Mare Faces need no words to still make their point

The first triple-digit temperatures are looming this upcoming weekend, the mosquitoes are using me as an all-you-can-eat buffet line, and the flies are out. Which means it’s time to bust out the new annual fly sheet, aka “embarrass the pony” time.

Her face really says it all. Never mind that she doesn’t hate it enough to try to actively remove it, and that last year, the wide bellyband kept her midline from getting its usual seasonal bug attack and subsequent itch-mania, and also kept her from having to get bathed in a gallon of fly spray every day. But she remains totally unimpressed with my silly antics.

It’s not quite as flappy and ridiculous as last year’s edition.

I liked the one I got last year (even though it only survived the one season, and quite frankly, “survived” is a loose term…that thing was toast and went straight to the garbage bin after cooler weather hit, since I’m pretty sure there were more holes than actual fabric involved by the end) but admittedly it wasn’t the most durable thing, and the sizing was also awkward, hanging down past her knees.

Sizing Mimi for blankets has always been tricky. When she was younger, 70″ blanket, no problem. And then we found distance riding and she widened out to approximately that of a 55-gallon drum, and all of a sudden, her butt end was sticking out of the back of her blankets. But 72″ is a bit too big. As above, there’s some extra there (72″), but historically, every time I’ve tried to go back down to a 69″/70″ (Euro or stock cut, depending on the blanket), it’s been too small. <sigh> This pony. Never easy, even at almost-27.

unicorn print for the unicorn pony

Anyway, I had won a Riding Warehouse gift card at the AERC Convention, so this ended up being a good use for that. It’s one of the Saxon models, and it was half the price of the one I got last year, so if when she trashes it, it will be slightly less tragic. For all the different choices in fly sheets they offer, I had a couple of specific things I was looking for that narrowed down the selection: it has to have a wide bellyband (for the aforementioned midline itch), and ideally would like a neck cover, because it helps keep her from rubbing out her mane when she sticks her head through the stall panels to grab every last scrap of hay.

So we’ll see how long this one lasts…and how disgusted she remains with me for imposing yet another sartorial indignity upon her.