New Horsemeister Trainers

As today was a holiday we decided not to take the horses back to Middle Grove until Thursday giving Karin time to schedule 2 trail rides. The first trail ride was held at 10:00 am and the second at noon. Today's ride wasn't just any old trail ride today was training day for both riders and horses. The riders needed to be able to bridle their own horse AND ride the 'death' trails bareback. Below is the first group out.

 The reason this is necessary is that once the rider is comfortable trotting and cantering with a saddle they sometimes get just a little to confident and either can get hurt by depending on a saddle or actually hurt a horse by not realizing how tired the horse is. When one is bareback one can feel the heart pounding, feel the sweat dripping and the lungs pumping. Only then do they realize a horse is not a machine. 

 This group did very well, all sticking to their horses over the fields, up and down the hills and through the creeks.

They arrived back at the barn with about 20 minutes to spare before the next group arrived. Noah and Shaeya were more than willing to help out with cleaning the stalls.

 Tokoa was thrilled to find and play with a kitten.

Karin decided she had enough time to work Rosalie and took her out to the round pen.

Rosalie is just a beautiful filly, she is 2 and a half years old. Her dam is Lily and her sire is Raven. She was one of the last Raven daughter born here. As Shaeya and Noah are interested in training horses they were given a lesson on training Rosalie.

Both the trainers and the trainee did well today.

Rosalie was put away when the next group arrived for their ride. Karin rode Jenis on this trip as Ribbon was put in use with 3 riders. The kids in this group were also made to ride the 'death' trails bareback and they also survived, not just survived but enjoyed it at the end. Not so much in the beginning though. I heard some complaints at first.

After the ride, Jenis was covered by Evan and Ribbon by Valiant. Hopefully Ribbon will go out soon. Dakota was teased but not yet in. I ran to Sam's and found they had pork loins on sale for $1.68 a pound so decided to buy that and potatoes. This afternoon peeled and mashed potatoes while the loin was slowly roasting. The house smelled delicious. I'm hoping to serve this tomorrow for Berean if I can figure out how to keep everything hot. 

Tonight was the wedding shower for Isaac and Aliese. Joan drove mom and I. It was very well attended.