A Trip to Bridlewood

We had another wonderful day at the Berean office. Lots of helpers, lots of help. Click HERE to read about our day.
I didn't go straight home once done, instead I drove to the old home place...Bridlewood. Emily had already arrived and unloaded Marika. Marika will be staying at Bridlewood while Amy Koch trains her for the IL Horse Fair.

While there I had to admire the green barn. Tim Reinhard finished the roof. This old 1800 something barn now has a metal roof which should help preserve the building. Nothing lasts forever but with the new roof it should last the rest of my life time.

Bridlewood was a bee hive of activity. Not to brag or anything but this barn has been going strong for 24 years with the SAME instructor and some of the same boarders and putting out top notch riders. 

Once home from Bridlewood Emily pulled out Roxanne. She had worked with Rosaleigh this morning and did the same routine this afternoon with Roxanne. These girls are going to be three years old in 3 months and it is time to get them under saddle. Well today they both were mounted. Emily starts with round penning, then saddles and bridles them. The mares are loose when she is tacking them up. If they choose to run she lets them but pushes them a bit. They learn to stand quietly for tacking. The next lesson is to stand quietly for mounting. She starts with the mounting block, making a lot of noise climbing up and down. If the horse gets scared and wants to run, she is allowed to run then only allowed to rest next to the block. It doesn't take them long to find out standing near the block is good.

 The next step is the block was placed on each side with Emily hanging over the horse putting weight on the saddle.

 Above Roxanne is totally relaxed with Emily hanging. The next step was to mount from the mounting block, again Emily does this from both sides. Roxanne is still very relaxed.

 The last step for today was to mount from the ground. Once up on her Emily gives her lots of praise and petting.

 She was not asked to move today just accept Emily up on the saddle. She ended this lesson with that. We like a good ending. Both mares were totally relaxed for the first time with having a person on top of them.

We decided to use the hot water heater to wash down her tail and legs before putting her back but when we hooked the hose up to the heater and turned it on, no water came out. Thinking there must be ice in the hose the hose was disconnected and the hydrant turned on to find no water. The barn was checked, then the house, no water anywhere. Philip and Anna who live right down the road didn't have water either. The water company was called and they estimated the water would be back on by 9:00 pm but it still isn't on. We will be carrying buckets from the pond for the horses if it isn't fixed soon.