Heels Down Happy Hour 145 - Horse Show Vacation, Ocala Edition

0:00You are listening to the Horse Radio Network, part of the Equine Network family. Ever wanted to go to Florida for the winter but don't know where to start? We've got you covered. This month we're talking about what Justine learned from attending an equine dissection and if you have always wanted to try combined driving, we've got all the tips for you. One of the world's leading athletes is going to tell us all about it. Thanks for tuning in. From Hills Down Mag, a podcast for a horse-prose chat about what's happening in the horse-world over drinks. Welcome to Happy Hour. I'm Justine Griffin. I'm Jessica Payne. And I'm Ellie Wasnicka. Welcome to episode 145 of Hills Down Happy Hour. Hi everybody. Hey guys. Are you guys surviving? So early. Yeah. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. We're keeping it this week. Last week I had no voice because I was down with the sickness.

1:00I've been battling the cough in my mouth to this cold. No, we're not using it cold and I have not been as bad as poor Justine thank goodness. But like this cough has been lingering and been taking my mom's natural stuff. I think it's working but I'm not sure some days. Well in the South, what the heck is this weather? We go from extreme cold for a couple of weeks and then it's like today with beautiful and almost 80 degrees and it's going to be mid 80s for the next couple of days. And then it's going to be fricking in the 30s again on Tuesday. So you can't decide poor Doug, not poor Doug. He left me at home and I was in freezing. But at least when it was not above freezing, I didn't have to ride. He went to a Caledish show and he was like for two days. He said it was like a fog and he said he was like blistering cold wet. And he's like, it's Florida. They're not even used to this. Like they're pipe spurs and everything else. Yeah, it was chaos and it's been a long well, we hit 50 today, guys.

2:03So so it's like August for you. Yeah, you're like, you're like, this is amazing. Yeah, this is our, you know, false spring. It'll get question. Does it melt and then you have problems or you're just like still? Yes, this will all be running tomorrow. It's going to rain all day tomorrow. So it's just going to be mud. That kind of feels gross. I don't just want snow for you. Yeah, I agree. Okay, I wasn't sure if you agree or not. But I was like, that's what I would feel. But I don't know. I don't know if I prefer the cold. I don't, I don't do mud. Well, yeah. Yeah. So this episode is brought to you by live oak international. Okay. So I have a drink. I think you will like Ellie. Like when I had this the other day, I was like, this is one that if I made it, I think Ellie would drink it. Okay. I'm ready. So do you guys like bloody marries? Depends on this. I feel like I have to be a little tipsy first agreed. Like it's not what I pick for myself.

3:05You know, so what I have for you is called a bloody Maria. And it is essentially a bloody Mary, but with tequila. And it's actually really good. You don't even have to be a tequila person to like it. But basically it's all the same ingredients that you would want in your bloody Mary like it's a tomato juice or a vegetable juice lime juice lemon juice wordchester sauce, horseradish hot sauce. If you're really into spicy celery salt and black pepper. And this recipe calls for silver tequila, but I have had it with different types of tequila. So I think it's like whatever you like. And basically you combine all the things and you refrigerate it for a while. And then when you're ready to serve it, they recommend using a chili lime seasoning to rim your glasses, which I had never heard of that before, but it's really good. And I yeah, it's actually very easy to find like most grocery stores carry it. But so it's kind of got like a spicy kick, but also like that tart taste from a lime, the seasoning that you use on the rim.

4:07It's really good. And then if you want to be fancy, you can like put a whole brunch in it. Like you can with a bloody Mary like you could put green olive celery, shrimp, whatever you want, a mini, a slider, you know how like bloody Mary's come with like a full breakfast now sometimes. So that's where. But yeah, it's pretty good. So for people who are not bubbly mimosa, people try a bloody Maria sometime. We'll share the recipe in the show notes. Sounds hearty. Yes. I could have this with some soup in the winter. Absolutely. All right. Who has some news? Jess, are you ready to share? I am. So I'm sad this year. We will not be attending, but you guys, if you have not been to the Grand Prix of Enting Showcase at Bruce's field, it is such a fun show. It's over a short period of days. They kind of condense it. They make it so that people can experience a venting like kind of in a shorter format, like a show jumping sort of situation where you can like sit there and see all the highlights.

5:11And everything is like super close and aching. And again, one of my favorite towns to go, but like you can go. It's Friday, Saturday of next week, the 27th, 28th. And I just can't wait to watch like the live stream at places and everything else. But my favorite is just to walk around and see you can walk by a bunch of the cross country jumps. It's kind of up close and you can kind of stay in a lot of places and see a lot of the jumps, which is super fun. So yeah, I just, I was an aching this weekend visiting my mom and everybody was talking about the aching Grand Prix eventing showcase. And I am sad that I'm not going to be able to make it. But at the end of the day, if anybody else can, you guys take video and pictures and send it to us because I can't wait to see who wins it. It's always like a nail bider because they do the dressage on Friday morning. They do the show jumping Friday afternoon. And then they do reverse order of go. And so you can see like to the very end who wins.

6:12I love reverse order of go. I love it. It's my favorite. I've always wanted to go, but I've, I've streamed it. I've watched it. It just looks like a one, a beautiful venue and two a nice time of year to be an aching. I was going to say when the weather's not hopefully like what it's been like we were just talking about. Hopefully they have good weather for the next weekend. But it's just, it's a fun place. Towns great that they've got a lot of good food restaurants and everything else. And my mom lives in Akin. That's why we were just visiting our own stuff. But it's a fun town and you walk around town. They've got cute little shops and cute little restaurants and it's a fun place to visit for us. Yeah, absolutely. No, that's fine. I'm excited to see like the list of who's competing this year. I know. I don't even actually know who's competing this year. So I'm excited once they release that to find out. Absolutely. Ellie, what do you have for us? Okay. I have news that I'm salty about. Okay. So the UCF talent search dropped the horse swap of the final four.

7:21That's annoying. Yeah. So for those of you who don't know, like the talent search is the four phase format, where they start with the flat and they'd combined it till flat and gymnastics are one day. And then a full day of show jumping the next day in reverse order. And then the top four would ride off on each other's horses with the whole point of emphasizing classical quotation, technical precision and adapting under pressure on different horses. So what, it's been like a decade since FEI did away with the final four riders swapping for in the world championships. And now UCF is doing the same thing with talent search. The traditional final four horse swapping right off was like kind of the defining element of the competition. But now it's going to be replaced with something that basically is a jump off. Like they're going to do top 10 horse rider combinations following the first three events

8:22are going to advance into like a modified winning round is what they called it. Yes. Like a short. Yeah. And everybody doesn't. It's the number of people. Yeah. That's going to be interesting. Yeah. And it's a short end, basically a short end meter 15 course. I mean, that just sounds boring. Right. So yeah, so the UCF managing director of the jumping Lizzie Chesson, I believe is her last name. Like it's now going to be judged right to execute short turns, maintain control and ride effectively while preserving classical form. I'm like, so basically it's just going to be a jump off like, okay, but with like judge on the echo a little bit, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. They're kind of stressing that the adjustments reflect the shifts in international sport that like swapping really hasn't been seen outside of the talent search since what 2014 all tech

9:23FEI world equestrian games in France. So it's been a long time. But and they're like, oh, it's not to fix anything broken. They're just trying to keep the final relevant, keep it fresh and keep the sport where it's going at the top level. But to be honest, I'm cranky. Well, I feel like it shows more horsemanship and more skill to be able to hop on somebody else's horse and do the same course, you know, I 100% yeah, I don't want of it. Exactly. I don't think it matters that it's not quote unquote modern. I think it really is a test of the skill of the riders. So I'm just surprised by this. Yeah. And they said that the major driver, right, is the increased importance of time at highest levels, right? So with nation cup finals now, if there's more than eight teams, you're tied on faults, it goes to time. And I'm like, okay, so that's your reason for doing away with a swap that makes no sense

10:24to me. Yeah. And they're saying they still want it to test the athlete's skill of jumping effectively and clear. Like how can they execute a course with short turns while balancing position? I'm like, they've pretty much shown you that with show jumping, like a tighter turn in my opinion. If you have good neck and good riding ability, it's not going to change because you did a little bit of a tighter rollback. Maybe that's a little too harsh, but like I think it's bull manure. Yeah. I'm with you. I'm with you. And Chesson even said it's not about speed and it's not a horse race. It's about efficiency wall riding. I'm like, okay, I don't know. So it's still going to have the flat and gymnastic components. And the gymnastic portion is still going to carry like additional weight in the scoring. But yeah, I'm pissed to be quite honest. My brutally honest comment is, look, these people who are riding at this level are riding

11:28on really freaking expensive horses. And the fact that they can't swap to at least try to introduce another super broke, well-trained horse, you know, and try to at least liven it up a little bit with that. It feels pretty elitist to me and I'm cranky. To me, it just feels like we're dumbing it down so kids don't have to work as hard. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. That's our hot tics for the episode. I mean, that was like one of like the biggest things that I enjoyed about, you know, college riding, right? Is that, you know, NCEA and I just say, like the whole thing is the catch ride, you know? And it's just, it's frustrating to see that go away at top levels of the, you know, sport, you know? I don't think a shortened course where, hey, you should probably ride a little faster. That doesn't show me as much as, can you ride this horse you've never ridden before?

12:29Go, you know? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I'm with you. But I'm curious, like, I haven't read the comments or anything about this online or, like, I'm curious what the industry thinks. Like, are we in the, like, are we following the trend to most people feel this way or to most people think, like, I wonder if it's like a logistics issue for you stuff. You know what I mean? Like, is it just harder to put that event on and have to deal with that portion of it? And maybe that's the, like, behind the scenes stuff we don't know, you know, because it, it does seem like a major change for kind of a silly reason. Yeah. I agree. But who knows? So, do you have more exciting news, less cranky news, just me? Right. Yeah. This is kind of cool. I think it depends on, like, what under the spectrum you're on on this stuff, but it's in the same vein of another major horse show, the national horse show. I think it's the longest running and the oldest indoor horse show in the US. Obviously, we know this is part of, like, the mainstay indoor series.

13:33But since COVID, I know that the horse show has changed venues a couple of times, but most recently has been held at the Kentucky Horse Park for a while now. I think since, like, 2011, it's been at the Kentucky Horse Park. But before then, it really, like, in its heyday, it was known for being in Madison Square Garden in New York City, obviously. Yeah. But they just announced that the national horse show is moving to trion. I'm super excited. The press release says pending UCEF approval, but if they're announcing this in a press release, it sounds like it's pretty close to a done deal. So obviously, trion is in North Carolina, Western North Carolina. It's an amazing, beautiful venue. And I think the climate there, like, it's temperate. And during, you know, indoor season, and they obviously have indoor rings there. But I think that's great. I know try and host it a lot of maybe one or two of the different indoor series during COVID, whenever they was closed down. Do you remember that? Which was great. Like, they were able to keep those horse shows going despite the turmoil of the world at

14:35that time. And what a big win for trion to have. Super excited. Yeah. A horse show of that, with that history and of that quality to call it home and try and just sounds really cool. So I believe the 2026 schedule, the national horse show will take place in late October. I think it's October 21st to November 1st. What a beautiful time of year to be on trion. How beautiful. It'll be right before what I think will be the Duke shows. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It'll be really nice. I'm excited. Talk about world class riders, you know, like, you'll see the best of the best there. Yeah. Like a really great get for the venue for sure. Yeah, absolutely. So we talked about how I was at home and the blizzard of what I felt like in North Carolina. But I did mention that Doug was freezing cold in Ocala. But I decided to bring him in because we do love the venue at Hitz Ocala.

15:36He did get to go, well, honestly, I didn't ride horses and he rode in what was pretty cool weather in Ocala. The first two days, the first two days he said was a foggy mist of coldness. He said the local people were freaking out, like their pipes, I mean, it was, it was legit. And I will tell you, our horses, we were able to ride what Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday of the week prior and it was not ideal, but it got down there and they were completely rogue. I wore my air vest to flat them the first day because I was like, if I somehow don't turn into a lawn dart here, it's going to be a miracle. Somehow I managed to stay on top, but they were, they were, understandably, they were mental. 15 horses and he said, not one of them was okay. I go, well, mine looked really happy and there's stalls and he goes, yeah, because you didn't even have to take them outside. I was like, well, there was snow and ice. They didn't leave the barn, mine were super happy. But anyways, Doug went down after the two days of freezing.

16:40He did manage. It was cold everywhere. It was cold and wellington. It was cold everywhere, but he managed to finally get down there and show and by Wednesday, it was Wednesday, Thursday, the better weather came in for showing wise. No, Wednesday was freezing. By Thursday got a little better by Friday and the weekend was excellent again. The sun returned. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. No, it was, it was wonderful. We love bringing the horses down to hits and it's a really chill, easy atmosphere and for the young horses, for us, we've got, we've basically been at trying to apply the model we used for event horses to jumpers. So we've been buying weenlings, try to do one a year. And so we always have a supply of babies coming up and the great thing with hits at all of their venues is age verified seven and under. They get three classes for free if you've got the stabling. So it makes it way, way more affordable to develop horses and wonderful courses, good footing. It's great. It's great because there are a lot of places that they do provide the young horse classes.

17:41And it is cheaper to be in the young horse classes and they, you know, do have some prize money for the six, seven year olds. But hits does do something a little different that they actually recognize not all horses can be at the level of what the age verification is. So like, you know, the five, six, and seven year olds, what if you have a five year old that just came over and really needs to be jumping like the eighties? Well, that's not a five year old class. So they recognize it and say, look, if you stable on site and your horse is age verified, we'll give you three, three classes to pick it, pick this, it doesn't have to be that they have to be at the level. And it's so nice that we've taken horses that we got, you know, a little bit older and they didn't come up with us trying to do it or they were less mature and all the different circumstances that we have utilized hits a lot between culpepper and Ocala that we've

18:42brought up a lot that weren't ready to just do their age verification. And like, we had a hunter go last year and it's pretty spectacular there that they, you know, honor that. Yeah, that's awesome. And they've done a lot of improvements to the venue in recent years, like the arenas are really quite nice. The footing. Yeah. So we're really martin so that the footing is wonderful and they did also the main arena. Now at the hits of cala there has a sort of whole food court area right up to the arena and our kids love it because they've got kid jumps right there. So we can kind of just plant them there and they're off jumping while we're actually jumping, you know, a little bit. And there's food. It used to be an old barn. So there used to be horses and everything else. Now it's like shut off that it's just people. There's tons of places to sit down eat. They have like, you know, a brick oven pizza. They've got different restaurants and you can sit there and watch outside. They have the VIP as well. But then if you're not in the VIP, there's so many places to watch the big grump re arena

19:47right there. And I feel like this, I mean, their winter season is packed. I know they just had just last week their world champion hunter rider week of competition. And that will continue again later in March. It's just it's the best time of year to be in Ocala and hits has got plenty to offer. When you guys come down and you bring, you bring the kids, maybe some client horses. Where do you guys stay? Like how do you build out your trip in Ocala? Generally, so when Doug goes, we do have a friend that lives nearby. I either do an Airbnb is generally where we stay. And then the kids can then come back and forth, you know, with school and everything else. But we either stay the grooms, they have hookups at hits Ocala. So they've actually stayed on site, which is quite nice in the RV. So we've done that or we do an Airbnb actually. So we do one of the two. So the grooms either stay on site or we do a house for everybody. Gotcha. Okay.

20:48And so what do you guys like to do like around Ocala outside of the Horseshoe venues? If we have time, generally, we don't always have the key question time. But honestly, we've taken a trip like Doug went and picked me up in Daytona one time. I flew in and we've done things like that. There are other things. There's good restaurants in Ocala. There are good and getter and getter. It's a good, long way. Yeah. A long way. And done that. Well, I'll tell you the other thing that works out well too is that the two venues between Wack and Hitz have, it seems seemingly at least working well together. So you could actually watch a grump rate hits during the day and then go watch one at night at work. Yeah, yeah. There's a ton of options in that way. And so, yeah, I mean, there's, there's a ton of stuff to do. There really is. I mean, you guys know plenty of people in town, I'm sure. But what I love about Hitz, like even for eventers, there's an eventing venue right behind Hitz.

21:49It's called Barn Steeple South. Yes. They host like mostly schooling shows, but good clinics and stuff, some young horse stuff. But when we're not in season, Hitz is so generous and sometimes they allow the competitors at Barn Steeple to like run the dressage on their footed arenas. And it's so nice. It really improves the experience even for like a schooling show. Like it's incredible to say, I'm riding on the Hitz venue, you know, it's so cool. Yeah, and they've been, they've been really generous to you. My mom has been involved with, well, with USDA forever and ever, obviously. But she's, she's one of the sort of instrumental people getting the young horse classes going for USDA. And they actually ran their symposium last weekend at Hitz. Oh, cool. And she said it was awesome. She said they had all of the spectators that came were in the VIP tent and then they set up all the jumping exercises in that made arena. I love that. And Hitz donated that. They donated the whole thing for the, so they're not just supporting the young horses, all this, the development. They're also supporting the venting side of it, which is community in O'Callett, yeah.

22:52The whole community. And it's awesome. And then what they also added. So what Doug doesn't mention is where we stable is we go to the stadium side. So there are so many different barns and everything else for the last couple of years. We've actually gone to the stadium side. It's quieter. We can get our big rig and the trailers can park over there. It's a total hack too because the state, the barns themselves are nice and you can park the trailers right over in that area. So if you can store everything in the trailer, it's no big deal at all. It's be right next to your barn and it's, it's a pretty chill low traffic situation. And a lot of people don't like it because you're not on the main site. But all of ours hack really well. But what they have on that side is the old stadium that they used to have the ground prison stuff before they fixed it. They have changed it into a half show jumping, half hunters as a schooling day. And every day it's a ticketed schooling day. So if your horses, you know, like Doug's were a bit wild and stuff, he decided to take

23:54a couple of the clients over and be like, hey, maybe we should jump. We haven't jumped in a couple of days because the weather and they schooled on Tuesday over and that, you know, ring or they can school in the other rings or some of them didn't get into Wednesday on show day. You can't get into the stable or to the main show rings. They went into the stadium side. That's cool. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's fun. And it's open every day. It's awesome. So I'm curious because obviously I'm from the north. So I've only ever been to hits Hudson and Valley and hits Vermont. I love both of those venues, but I'm curious like, how is hits Okala compared to other hits venues you've tried across around the country? Yeah. So I grew up in Jersey. So we used to go to Socrates all the time. I would say from the barns to the ring would be a fair bit closer. And I mean, it depends exactly what barn you're in or whatever, but long search road. I think it's a bit closer. Socrates haven't been there in a while, but they used to have that vendor row area and

24:58they have a similar set up at hits. But I would say hits Okala would be, I don't know, seemingly more convenient. Basically everything is sort of quite close together. Yeah, I haven't been to Vermont. Call Pepper, we showed there last year and we'll be going back again this year. Call Pepper feels a little bit more low key, but again, the quality of the ring courses all that was great and we'll definitely be back for sure. Yeah, the farads at Call Pepper are awesome. They redid them and the ventilation we were in the center aisles and we were there in August in Virginia. I was like, yeah, the stalls are huge. Not sure we were going to make it and honestly, it wasn't like it was a cool week and they managed really well there. We were very impressed with Call Pepper in August. Wow. I mean, that's high praise. Yeah. Right. So you guys, you've been to hits this year. Doug, you've also been down to Wellington. I think for a lot of our listeners, like going to Florida to compete in the season is

26:01a dream, right? It's expensive. It takes the planning. But from your perspective, as someone who's done both and often does both in the same season, like, what are the biggest differences, like what advice would you give to somebody who's trying to plan for a trip? Why don't you break down what our thought process is? I think the biggest, well, so how we look at it is in, we typically go this year, we went first three weeks of January to Wellington. We did not bring the young horses because it's just, honestly, it's for the young horses. They don't have to do that much through, you know, you'll get them there through the year without a doubt to be on track and showing, yeah, showing January is not a huge issue for them. And like we were talking about with hits, it's just far more affordable to bring them there to develop than it is to Wellington. We would typically bring the more experienced sources to Wellington. And I think I always look at it more as an educational pursuit really.

27:02We're going there. We'd love to compete. Obviously it's great to get ribbons and, you know, grab a little bit of that prize money is awesome. But you couldn't bank on that just to be, honestly, the horse quality is just exceptional. It's probably among the best venues in the world for that. And I think going there, watching the best horses and riders in the world, if you choose to make the effort, just follow people in warm up, you can, I mean, it's a free lesson every single day, you know, and I think that, that aspect is, is wonderful. And we've got a great group of horses coming up, but we don't have any right the second that are supremely competitive at the top tier at the moment, but hopefully in a couple of years, they'll be there, and which case will bring more down to Wellington. And then, then we'd look at Ocala a little bit more as a developmental path. So then we'd bring, you know, the young horses along and for, you know, the bunch of clients that come, some go to Wellington, some come to hit, some come to balls. It's, you know, kind of picking shoes.

28:03That's also based on their schedule. Yeah, for sure. You know, Wellington's great. I, you know, absolutely love it. And in the middle of January, you might as well go as far south as you can, because Ocalen January is still going to be cold. He was complaining about February, right? Yeah, exactly. So if you're going to go south, go south in January, but then, you know, by February, then the, then it all becomes, you know, the sort of equal across the board as far as conditions go as far as weather and all that. But you might as well do all of it. Just pick one year to go one, one year to go another and or pick what you're wanting to do. Are you wanting the experience and you're just wanting to get in? Are you wanting a lesson? I mean, it's just, we kind of vary it per year of what kind of, that's what we say to the clients, even. We're like, we go to different venues, depending on what horses we have at the time and what we kind of need to put them at. Sure. For sure. Yeah. I mean, both of them are very different vibes, right? Yes. It depends on, yeah, it depends on your discipline, obviously.

29:04Like if you're an inventor, Ocala's where you should be, but it doesn't mean that there's not a lot to learn. But that's it. Yeah, the contrary to me, though, is if you're eventing in January, you don't have to be doing, you're not doing crazy, any sort of crazy eventing in January. You don't have to be doing crazy fitness. You could go down there and make the most of the jumping scene there for a couple weeks in, in January and be great. And I will tell you, it is great. Our daughter's born on January 3rd and she's like in the ocean, you know, on her birthday, which is, is pretty wild. And that's something that you wouldn't be able to get in many places in the world. And also like just like Ocala, we talk about the different venues, Wellington has different opportunities that you don't have to be at one particular place. There are places that you can school the young horses and do all that. So, you know, it's just kind of, we look at it like, what do we need that year? Doug loves, you know, we just try to utilize as much as we can for his benefit and my benefit

30:08for learning that we go try to learn as much as we can in January to fly it for the rest of the year. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, that sounds like a great plan. Absolutely. And it gets you out of the snow. Even if it is. Absolutely. But it didn't give me a chance to handle it. Yeah. We can't. In February, I didn't get all this knowing Florida. So it's okay. In your 2026 competition schedule with one unmatched hits experience across six premiere venues, including Hitz Ocala, Hitz Del Mar, Hitz Culpepper, Hitz Chicago, Hitz Hudson Valley, and Hitz Vermont, featuring seven total WCHR weeks, 10 total FEI jumping weeks, and opportunities for horses and riders of all levels from coast to coast, this action packed year will be one to remember. Learn more at www.hitzhorshoes.com

31:08All right, everybody. We're really excited to introduce our guests on this month's episode. It's Chester Weber, which is a name you should know because Chester is the most decorated driver in the United States. He has numerous accolades from over the years of combined driving and he's related to Chloe Reed, who we had on the podcast last month. And along with Chloe, he's co-president of Live Oak International, and they are gearing up for their 35th edition of the Horsho this year, which happens later this spring. Hi, Chester. How are you? All as well. Better for speaking to you. Thanks for having me. Oh, we're so happy you're here. So last month, when we had Chloe on, it was great to get hers for perspective as a show jumper and someone from the family who recently stepped up into a leadership role of the Horsho. You know, I live here in Florida. So Live Oak is an event I look forward to every year from a spectator's standpoint. It's just so unique in terms of what else is out there. And I think this year is really special at being the 35th edition. So can you tell us a little bit more about what this event means to you personally?

32:13Sure. This event is really a combination of, you know, a village of people's work. It started, you know, through as a little club driving show, where they just had the cross-country at Live Oak and now has grown into an FEI international, you know, sport with people from coming from 17 nations. So it's really, we watched it goes through its different stages of growth in a very organic manner. And in terms of what it means to me is it's really a way for for my family and I to be able to give back to the sport that we've really loved over the years and been really good to us in terms of opening the farm and opening our venue and developing our venue or excellence for horsemanship and sportsmanship. Yeah, it's incredible. Again, you know, as someone who comes from more of the like the show jumping in Dressage

33:14World, like watching combined driving is just fascinating to me and we'll get more into that. I'm, you know, our audience is mostly from that side of the sport. So I'm hoping you can explain a little bit for us. Sure. But, you know, Live Oak, like you said, is an incredible venue. It's part of your family's property. This event only happens once a year. Can you tell us a little bit more about your family's ties to combined driving? I think it's very cool to hear how it grew from just a club event to international competition. It's primarily a racing breeding and training operation. We train about 60 horses every morning here in the heart of the training season and I at one stage of my life thought, you know, I want to be a chocky, but unfortunately at now six foot and just over 200 pounds, they weigh about 120 pounds soaking wet. So those dreams left me somewhere around 10 or 11 years old. My dad is also a guy who's sort of a bigger statue like me and he wanted to have a riding

34:17horse. When we were growing up, we had primarily quarter horses to kind of ride on the farm because the young thoroughbreds didn't really lend themselves to being a family riding horses. And somebody had the idea, oh, it would be great. Let's get a Clyde Stale. So about one Clyde Stale and one Clyde Stale was not very good at riding and would want to buck you off. And of course, instead of finding another Clyde Stale, it was a gentle giant and able to riding. Of course, I broke it to drive and then got a cart and a carriage and drove around. And so that's something in my childhood that I grew up doing with my father and then we ended up showing up to six and eight sort of on the fair circuit around primarily the Midwest, but also showed horses at the Florida State Fair. And we had a lot of success, or I was personally wound with quite a bit of success into my sort of mid-teen years driving six and eight.

35:18And then at some stage, my dad had said to me, maybe you should look at the sport of my driving, because a little bit more sort of fast adrenaline-paced thing. And we'd had a lot of success already at sort of my mid-teen years in the draft horses. And so I got involved in combined driving when I went off to boarding school in New Jersey because there happened to be a driving person in the area and they did combine driving and drove a single horse for a few years. And then from sort of 89 to 99 drove a pair of horses and then 99 shifted over to a forehand of horses. Wow. And then the rest is history because you went on to do it at a very high level. Yeah. We keep driving for excellence and you know, have had some success along the way, but that's not just me. That's the work of a bunch of wonderful horses and wonderful people around the program

36:23as well. So the rules of combined driving, it reminds me a little bit of eventing, right? It's got three phases that marathon phase really, you know, resembles cross-country, right? Like out on the terrain. Exactly. Can you tell us a little bit more about how it's formatted and judged? Sure. Absolutely. Not unlike three-day event riding, combined driving is a three-day sport. The first day is dressage. It takes place in an arena that's, you know, roughly the size of a football arena, so 100 by 40 meters. It's judged subjectively by five judges, you know, on a test doing roughly 16, 18 movements and they give a score one to 10 based on the criteria of executing that test. That's the criteria very similar to ridden dressage and the fundamentals of dressage or, you know, are basically the flatwork or the fundamental basic training of the horse.

37:23So you should show that the horse should be able to do that. Then the second phase, more exciting day, is not subjective at all, just objective. And it is a cross-country marathon that is about an hour long of which you spend about 35 minutes in seven or eight different obstacle zones. You're timed while you're in there. So it's not, in that way, it's different than three-day eventing. The winner doesn't have a score of zero because you're assessed penalties for each minute. You're in an obstacle and yeah, that's a long time. Yeah. So you do seven or eight different obstacles and then you have sort of a roads and tracks portion between them with the time allowed. And then the last day, because it's not very practical to jump over jumps with horse's works, but the carriage doesn't work so well. So we have a cone's test with maybe oversimplifying it, but something like traffic, traffic

38:29cones that are set around 20 centimeters. So three inches on either side of the wheel and there's a ball on the top similar to a tennis ball. And you should drive a course, which is 20 numbered tires of cones, similar to kind of a jumping course. And that's done within a time allowed. And then of course, if you knock a ball down or you are over in the time allowed, you're assessed penalties to do that. Got it. And then your scores from the three phases all go into like a final score. Exactly. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. You figured it out. He passed the test. I think the routes, by the way, of the sport, not unlike the three-day eventing come out of sort of the military work of a horse. So they would have to do the dressage phase, which would be more like pageantry, parades, things like that. And then they would have to do the cross-country phase, which much would be more like their battle work. And then they'd have to come back from their battle work and be able to do precise work

39:32in the city, whatever their job is, and come back from running full speed and continuing to be controllable. And of course, being fit and sound and things like that to do that, John. So what makes a good driving horse? Because what's so cool that you see at Live Oak is there's all different kinds of breeds who participate in this. It's not just what you think of, like for me, you think a heavier set breed. There are some lovely movers, very athletic, lighter breeds that do it too. Absolutely. And it's not in that way, not unlike maybe eventing. So you know, you could event with the Conomerah, and you can event with the Thoroughbred, and you could probably event with the little heavier warm blood. Of course, as you get up in the levels, the stamina and speed and things like that are important. The one thing that's really unique or nice about driving on the international level is, you know, you see the Americans primarily driving the American Morgan horse, and you would see the Czech people driving the Claude Ruby horse and the Austrians and the Hungarians

40:38driving the lipids on our horse and the Portuguese driving the Lusitano horse and the end illusion horse. And so you're seeing this just wide variety of courses from different places. There are some breeds that lend itself a little bit easier or better to this board. IE, you know, the European warm blood horse is a little bit more lent to the sport, I would say, across the three different disciplines at the highest, highest levels. But certainly at the single sport, you can find exceptions. The current world champion single horse is a Freiburger, which is a with bread horse, kind of a Swiss warm bloody bread horse that's a little bit more on the cold blood side. That horse probably doesn't have, you know, the most exuberant gates, but is a fantastic cross country horse, very good horse on Sunday and technically fundamentally worked very well by its driver and so it's neat in driving that you'll see everything.

41:41And then of course in driving, it's not only horses, but you also see ponies. So it's not just like the hunter jumper space where you see children competing with ponies. You also see adults competing with ponies, maybe up to up to a foreign hand of ponies. And they vary from size from, you know, very small shetland ponies to to bigger ponies, sort of more on the conomeric size that are nearly a horse. That's so cool. I love that. I love the diversity that you get to see. So Truster, do you plan to compete this year? Can you tell us more about your horses? Sure. So I do. We've been preparing already. We were down at Tarinova two weeks ago and the horses were really good. We got to have them out, just working on our group and our program for the season. And I couldn't be more pleased with them and what's going on with that group of horses. We of course have the world of questioning games in the end of August are our focus

42:46and our site and in our sites. But we also prioritize the American championships every year. This year we'll try to contest our 23rd national championships at Live Oak. And of course, everybody says, oh, that must be a huge advantage being able to drive it home. And this kind of thing, and I always laugh. It's an advantage. You should try it any time. So we have a lot going on that week. Sometimes it's nicer from a competition standpoint to just go somewhere and focus solely on your job as a competitor and not somebody else who's having this issue or their alternators broken on their pickup truck. And do I have to I know the name of a garage or their horse is looking for some specific variety of tifton hay or whatever it is. So it's a lot of fun to organize Live Oak, but at the end of the week Chloe and I have done a lot of a lot of work from son up till well, well passed sundown, being hosts and

43:49cleaning up and making sure that everything's ready for the next day because our family is really, you know, believes in the in horsemanship and sportsmanship at Live Oak have sort of built that culture over 35 years. And this is really a place for horses and for horse people to have a wonderful weekend of, you know, a tournament of sport and not it's not a show. It's not that we're not showing dogs were were were this is a tournament and it's about sport at the at the highest levels. Absolutely. I mean, that was a beautiful way to put it. And so as someone who's gotten to go and watch it over the years, it's it literally is one of the most fun horse shows I go to every year. It's so unique. There's nothing else like it and your family's farm is just gorgeous. It's it's really nice to be out there and and see all the horses doing what they're prepped and love to do. So I appreciate you guys putting it on. Thank you so much. It's so much fun as well.

44:50Comes a mind some friends of mine who are jumping in predators and things like that and they say, well, you know, the horses get off the truck at Live Oak and it's just all green grass. And, you know, there's not concrete everywhere and you know, Live Rock roads and asphalt and all the sort of stuff. They they get off the get off the trailer and they're, you know, looking around and sometimes the jumpers will get there because our our big training field near the barns. They have a segregated area for the jumpers. That field is about 16 acres. And so I had a dear friend who's an international jumping rider and they came and they said, oh, my horses. After the first day they were on a younger, I think eight-year-old mayor that they were going to jump in the two-stargrim pre and they said, oh, she was wild and I, you know, I think it was all that, you know, seeing all the carriages and this kind of stuff. And so the next morning they got up at sort of daybreak and it was foggy and they said,

45:51you know, I'm going to take the horse out on the field when when there's no driving horses and see if, see if she's calmer and then they said, my horse is wilder. And I said, well, I guess it doesn't have anything to do with the carriage. I said, no, I think it's, I think my horse is actually anxious about, I thought my horse was nervous, but my horse is just excited to be on this, you know, big, huge grass field. That seems so primal and natural for a horse. And he said, I just kind of, you know, got up off her back and just said, okay, let's go for a few rounds in the gallop and, you know, do some things that are really natural. And he said it was so much fun to come from, you know, being in these tiny little postage stamperings where everything is controlled to just being in an environment where there's grass that horses can eat everywhere and it's really an environment where horses thrive. I love that. That's so cool. And so if you want to learn more information about live oak

46:52and you want to buy tickets, there's VIP tables for marathon day, which is really the day that is like the star day to be there is to watch the marathon phase. That makes me so happy that you say that, you know, Chloe is always trying to tell me that Sunday, the day of the jumping grumpy is always the day to be at live oak, but I'm always like, what are you crazy? There's, there's usually 10,000 spectators on Saturday to come watch the cross country. And there's nothing else like it. It's so cool to see. And so many horse people come to watch that have nothing to do with jumping or driving. I will see people from, people who are pin hockers from the racing world and all of this stuff they come in there's tailgating and people have tailgates and they're having picnics and cocktails and whatever. And it's just this huge social thing that's somehow very organically grown over the course of 35 years from probably one spectator to a real spectator event. So this event is

47:55about the spectator and the sponsor. And certainly we appreciate the athletes and the quality horses that come. But we made a choice many years ago that we were not going to be a horse show where we made our ring or made any income off of or tried to make income off of the competitor. We were going to try to see the sponsor and the spectator as our customer and try and put on a fantastic show of sport. And we've been able to do that successfully. And most of that has been from Chloe, Chloe's mom, myself, you know, learning what you can, what these different little community horse events have done throughout Europe that have just, you know, gone from a community horse show to now they're huge and sport at the top level. So we've kind of tried to take little pieces of what we've seen around the world and bring the best here to to Cala to, you know, the horse capital of the world. Oh, I love that. That's so cool. So if you ever been on the fence

48:57listeners and you're thinking about making a trip to Ocala, put live oak on your calendar, tickets, VIP tables, tailgating spots, all of that info is available at liveoakinternational.com. And Chester, we just want to say thank you so much for joining us. It's absolutely my pleasure to share my passion for horses and horse sport. It's super exciting. We also have a special treat for all the folks, the US Army case on horses from Arlington that I'm involved in the training of. They're going to come into a color guard presentation every day, every during the days of live oak and it'll be really exciting to see them as well. And, you know, what a what an honor it is to be around those horses and riders that commemorate the the fallen soldiers in our most important national cemetery at Arlington. Wow. That's amazing. No slipping, no sliding, no problem. Eco-gold secure saddle pads are engineered to keep your horses back comfortable while keeping the saddle in place for a safe

50:01competitive ride. They have an impact protection through the seat and the ultra thin flaps ride the rider with better communication and more stable riding position available in both English and Western styles. Shop the entire collection at ecogold.ca. So, Justine, I can't wait because I've done a little bit of this before, but I heard you did like an equine dissection. Did you do the whole body? Did you do the legs? Like I've done it a couple times and I can't wait to hear what you've done. Oh yeah, I want to hear your experience too, but yeah, so this is the first time I've ever had the opportunity to do anything like this. And to back up a little bit, my body worker, her name is Gabby Hale. Her business is called Victory Equine Services and she's based here in the Tampa area. She has a bunch of national certifications, but I know one of them is the NBC, AAM, equine body worker certification. She's really big on continuing her education as she

51:03learns more how she can help horses. And part of that led her to meet this woman named Lori Mueller, who is an registered equine osteopath who's based in Texas and her business is called Trinity Equine Services. And Lori posts these equine dissections all across the country like she travels all over doing this. And Gabby, last year, traveled to Utah to attend one of these dissections and worked essentially with Lori like as a partner in the physical work of doing the dissection where she learned a ton. And they were able to bring that programming to Tampa like our home where Gabby and I live. Thanks to Dr. Kalen Van Horn, who is a DVM, my vet, her business is called Suncoast Equine Veterinary Services. They did it out of her farm. And for over three full days, they sold out the entire programming and had about maybe 25 people. I would guess off the top of my head and people who came from states all over the country for this to learn from Lori Gabby

52:09and Dr. Van Horn. And I kind of knew what to expect having talked about it with Gabby at several points like when she's worked on Mikey, she's big on Maya Fashion release and working on the soft tissue with Mikey and does an amazing job. And I remember her when she was telling me about what she learned when she did that dissection in Utah that the dissection was really based on like looking at how the body works obviously. But when we think about how we use horses as animals for performance and like thinking about true collection and how their bodies like how they have to perform in order to achieve collection and what some of our practices as humans in the sport, like the effects that they have on the body long term that even, you know, stoic horses or what horses put up with from us, right? That we don't even realize because the horses are sound and don't have behavioral problems, but the body doesn't lie when there are problems. So through

53:09that lens, I was just really fascinated about what could I learn. So I got there on the first day and they had a horse that had been donated. They spent many months trying to find an appropriate horse and all the attendees got a fact sheet about the horse. It came from Georgia so it had like a couple hour haul to Tampa to come for the event, but he was a five year old quarter horse gilding who had all kinds of problems. And his poor owner had spent basically his entire lifetime trying to help him, but he had like a fractured novicular bone and eventually lemonitis is what made her consider this humane euthanasia and thought that his body would be worth studying, which I think like I was just so taken aback by this owner who was there the entire time and watched and learned from the experience that one that they were brave and strong enough to go through with that, but that they even got to that place to make that decision to donate their horse

54:09to something. But it probably gave them a bit of peace to know it was that bad when looking at you can look at MRIs, you can look at X-rays, but when you actually look at stuff like that and you're like, wow, it was worse than even with the MRI and stuff shows and because these horses are so stoic, I've done a couple where you're just like, wow, it's they live with more than we realize, right? Yeah, I mean, it's why you break it down and you're like, it's half gone that place like it's amazing what they can, you know, stoically go through and what you see when you dissect a couple of them when you know the history, that's the best part. Totally. And she, I mean, she was incredible. Like I do think it gave her the closure she needed, right? Yeah. And so it was me, it was some perfect, like body workers from Ocala, it was people from Georgia, people from other states, but a lot of professional folks who work in the equine space trainers, body workers, vets, it was really cool. Yeah. And so, you know, the horse traveled to Tampa and then

55:15was humanely euthanized. And the first day, the dissection focused on organ removal, like looking at the organs. And we actually had an equine nutritionist who was there too. And so we spent a lot of time looking at the stomach and the intestine, which, I mean, it is incredible how much space the, like, like, just the size of the intestines of a horse. So long. So long. Like no wonder the colic risk is so high. Like, it's amazing how they pack it all in there. Yeah. And it's one little turn gets, yeah. Exactly. It's like really incredible. So this horse never really had a history of ulcers, but it was, we found high and good ulcers in them, not a ton, but enough that you were like, oh, wow, yeah, like that is a lesion on the inside, you know. And like, it just is amazing because let's just, we know that that's a part of the body that's so hard for us to see. So it was really like, for me, that was like the first eye opening moment of like,

56:18holy cow, like, we're learning so much. That wasn't even a concern, but it's still there. But right, it was still there. And we cut his stomach open and he didn't, we didn't really see the, you know, the glenular ulcers that you would in the stomach, which made sense. Yeah, that's nice, though. And yeah, we learned about like, like, what does a healthy kidney look like? What does a healthy liver look like? Where the diaphragm sort of creates a barrier to the lungs and the heart from like the more gastrointestinal side of the body. It was really fascinating. And even just seeing how like the food from the stomach, like how grass and hey, come through the stomach and like, how it is digested and then becomes like at what point in the intestine does it become like ball formed that we see when they pass manure? It was like, it's not something I ever thought about until I was seeing it with my own eyes, right? Yeah. And then the next day we focused on lungs and the face, but also the fascia. You know, this was something that was a big talking point

57:20for people in this discussion because most of them were body workers and vets and trying to understand like, what are the limits of what we can do to help them with soreness in the body, right? Because fascia I don't want to call it trending. Like, obviously, we know that fascia release is helpful and then horses see relief from that, but it is kind of crazy to see it up close and see how it's yeah, it's really a tougher. It's not as black and white. Exactly. And the material of it is like not it like when you look at pictures of it, you think it's like this really flimsy webbing, but it's it's dense, it's thick, it really provides this like protective coating over the muscles and it connects the body, different parts of the body altogether like it's it was really incredible to see and when it tightens up, it is like hard to break through. Exactly. Yeah. Right. Like, it's an important part of connecting the whole body. Yeah. So that was another one that I thought was really interesting. People had questions about like, some of the muscle groups like near the hip where

58:22the muscle can be so thick, right? And how and you don't know how thick it is to you like getting in exactly. It's so sick. Even when you get down the legs, that's a whole mother, yes, we'll talk about it in a second. And so how like, how do you know that like physical thought touch massage work? Like, are we really making a difference in the muscle is that thick with our human hands? A lot of it is like the shockwave and stuff really gets in deep because they need it because it's that thick. Exactly. So that's when we're talking about like, what are the limits of relief? What a human can do. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's why other therapies need to come in. Yes. Yeah. That's why Batman actually really likes the electro acupuncture. Yeah. And it does all of the entry and so many animals and earth horses and animals and our humans, everybody reacts differently. What my back will tolerate to want to be released the next person couldn't or vice versa. And so that's why it's so important to know it is so

59:27thick. And it is so different base case by case. And oh, I mean, we love, I'm not that I love dissecting, but I love learning from the dissection. And every time we dissect, I swear I learned something more. Oh, for sure. I mean, for me, like, I was, I was worried to look at the legs, just like, it's going to give me trauma with Mikey thinking about what he went through, but it almost gives you a leaf. Right. Well, that's, that's what I'm going to say. It's like looking at the and like, it's, it's kind of amazing how those structures can take so much impact. Like, we look at them and we think their legs are fragile, right? But like, how all of those pieces work together under the skin is, is really incredible how it works. And we love it. Like, we've done it. And so, and we've talked about it, like, with the grooms and stuff like that, we're like, look, like, there's so many different things like, this is why this particular part of the leg. If you see a

1:00:28little bump, yes, we should be concerned. But if you see a big, you know, bump high up with all the muscle, like, it's nothing, you know what I mean, it's not nothing, but it's something not to be particular. So it breaks down where the sensitive parts are. And where we should be concerned and where is very, very sensitive and where's not to be honest. Right. And so, that's what we've really liked. We've done it with a couple grooms and are, you know, everything else. And I've been very fortunate and I've done a couple of dissections through college and everything else. But, you know, if you go down into the foot, like, you understand how thick the foot is, but then how particular parts all work together and you're like, of course, if one part goes wrong, it's afraid because it's attached to the next part. And so it's hard. And yeah, I mean, it's fascinating. There was a lot of interesting discussion. So Lori talks a lot about biomechanics,

1:01:29too, right? Like, when you think of the how we use the horses for performance and something that's stuck with me, she said how she hates how trainers use the word lift. We want them to lift their back. She's like, it's not, when you look at how their back flexes with the muscle tone in top line, we don't actually want just the top line to lift. We want the core to elevate everything. And it should just be those muscles on top. There's stomach needs to come up. Exactly. So she said using the term lift is confusing because what we think of is we just think we want the muscles along the top to work, but it really needs to come from the core and everything. And she said the appropriate term is elevate lift, go entire body up off that back. I never, I mean, I thought about that you need the stomach to lift, but I never thought that the

1:02:29term lift is actually your correct. It's not, it's not correct. Right. If you think about it, like seeing the muscles over the spine, like it made a lot of sense in that scenario, it was like, she's right. I see what she's saying. No, that's really interesting. And should we even talked about like, when we talk horses that need to use the hind end, she's like, you know, I'm in a barn working on horses all the time and I'll hear the trainer from the arena shouting, just kick him forward. He needs to be more active behind, which is true, right? But she's like, everyone thinks that means you've got to pull him in and they've, and you know, and they've got to be balled up when all it is, the only thing that needs to change is that shift of balance needs to go slightly back onto the butt. And that is, yeah, it has nothing to do with the head and the neck and right, it's just everything they need to sit on their butt and then everything gets lighter, right? And then you can do that, quote unquote, elevating. So it was just interesting to hear these terms that we hear every day, right? In our lessons at the barn, but looking at it,

1:03:32from a scientific point of view, and how it influences what muscle groups the horses are using and why? So, you know, Lori does these dissections all over the country, like I said, they generally are three days. And it was cool to have three equine professionals, a traditional vet, Lori, the osteopath, and then Gabby, a body worker who's mostly in Maya Fashion release, like their own experiences in what they see when they look at the body, like, because they all had their own eye for things. And I just learned a ton. And Lori told me she would love, you know, like she gets a lot of body workers who like to come to these events and she would love to cast a wider net because like, what would happen if a horse show judge came, you know, with that change your perception on how we reward horses in the ring for this or that, right? Like, if you could see how the muscle groups really work or how they really deteriorate, how could that change our education and what we reward in the show ring. And I thought that was like a really big,

1:04:36big picture question to be asking. Following record breaking crowds in 2025, the nation's only tournament to showcase both international combined driving and show jumping competition on the same stage takes place at live oak stud from March 12th to March 15th, 2026. You won't want to miss the thrills of combined driving marathon and a show jumping Grand Prix. Tickets tailgating VIP tables and more information are available at live oak international dot com. All right. Time for Rosenthorne. Who wants to go first? I can go. Okay. What's up, belly? So my rose is a fun one. My sister, my little sister who lives in Florida is actually up staying with me for a month to hang out with her horses and to help me with the farm wall mats, you know, in the depth of tax season. All right. That's fun.

1:05:38Yeah. So it's exciting to have her here and to have an extra set of hands. Like, even this morning, I was like, I don't even care if you don't help with stalls, just brush my horses. Right. She did stalls and she worked on her arms. She got pretty tired and fucked the end. So that was fun. My thorn is that, yeah, I'm probably just the mud that's going to be coming. I'm not looking forward to it. Luckily, I bring my horses in when it's already dark outside. So I don't have to see how dirty they actually are. But yeah, I'm not, I'm not ready. I'm not emotionally prepared for the mud. I understand that. Yeah. Hopefully, maybe you'll be a little bit more snow and old to lay you, which is not something. And I won't is a, you know, rose, but as a rose for you, I feel like you'd want this now. Yeah. Exactly. Bring bring back a little bit.

1:06:39All right. Well, I'm not sure I'll go next because I'm not sure you guys are going to understand my thorn because I do feel like it is something not on the like ordinary, but I guess some of the schools do this like 100 day of school celebration. And it's like super cool. And the kids loved it. And I had plenty of advanced notice. I'm not saying that. But Hudson's class needed to do a hat. And I did not do my research. Like I 100% understand. I did not do my research that I should have like Googled it. But I was trying to be like resourceful. It was a couple weeks ago. It was right during like the snow was hitting care. So we were like stuck inside. And I was like, we'll just find things around the house. This will be so fun. So Hudson found some buttons. I was like, great. Well, so a hundred because we read the instructions like four times because even Doug's like, there's no way you're supposed to do this. You're supposed to like,

1:07:43they were going to count a hundred of the items. And so I should have done stickers or something that he could have put on like a cardboard hat. Instead, I was like, oh, I'm going to find like just a hat that's thin. He wanted to do buttons. Well, I didn't realize, you know, an eight-year-old can't sew on a hundred buttons. Oh, no. So I sewed on a hundred buttons. I mean, he could sew on some and like he did help. But like at some point, honestly, it was like faster and he was getting like tired. And he's like, I don't really understand like sewing on a hundred buttons to a hat is actually like pretty tedious. So my thorn of this month was pretty parent that has a hundred days like that you need to do something. Just Google it first. Just Google all the different

1:08:44options you have. Don't go to your first choice because the hundred I will send you as a picture. I ended up having all has like our friendship bracelets. I did, I was running out of buttons. So I did our friendship bracelets and I did happy one hundred days of school and spelled out the whole thing to use up all of the buttons. So no to self do some research before you sign out for your kids like, you know, project that I did basically. So you're only an expert now. You can sew any button back onto a coat. I was always okay at sewing. That wasn't what I needed to test out my that was the problem. I didn't need to know how to sew. I needed to not know how to sew a hundred buttons. You'll have to share a picture in the Facebook group. Oh, I will. I actually was very thankful for the Yanmar hat because it was super thin and it wasn't hard to sew into. So I used

1:09:47one of our Yanmar hats. Not gonna lie. But yes, I will share it in the Facebook group and everybody can hopefully other parents can like, you know, understand the problems that went with it basically. But he loved it and it was a good time. So, you know, but it was still a lot. And then my rose is mine or not worse related this time. Like at all, last minute, Doug got a phone call from our friend and asked if we wanted to go the Daytona 500. And we're not really like NASCAR fans or like racing fans, but I feel when you like get asked to go to something cool like that, like, you can't turn it down if you're like around. Oh, yeah. It's it's still a fun thing to watch even if you're, you know, live events are live events. I think they're super cool. And so long story short, we'd never been to a NASCAR race. And so we went down and dropped our kids off in aching. That's

1:10:54why we were in aching the front and the back half this past weekend. But we went down and we got to go for the night with friends to the Daytona 500. That is pretty cool. I saw Doug's reels from it. Like you guys had great seats. You were like right in the thick of it. Yeah. And like it was, you know, just friends that were like, we have extra seats. Everybody else canceled. Can you come? And we're like, absolutely. And so we were able to, we called and like we called and they're like, do you have reserves, you know, tie downs for the plane and for $30. Like that was us to park the plane overnight. And I was like, done. So we parked the plane right next to we were able to fly in next to the NASCAR track. We flew in Sunday morning and then walked to the hotel. And our friends met us there. And then we went over and they had infield parking passes. Then we went over to their seats and stuff. And it was up high and it was so cool because the seats, the higher you

1:12:01went, you could see the whole track. So it was not as loud as well, which was nice, but it was, it was so fun. That's awesome. That sounds like super fun. Yeah. So we were thrilled. And then we just left the next day. And yeah, it was super, super fun. Awesome. Just seeing what do you have? Oh, man. Sadly, I've got lots of thorns, guys. Oh, yeah. So my first thorn is this dang cough. And it's a long health story. But I think I told you on the last pod that I went with my family to ski and breakfast last month. And we had a good time. Well, when I got home, like shortly after I wasn't feeling great, you know, you travel. I thought maybe I picked something up, but this time of year and Florida for whatever reason is like my high season for allergies. Like I'm a seasonal allergy sinus problem person. So I did like a telehealth appointment. And they're like, it's probably a sinus infection. I was like negative flu, negative COVID tests,

1:13:01that kind of thing. So I did antibiotics for sinus infection. And after like 10 days, I was not getting better whatsoever. Oh, no. Like I was like riding horses and like living my life just being like, I'll be fine one day. But then occasionally it would be like, why is it hard to breathe? And turns out I have pneumonia. First time, first time pneumonia flyer. No, I guess you would consider it walking pneumonia since I'm not like, you know, bed ridden. Yeah, it's still. Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty crazy. But now that I have the appropriate drugs, I feel a lot better. So I am on my way to being better. But you know, that kind of puts a damper on things sadly, because I was sick through my birthday. But what what are you going to do? I guess I turn 38. It's not an exciting birthday anyway. But other than that, I would say my rose is that I've been having fun doing lots of horse things lately. I took Mikey down to Ternova. They had a schooling dress show. And that is

1:14:02just like, if you guys have never been to Ternova, it's really worth the trip. It's just a beautiful place to ride. The footing is incredible. There's just so much to see and explore on your horse while you're there. And it's kind of far away from things. But the drive in is one of my favorites because you get to drive through like true old Florida. And it's beautiful. You drive through the Myaka River State Park. And it's just a beautiful. It's beautiful to take in the natural scenes of Florida, which are sadly disappearing because we're obsessed with letting people develop everything here. But Ternova is special for where it is. So I took Mikey to Ternova. I took him to another schooling show like north of us just to hack around. Like I feel like we're getting pretty close, not gone wood to maybe doing a second level test soon. So that's exciting. And I've been having fun with my lease horse, Kato. We talked about my beginner novice, my super slow beginner novice debut. I took him to like a schooling jumper show recently. And we're like school in three foot.

1:15:06So and then I've taken him cross country schooling and we're I'm hoping to take him out around novice shortly. So horse things are going good. So knock on wood. I hope it stays that way. So he's so fun. It's nice to have like, again, knock on wood across all the fingers, you know, hang whatever is a spiritual thing. Don't come for me horse gods that everybody sound and it's nice to just like feel like I'm having fun and not stressed about the horses right now. So I'm going to ride this out for as long as it lasts. There you go. Yeah. Absolutely. All right, but we do have a question from Emmy. She posted this in our Facebook group recently. And I thought it'd be a fun one for us to tackle in her mailbag. Emmy wants to know, does anyone else struggle with hoarding tack and other horse gear? I hope you both are raising your hands. Everybody does. I know. I feel like this is 100% a universal horse girl problem. But Emmy says

1:16:09she rides, but doesn't own any horses right now and probably won't for a little while. But she has years and years worth of horse gear that she's collected. And she's like, she she just get rid of it. Like just do a full Marie condo and just like donate and get the stuff out of her house. But like all of us, there's that little voice in the back of her head that's like, this is going to be useful one day if she keeps it. So what do you think? Like yay nay on should she get rid of it or should she hold on to it? I'm all for like if it's stuff that you don't have sentimental attachment to sell it while the price is good. If the price isn't good, wait because what if you need it one day? I mean, like for example, like with Batman surgery, I sold one of my saddles that I've been sitting on. I was like, I don't use this saddle. I probably don't need this saddle. Probably should sell this saddle. I was like, I just leave it in the tack room. And I sold it so I could get some money for Batman surgery. So you know, I think I don't know better to have it

1:17:14not need. But if you can, if it's something can easily replace, money's good. I feel like that's good advice. And I think it depends on what it is. I think it depends on what it is. Like if you like settles aren't going to, you know, after 15 years, you can't sell them for the same price if they were five years old. You know, like I learned that they can be brand new. And after 10 years, like they don't hold any kind of value. A lot of places won't take them, which I found that out. Yeah, unless it's a western saddle. Fun fact. Yes. And then maybe, yes, western. But English, like I had, you know, some not, honestly, of our saddles. But thankfully, you know, we had a client they were like, oh, we went to sell it. And I was like, I didn't even know that it was a thing after so many years. So after 10 years, a lot of these tacked like consignment places wouldn't take it. And I was like, oh, or they'd take it for like minimum value, even though it was a brand new

1:18:17never used, basically, like you use 10 times. And I was like, oh, it's changed. You know, I mean, like I have a lot of old horse boots that are still like the, yeah, fleecy types that you like, they're just not trendy anymore. I would think those you kind of get rid of. But I would say blankets, halters, lead ropes, bridles, bits, all of that. And I don't know if I shared this when we were doing the clean up when I cleaned up the ox barn like our auxiliary barn and stuff. I found these big heavy duty totes that I, you can fit three blankets in. So I washed all of our blankets. I sent them. I went crazy last year. They hadn't been professionally washed in like 10, 15 years, to be honest. And I sent everything off. And then the wines that weren't, and you can label them. So every horse got a heavy medium and light with necks that were our horses and they,

1:19:19in incline horses, they did it. And then I put their label on it. And then the extra is I put in extra bags. So they stayed clean because they used to put them just in a bailing twine and put them up that they got disgusting. And they were kind of gross. So to be honest, finding things to store them like I would have put extra saddle pads in there, extra blankets, extra, anything like coolers, whatever else, put them in those bags. They'll last another 10 years. Yeah, I agree. I was going to say the same thing just like it depends on what it is. And if it's blankets, keep them, saddle pads, keep them, be bits, keep them, bridles, keep them just as long as you can store them in a place where they're not going to fall apart or get moldy. Because that's the hard thing for me in Florida, right? Like you can't get rid of the humidity and where you store stuff. It just gets gross. But I don't know. I've never thrown out anything. I still

1:20:20have pony, baker sized. Yeah, I'm not a baker blanket. It's like, I'm never going to own another pony. But I'm like, one day I might use it on something. So I won't get rid of it. I won't get rid of it. And I'll have to text you guys the link for that I found those. They're just heavy duty tote bags. And honestly, they can fit a light, heavy and medium with necks on a one bag. Interesting. So in off season, I kept them in there. So we washed everybody. So now we just have to like keep up with the washing and not let them get disgusting. If they're super disgusting, I'll like send them back off. But now I could just like, I do Amazon has like the water proofing detergent you can use. And I put a little bit of that in and I can wash my lights and mediums. No problem. Interesting. Yeah, the other thing is riding clothes. Like when I in college and like when I didn't have horses, I obviously kept on my breaches. But I feel like I would tell you to get rid of

1:21:25them now because the breaches change so quickly. I wouldn't they deteriorate in the shirts. Yeah, like 10 year old shirts. You're never going to wear those again. Like I and that's a great place for like the try to question or a local consignment places like get rid of them now while people while they're still trendy and in decent shape and people can wear them. But if it's close, you want to get rid of get rid of it now. And if you have a question for us and you want us to answer it on the air on one of our episodes, you can always send us an email at justineatheelsdownmedia.com or join our Facebook group, which is exclusive for listeners. That's where Emmy posted this question. It's called the Heels Down Happy Hour Podcast Lounge. And if you want to hear more from us, you can check us out by visiting our website heelsdownmag.com for the latest news. And make sure you're following us on social media. We're at Heels Down Happy Hour on Instagram and at Heels Down Mag on Facebook and TikTok. And if you love our show, please give us a written review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And we want to

1:22:29say thank you to our sponsors this month, Live Oak International, Eco Gold, and it hits. All right, guys, that's a wrap. Cheers!