We have arrived! Trainer (new trainer? soon to be new trainer? almost trainer? barn owner? whatever, let’s call him D.) came to pick Henry up and take him the 15 minutes back towards town to his place. My 35 minute toll-road-included commute has now turned into an 18-20 minute toll-free commute. Score. Henry was a little confused about the head-to-head trailer (I’m supposed to back in to the stall? Pony don’t back.) but rode well. He strode off the trailer and announced his arrival with a lovely piercing whinny directly in my ear. I didn’t need to hear out of that thing anymore anyway.

We got him settled in his stall then I walked back to my car to grab his fan, my checkbook and his beloved salt block. After we got his stall all set up I hosed him off then handwalked him around (while he continued to periodically announce his arrival into my ear, but it’s ok I couldn’t hear it anymore) and let him graze a bit while I took PICTURES.

It’s a little hard to explain the layout of this place because it’s more like a complex. There are 4 barns, 2 arenas, an office/lounge, a pavilion, round pen, fancy walker machine thingy, lots of turnout paddocks, and several open fields for riding.

Starting at the “top”… there are two barns that look like this at the top of the hill, nearest the entrance. The round pen and some paddocks are to the right of this barn.

If you turn around and look directly across from that barn, there’s the top ring. Beyond the top ring on the left side is the happy hour pavilion (yes, I said that). To the right in the back you can see the grandstand for the main ring and in the forefront, farther to the right is the lounge/office.

Standing in the same spot but looking more to the right. You can see the grandstand for the big ring in the background, the office/lounge is the house in the middle foreground, and the big barn is on the far right. That’s Henry’s barn.

Here’s half of the inside of Henry’s barn. The aisle basically goes in a horseshoe shape around the middle, which is the tack room. The crossties are on either side of the aisle. Henry’s stall is around the corner on the other side.

Henry’s stall… guessing it’s 14 x 14 or something around there.

Total goofball loves his new fan.

The stalls are deeply bedded with rice hulls. Very interesting. Seems MUCH less dusty than shavings and all the stalls seem very dry/clean all the time, so I’m interested to see if it helps his breathing at all.

The view from his stall window. To the right is one of the grassy areas for hacking, to the left is the big ring.

Here’s the view from the aisle Henry’s stall is on. That’s the big ring, stands, and all the extra jumps.

If you head down to the happy hour pavilion…

There are more fields for hacking, like this one…

and if you look across from the pavilion, there’s the big ring with the big barn behind it and the lounge/office on the right. You can also see just the very edge of the fence for the smaller top ring.

The one barn I managed to not take a picture of (oops) is the broodmare barn. It’s basically a shedrow with a big area on the end that contains all the washracks. Here’s a few of them.

If you look outside of the door to the washrack area, there’s the crazy awesome computerized walker machine thingy that I will probably never be brave enough to try.

That’s the basic tour. However, my very favorite part is contained in the tack room of Henry’s barn. Are you ready for this? Meet – my tack locker. Or my tack closet, whichever is more appropriate. It’s. So. Giant. The groom is going to scrub it out for me this morning, then I get to go crazy. I can’t even handle it, the possibilities are endless. I see a trip to The Container Store in my future.

 

Also: BABIES. These two are both by Mezcalero, the same stallion my mare Sadie is being bred to this year.