Westfalen Inspection

I meant to post this a while ago, but I still haven't received pictures so I thought I'd just post it anyways:

Miss Maisie is officially registered! The inspection went well, even though I was nervous the night before about getting baby braided and clean and trailered to the inspection.

I moved Jetta and Maisie up to where I live for the week. They currently live an hour and a half south of me at my parents' house but the house I live at has a barn and pasture and it was closer to the inspection. There was enough room with kicking one of the horses outside so that my girls could come hang out for the week. It was awesome getting to have them in my backyard!

Of course, I cleaned up both Jetta and Maisie the night before, planning to braid in the morning. I curried Maisie almost every day trying to get her to completely shed out, but it didn't work so she was nice and moth-eaten looking for the inspection. I get out to the barn at 6am and Jetta is FILTHY. She apparently peed in the middle of her stall and laid in it. So first things first, she gets a bath. Then I discover that SOMEONE who's name starts with an M and ends with an -AISIE chewed off Jetta's tail!! I almost cried. It has taken me many, many years to get that tail to grow to an acceptable length and fullness and it's all gone now :'(

The offending little nugget with her handiwork

Finally get mom cleaned up and gave Maisie a quick curry and start braiding. Only to realize that the black rubber bands that live in my trailer are actually at the barn where Trask lives. And I don't have time to drive the 20 minutes to get there and back. So I rummaged around in KP's stuff, but she only uses thread, not rubber bands. I finally found some neon-colored rubber bands that she used for her niece's pony so Maisie looked like a pumpkin all braided up in orange and lime green. I was so embarrassed showing up to the inspection like that, but at least she was braided? Maisie was very good for being braided, which I was quite surprised by.

Embarrassing pumpkin braids

Loading was not an issue which is so nice! While Maisie can be a little hellion when she wants to be, she handles some scary things with ease.

I am glad I got Jetta approved last year because I knew where the facility was, I had met a lot of the people beforehand and I knew the flow. Paperwork started at 9am and then 10 foals and 2 mares got inspected, then all the babies got branded, microchipped, and hair pulled for DNA.  RPSI merged with Westfalen last year, so it's now Westfalen NA with the same judge and secretary as RPSI had last year.

Poor Maisie was not a happy camper by the end. She thought it was quite a rude process but she made it through with minimal angst.

Mid-day nap

The actual inspection part went well. A very nice girl handled Jetta for me so I could handle the baby. Maisie wanted nothing to do with standing apart from her mom to get her conformation looked at and she insisted on burying her head in Jetta's side so that the lady doing paperwork had a hard time drawing her blaze.

She did a good job showing off her walk and trot, I thought her canter was a little too bunny-hopping, but the judge said she had a nice length of stride, her neck was a nice length (that was something he dinged on a lot of foals, that their necks were too short). He liked her walk and trot, though he said she could be more under herself in the trot. Her canter was "forward and uphill". He made me laugh when he said that her head was improved upon by the sire. That's pretty much the only thing he dislikes about Jetta - he said last year that her head was "unfeminine" which, I mean, it is pretty giant. Overall, she scored a 7.5 so she didn't make premium. The babies who did were SO FANCY. I wanted to stuff them all in my trailer and take them home.

Random photo from last year

The branding was kind of entertaining to watch - some babies didn't even notice and others freaked out. Maisie was in-between. She was still while the brand was on her and then a couple seconds after it was pulled off she leaped into the air. Luckily the judge is SUPER fast for everything and she didn't even have time to pull away for both the microchip or brand. I thought it was nice, at the end he asked me if I had rebred Jetta because he "really liked her, she's a nice mare" and we discussed a handful of stallions he think might suit her (not that I'm planning on breeding her again, once was plenty for me!)

Freshly branded

Maisie didn't get the full brand (with the crown over the W) because Mirabeau is in Stallion Book II. It's kind of a bummer, but oh well, it doesn't matter to me in the long run since I plan on keeping her, and she's still registered!

My little pumpkin

Itchy baby

Hopefully I'll get some pictures eventually and I'll share them when I do!

RPSI Inspection

I've been planning on getting Jetta approved by the RPSI ever since I got her. Don't ask me why it's taken 8 years to finally get her there, but there was always one reason or another that I couldn't take her. She went through a terribly ugly 3-year-old year, I sprained both my MCL's, she was too skinny, I was too busy, I had no money, etc., etc.

This year there were no excuses, especially since she's gonna have a baby! The inspection was also super close to where I live, about 40 minutes away. I'd never heard of the barn before, but the host was incredibly nice responding to all of my questions. I researched it to death - how to present your horse, how to do the triangle, what my horse should wear, etc.

Luckily Jetta's mane is roached so I didn't have to worry about braiding. I trimmed her mohawk up a bit to make it look a little bit neater and not so floppy. I trimmed her tail, washed her legs and braided her forelock.

First off, all horses (except foals) are shown in a bridle. I didn't have a Newmarket lead (the Y-shaped lead chain with two clips) but luckily I own a leather lead so I found a cheap Y-connecter through Stateline tack (the actual leads are so expensive!) and used that. The reasoning being that you could keep your reins on the bridle, but you have to unhook them to let your horse go free, so it's a huge hassle if you don't have clips.

Jetta is very good in hand for the most part, so I didn't worry too much about working on that. She spent the night in her stall instead of out in her paddock due to the rain, which wasn't bad because she's supposed to be a little hot so she could show off her moves.

At the inspection, I finished filling out any paperwork that I hadn't submitted online beforehand. The North American RPSI manager was there and the judge from Germany. There were both incredibly nice. Seriously, everyone I met was so nice. I was kind of nervous my Thoroughbred was going to be looked down upon by the Warmblood people, but that was definitely not the case. Jetta was complemented on her manners because she stood tied to the trailer the entire time, I was congratulated when she passed her inspection, people discussed different stallions that would cross well with her in the future, etc. It was a very welcoming environment.

The first thing they did was explain a bit of what they're looking for. Horses are scored on a scale of 10 for 7 different areas. An average score of 7 is required for a horse to be considered "premium status" (basically they need a minimum score of 49). They explained the difference between books I and II, the German Riding Pony side, and the fact that now horses registered with RPSI is considered a Deutsch Sport Pferd (aka German Sport Horse or DSP). This is new because previously, every region of Germany had a different name for their warmbloods (for example, Zweibrucker), but now it's just DSP (there are still a few regions that don't conform to this, but over half of Germany agreed to the DSP change).

Getting her height measured

When it came my turn to go (single mares went first, then mares with foals), I stood Jetta up in front of the judge while he looked over her conformation. She was pretty impatient and while she stood nicely for the most part, she had to do her signature impatient head bob. The triangle portion went well, and then it was time to let her off the lead. I thought she was pretty good for the free portion, she did just kind of want to zoom around in the canter, but she did show off some nice trot, though I wish she had slowed down and gave a little springier trot instead of her Standardbred impression.

Love this one, she actually looks warmblood-like!

But she listened well and was easy to catch afterwards, which couldn't be said for some horses, so I was happy with her. And we passed!

Presenting my German Sport Horse... Mule

The judge's comments were that Jetta has good conformation, with nice size and good amount of bone. She had a good shoulder and fairly good neck. Her head was unfeminine (lol, she got a 6 on sex/breed type). He really liked her walk (7.5) and said she had good engagement in the trot (6.5) and canter (6), but could be more uphill. Quality of conformation, correctness and overall impression all got 6.5. She scored a total of 45.5, so not terrible, we were only 3.5 points from being premium! Her average score was a 6.5, so she was pretty close.

Overall it was a great experience and hopefully I'll be back next year with a little baby in tow!