Olaf, the Fabulous Fat Fjord

07/05/2026

Sorry, it's been a while since I could post. I've been trying to take it easy in the heat of the summer. But mom has been forcing me to exercise. This week she's been celebrating my "non-scale victory." 

I don't know what all the excitement is for. My saddle fitter and bff, Meghan (Meghan), said it might be time to go to a narrower gullet. Too me, that's a sign of way too much exercise. 

But instead of letting me hang out in the pasture until I gained the weight back, mom swapped out the gullet plate on my Cavaletti saddle (Cavaletti Collection | Saddles). Ok, Meghan was right, the XW gullet fits way better than the XXW. My Cavaletti saddle is by far the most comfortable saddle I have ever owned. I really like that it fits me when I'm the fabulous fat fjord, and when I'm in slimmed down to sport fjord mode. I also had to get a new girth. This one is FOUR inches shorter than my old one. I am clearly wasting away. 

Send cookies. Not the diet kind!!

06/07/2026

The Fjords are multiplying!!! Meet Feliks, my new nephew!

Four years ago, mom decided that she loved me soooo much that she needed more Fjords in her life! She found Fawna in the middle of nowhere Canada and took a 4 day trip to go pick her up. I didn't like her much at first, but we have bonded over Fjord antics with time.

She was away with her Montana stud-friend for about a year and a half and came back last fall. She didn't tell me she snuck another Fjord back with her! I thought she was just a properly fat Fjord!

Long story short, FJORD ARMY!!!

05/31/2026

I've been trying to take a leisurely break after my big Kentucky competition, but mom pulled me out of the pasture today and said we had to go see our fox hunting friends!! I can never say no to fox hunting!

I arrived to diet cookies and scratches from my favorite fox hunting human, Deb!! Once I was properly greeted, mom tacked me up and away we went! 

After Mom got my hopes up for some early season hunting this morning, it turned out to just be a trail ride to introduce new riders and horses to hunt manners. Bah. That's less fun. I wanted to zoom!!

That said, my friend, Dena, had a new horse, Gibbs. He was really tall and fancy, but he was a little nervous about being in a group of horses. Mom offered to switch horses, and Dena agreed! Poor Gibbs, he had to behave (Mom can be really insistent, speaking from experience…). Dena and I had great fun, though!  I showed her how good I am at grabbing snacks as we walk. If you ask me, I got the better end of this deal! 

I can't wait for hunt season to actually start again!

05/21/2026

One of my favorite people visited me today! This is Haley, and she takes great care of my feet. I used to wiggle all over when the farrier would visit, and then my old farrier hit me in the belly with the rasp. So rude! Mom fired him after that, and threatened to fire me if I didn’t shape up. She brought Haley in, and I tried the wiggle thing with Haley and Haley just laughed at me! Dancing the hokey-pokey isn’t much fun if no one is dancing with me, so I gave up.

Haley and I are best friends now. She understands that sometimes a fjord needs to stomp with their right foot to make their opinion known, and she takes my helpful suggestions seriously! My only complaint is that she won’t let me steal the rubber topper on her hoof stand. One day I’ll grab it when she’s not looking. One day.

05/17/2026

05/12/2026

Do you know what was fun about the K3DE? Meeting fellow celebrities like Zelda!! We got to chat briefly while walking around the park. (I hope she didn't notice mom carrying my diet cookies...)

I thought she was pretty, so I decided not to compete against her as I didn't want to show her up. Instead, I just nickered at her as she and flew by. 🏇

05/09/2026

Part 4: Flunking Out of Retirement

After my big win, I started to feel a bit unwell. It turns out I have a common disease called PPID, or Cushings disease. I think it is brought on by too much exercise. Really, that much exercise is counter-intuitive to a fat pony lifestyle.

Mom gave me some time off, and I went back to trail riding with dad. It was ok. Just kind of boring. Then my fox hunting club (Long Lake Hounds!) asked me to come back so I could help train up new horses. Oh boy! Those silly horses thought they needed to jig sideways, don’t they know that uses too much energy? I told them how to walk calmly until it is time to zoom. Mom said I didn’t need to zoom so much anymore, but I didn’t listen to her. I love fox hunting more than listening to mom.

I was pretty content with this life- it wasn’t too much work. And, despite my parents’ best intentions, I was growing fatter again. I have everyone pretty much trained as to how to best care for a performance fjord. Life was good.

Then mom goes and gets another wild hair. Now she thinks she wants to be a mounted steward at the Kentucky Three-Day Event! She puts me back into a fitness program, and starts making me do dressage again. She told me all of the top performance horses would be at this event, so I agreed to get fitter again. I didn’t want to be shown up by some thoroughbred.

Unfortunately, I had a lot of trouble losing weight. My feet started to hurt, and mom was really stressed out. We went to visit the vet, who gave me a pretty clean bill of health but agreed that I was flunking traditional weight loss management techniques. Well, duh. I am the Fabulous Fat Fjord. The vet put me on a new drug that I’m calling “Ole-Zempic.” I didn’t mind too much, it tastes like green apples and I really like apples (even if I never get them!).

Mom said she could tell I was feeling better almost immediately because I started to grab and fling things around the barn again. Nothing is safe from my big fat lips.

05/03/2026

Part 3: From Semi-trained to Champion

Right about the time I started getting mom better trained, she started using this audio lesson app called Ride IQ. As an elite performance horse, I didn’t think I needed audio lessons. But it turns out they’re pretty entertaining! They help my mom ride a lot better, and make sure she has creative ways to keep me entertained. Mom started to chronicle my training journey on the Ride IQ page- and got me my first job as the Ride IQ mascot! Turns out I’m really good at marketing.

Everything was going pretty smoothly for me when disaster struck. My thoroughbred pasturemate injured herself and couldn’t continue the fox hunting season. Mom decided that I would take her place as field master. Me. Field master. It sounded like a lot of exercise. But it turns out fox hunting is a lot of fun! I get to zoom really fast, then stop for a snack break. As field master, I also get to boss everyone else around. Mom loves fox hunting with me too, all she does is giggle the entire time I’m “galloping”. I don’t blame her, I am really fast. She even got her “colors” because of me!

Then my mom gets a wild hair and decides to sign me up for a fox hunting competition! We had months of preparation work, she even signed me up for dressage lessons! They were soooo much work, there were so many circles. Then she drove me all the way down to Missouri where I was definitely the fattest, shortest, and cutest fox hunter of the day. The judges must have agreed because they awarded me reserve champion! I was supposed to go to Virginia for the fox hunting national championships, but I decided I wanted to give the other horses a chance to win.

(Note: no silly foxes were hurt on our hunt. I’ve never even seen a fox. We followed a scent that was laid out by drag. It’s more fun this way, because the drag ladies always have treats for me after I finish zooming.)

04/30/2026

Part 2: Back to School

When I arrived at my new home, I couldn’t wait to show my mom all of my fjord tricks! First I showed her how to dance the hokey-pokey with the farrier, then I showed her how easily safety ties could be popped off (really! It’s just a quick twist of the head, and then a slow saunter over to the nearest grassy spot!). I also showed her how I like to go bowling with my big head- it’s really funny to knock people over!  

She declared I needed to lose some weight, and desperately needed a full restart. I was deeply offended by that. I am a perfect specimen of a fjord. She began by trying to teach me to lunge. I made it a quarter around the circle and decided that was far too much work for me. So I left. It’s not my fault that mom didn’t let go of the rope and went sand skiing behind me. Then she taught me to ground drive, and that was slightly harder to get away from her. She introduced poles, and these weird jump things. I knocked those over with my nose. I don’t jump. When it came time to start riding again, Mom thought she would start me really slowly and teach me to respond to very light touches. I thought her cues were optional at first, but she’s really persistent! When she started adding in the trot and canter, I thoroughly protested by bolting back to the barn. Turns out my neck is stronger than mom’s arms. Ha! 

I tried every strategy to get out of work, even faking my own death in the pasture.  Unfortunately she only bought that long enough to run out and check on me.  Eventually I managed to get Mom trained and we had a good agreement that if she entertained me, I wouldn’t be too naughty. My dad started riding me too, but he just lets me do whatever I want. Between you and me, I much prefer it when my dad and I go trail riding.