WW: 3rd Level Show Photos!

I know I was trying to post more but my life is currently a dumpster fire 🙈 so enjoy a wordless Wednesday photo dump of my show photos from our recognized 3rd level debut! 

Testing AGAIN

Hi hello it's me again. Testing this one last time, since blogger FINALLLLLLLY fixed the photo inserter so I don't have to cobble together posts from the app and the mobile site combined. Also Jen from CobJockey (who is the bees knees) helped me do some troubleshooting so my posts possibly show up in feeds again? So this is a test 🤣

Emmy is fantastic - these photos are from a schooling show last month where we threw caution to the wind and attempted 3rd level to prep for a recognized show next month - not mad about the 58 and 64 we got 🤩 she is a good egg, loves showing, and is better every time I sit on her despite me being a rather incompetent monkey. 

Cinna is getting ridden A LOT and turning out to be a lot of fun?? Who knew?! She went to a lesson in June and TrainerB liked her quite a bit, so we'll keep plugging away. She also did her first solo trail ride yesterday and kept her marbles in her noggin so things are clearly getting very serious. 

Ruby is preggo and enjoying living the life of luxury and not working like... At all 🤣 she'll go back to light conditioning walks in the fall but for now I'd prefer she not overheat and cook the lil baby bean. Seeing the heartbeat was such a cool experience, and I can't wait until we take her back in to try to see if it's a boy or girl!

If this post actually works and shows up on people's feeds again, I guess I won't have any excuse any more not to blog! Sooooo much going on that I'd love to be sharing it was just ridiculously frustrating to bust my ass putting together posts that like... No one ever saw, so I gave up. Maybe it's time for a blogging Renaissance! 

Baby Daddy

Now that the cat is out of the bag, meet Ruby's baby daddy!

Luminoso CF

Oso is a 16.0h red carrying, agouti dominant Perlino (EeAACRCR) PRE Andalusian stallion. 3 FEI quality gaits. Sound, sane, fun. Schooling 3rd level, showing 2nd, and drives single/double and will be showing in CDEs with his owner, who is on the developing athlete FEI list for combined driving. She also has a multi-generational internationally respected Andalusian and Lusitano breeding program, which is why I've been watching Oso since he was a weanling back in 2015 ♥️

Based on his and Ruby's color genetics, baby is guaranteed to be a buckskin. I anticipate it will also be a fun, fancy ammy horse and kick off my next generation of riding horses. I'm sure I'll feel like an idiot when I'm breaking out a baby at 40, but here we are 🤣 next milestone is the heartbeat check next week, wish us luck! 

WW on a Monday: Black Dot

Womp Womp

I knew I shouldn't have posted the breeding series until Ruby was checked in foal 🫠 no black dot today, which was a bummer. My vet and I discussed some potential management changes, and now we have some data points. We (and the amazing stallion owner!) have had some good dialogue and hypothesized about some potential reasons why, but at the end of the day, those are the breaks. I'll give it one more round, but if she's open then I'll be financially tapped out for the year. So I mean I guess you're getting a very realistic look at the ups and downs without having to spend the money yourself 🤪🤣

Ultrasound, Rinse, Repeat: Part 3

This appointment was slightly less stressful, but only slightly 🤣 lucky for me, Ruby's reproductive system continued to cooperate, and she had ovulated - two follicles actually! But as anticipated, she had retained some fluid, so she needed a uterine lavage. Optho had both of the stocks in use so the first ultrasound was just in a stall, so no good photos of that because the vet told me she trusted me to hold Ruby more than any of the students, so I couldn't see the screen lol. 

"Again? *Sigh*"

For the lavage they really did need her in stocks (with drugs haha) so luckily one opened up and we got that done fairly quickly. The fluid coming out was slightly cloudy, but again, as expected, so nothing alarming. Also more really aggressive flatulence, which all the young female vet students were so mortified about 🤣🤣

The vet sent me home with more drugs to encourage Ruby's uterus to contract and prescribed light exercise to keep her system moving, and we had a "can't miss" appointment two weeks later to check for a black dot - and hopefully only one, because the risk with a double ovulation is twins, which means one would need to be pinched off. 

I took the vet's instructions very seriously, so Ruby got ponied while I did a conditioning ride for Emmy hahaha. 

Considering I have no idea if either of them has ponied another horse/has been ponied, and I was riding alone in the woods in a bareback pad .... Things went well 🤣 I struggled to juggle everything, but that's a me problem, not a horse problem lol. 

So. Now you're up to date on what has been going on with Ruby! I really hesitated to even post anything before we got to the heartbeat phase, because there is so much risk in breeding. Ruby is older than is preferable for a maiden mare. The semen we got was literally the stallion's first official shipped collection - he had been phantom trained/had evaluations and test cools/etc, but had no pregnancies yet. Ruby had some really weird cycles we couldn't get a handle on in the beginning. So many things could go wrong. And if they do - that's okay. It's not the end of the world. I've done this before, and I know the risks. Even if this doesn't work out and I'm just out a shit ton of money, those are the breaks. I won't identify the stallion until things are more confirmed, because if it doesn't work out, it's not any fault on his end - he is managed by a very experienced breeder and on their end they worked with a great repro clinic. Basically I'm just taking it a day at a time right now, but I do think breeding is such a cool journey to chronicle and I know Amanda does a really cool job posting about it on a more commercial scale, I also like sharing my own little rinky dink AA experience 🤣 at any rate, we'll be checking for a black dot (and hopefully only one!) next week, so cross your fingers for us! 

Testing, testing

Apparently, in the fun "I hate blogger" saga I have going on, my posts are no longer showing up in Feedly, it's showing some sort of "dead feed" error, so this is just a test to see if randomly toggling things in the settings tab made a difference..... Plz comment if you can see this! 

Ultrasound, Rinse, Repeat: Part 2

When I woke up on *THE DAY*, I was irrationally nervous. And then the whole FedEx opening late. And then there was an issue with another shipment being picked up at the same time (not mine, but the vet had to sort it out before she could meet me). But then it was time! 

Today's the DAAAAAAAY

At pretty much every previous appointment, there were a gaggle of vet students helping, but the day Ruby got inseminated, they were on a different farm call - so I got to play assistant 😁 I fully recognize that might not be everyone's cup of tea but as a middle/high schooler I actually wanted to be a vet and spent a few summers riding around with several equine vets on farm calls and helping out (in retrospect this was sort of child labor but whatever I loved it 🤣🤣). And I've always been someone who loves to learn. So, once we confirmed Ruby was ready to breed (two big ol' follicles looking ready to ovulate imminently), we cracked open the "man in a can" (breeders got jokes lol) and got to work!

She had no idea this was gonna be different from the 5 thousand other ultrasounds lol

There were two doses of fresh cooled semen, at 50ml each. Because of the follicle size, my vet opted to inseminate with both - it was a high volume of semen and did increase the chances of Ruby retaining some fluid and needing to be flushed, but it was a calculated risk based on how close ovulation looked and I trust my vet's call. I held the little baggies open while she sucked everything up into the syringes, brought her supplies, swapped out the doses when one syringe was empty, etc etc. I feel really lucky that she trusted me enough to let me help! I have been using this particular university as my vet for over a decade, but the therio vets are new since the last time I had occasion to need one, so this particular vet has only known me since April, but I guess we have seen enough of each other that she doesn't think I'm a complete idiot lol. 

Ruby was not nearly as enthusiastic as I was haha

The center standing the stallion put the shipping label over the open latch which was a clever way to keep FedEx from fucking with it - I have heard nightmares about empty equitainers showing up! 😱

Dr. Julia got everything prepped for the insemination, then went in with the tube to deliver the semen - poor Ruby. As a maiden, the vet really struggled to get everything where it needed to be, and I have literally never heard a horse express so much aggressive gas in my entire life 🤣 but everything ended up where it was supposed to be, and then the vet asked me if I wanted to watch her do the initial semen evaluation - um, absolutely! 

"EXCUSE ME WHAT ARE YOU DOING BACK THERE?!?!"

To do the evaluation, she took a small sample from each of the doses, mixed them together, and then examined them on a slide under a microscope. She did email me a formal semen evaluation to send on to the stallion owner, and that's not the internet's business 🤣 but it was super cool to see all the little swimmers bopping around on the slide! 

When I got home I managed to perfectly line up the jack with the block again, which felt like a good omen haha

Out with all her friends the evening after the deed was done! 

The vet sent me home with some drugs to induce ovulation just in case Ruby wanted to keep being a weirdo, and the next step was an appointment the following day to confirm ovulation/check for fluid.