Wish I'd Had My Camera

Sheets Off in the Heat of the Day

Chance posed in the ring so beautifully I was really sorry the camera was in the house. He had his head up to see some kind of activity in the house just beyond the patch of trees and he looked gorgeous. It was true Kodak moment, and I had no way of immortalizing it except in my mind's eye. Oh, well, at least I saw it.

Everyone spent the day without jackets. I'm sure the Boys were quite happy to be free of clothes and everyone seemed to have rolled a bit. Surprisingly, despite all the mud around no one was too dirty.

A quick brush cleaned Toby up for a trail ride, and we had a nice one in the sunshine.

I opted for ring work for Tucker as the forecast was calling for rain again and the ring had finally dried out after the last downpours, so I knew I needed to take advantage of it. He was a good boy and is actually getting the hang of the canter/walk/canter transition we need to master for second level.

I then saddled up Chance for a bit of ring work as well. This was not his idea of a good time. He flipped his head around everytime I put some contact on, and made a great show of heading towards the gate into the woods. He is so funny as he can walk so-o-o-o-o-o slowly when he doesn't want to go. This was his protest as we passed the gate without going out. On the plus side, once he figured out that flipping his head up did nothing worthwhile, he dropped it down, went on the bit to some degree and even managed to trot in both directions with some nice lower carriage. He is clearly a quick learner and I should have some nice work from him in a week or so.

Still, I am as much a trail ride in the woods junkie as he is, so we will still go out to have some fun. At this point, though, it has rained hard again, so I guess all the mud puddles out there are even bigger. Looks as if we are going to have to do some wade in the water training sooner than later.

Nothing like a good, challenging trail to make a good horse.