseband and rubber reins that aren't really showing legal. I bought some mismatched reins and a noseband that also didn't quite match and cobbled them together for Pre-HOY with an old Pelham that I had lying around. She goes in a Pelham - not like she goes in the double, but she goes - so I was happy with that for HOY. Nothing exactly matched, but I wasn't going to fork out a bunch of cash for a bridle that was only really necessary once. Dressage judges might get a twitchy eye from a black bridle and brown saddle, but they won't mark you down like in showing.

At the tack shop where I got the reins, though, there hung a thing of beauty: a brown double bridle exactly the same as Arwen's black one, which is perfect for both showing and dressage and suits her face really well. I thought it would be a good match for my saddle and it wasn't that expensive but, again, I'm still paying off expenses from when hubs was in hospital so it wasn't going to happen. Except that it did. They all got together and bought it for me, and it matches not just well, but perfectly.

Sometimes, love is a bridle.

K put ribbons on it

Donker has been a generally very good boy, but he presumably got into an argument with one of the others - likely Flashy - and received a kick. Being an older boy, he hasn't been healing particularly well, so I spend some time obsessing over his leggy each day.

In the absence of a tractor, an issue we've been dealing with for over a year now, hubby hooked the harrow to his SUV - which he is very precious about - and spent hours dragging the arena for me. It made an enormous difference. This man, you guys <3

M lunged Thunder a few times for me because I was embroiled in HOY prep and not able to pay him a ton of attention in the last week of February when he came back to work. I rode him on the Wednesday, though, and while - as always - he needed a little convincing to get in front of my leg, he felt as strong and supple as ever.

Arwen felt amazing as we prepared for Horse of the Year. We worked on flying changes, hoping to fit one into our show riding test for extra marks, and while she was still a little messy right to left sometimes, her changes left to right got to a point where they felt almost perfect. She skipped softly through them so lightly I could barely feel them.

Her extended trot became effortless again with the arena harrowed, too.

The main herd is quite large now - eleven horses - but they're getting along so well. Arwen is, obviously, the boss mare and she keeps everyone effortlessly in line. Flashy is the Big Stallion in his little mind and Midas acts as a sort of lieutenant. Faith is also quite dominant, and the rest are pretty happy to just eat grass and not have complicated social lives. Flashy and Midas are even getting along, to my surprise.

Raya and Rene temporarily got put into the arena while my hands were busy. Raya galloped madly around the arena but never came close to the non-electrified white tape surrounding it. She is very clear on the fact that fences are not for touching, a great relief to me. There are few things more frustrating than escapees.

I had professional photos taken of Raya because I'm sad not to have better photos of baby Wynnie, so I look forward to posting those.

I may be a little worried about their weight right now, but I still truly appreciate the low maintenance of these Nooitgedachters. It hardly costs me a thing to keep these two beauties in show condition. They're only on pasture with a fistful of balancer for the micronutrients, and even in full work, these girls simply blossom. No shoes, great mouths that only need the dentist occasionally, cast-iron legs, and they don't even seem to need a ton of bodywork. Thank you ladies.

old man Vastrap in the background living his best retired life

Arwen and I didn't practice our show riding a ton - we have Easter Festival dressage coming up so that's taking up a lot of our attention - but we did make the effort to play with a working riding test and ensure that the halts are still steady. Spoiler alert: the effort paid off.

Kiddo and Midas at their clinic at E2's lovely yard. They have SANESA coming up and I'm interested to see how they do. Midas jumped well at this venue last time and both he and kiddo have improved a lot - she's put in an amazing amount of work.

Another livery also went to the clinic and did this to himself in the horsebox, so that was fun. Horses gonna horse. It was surprisingly superficial and he's basically fine again now, but it was not a good moment when I stepped into the blood-streaked box.

We wrapped up the month by finally getting a good picture of Arwen in her beautiful new bridle, all ready for Horse of the Year - which was amazing.

More on that later. God is good.