Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Riding For the Average

We thought we might be able to ride out to the roping arena on Saturday morning. It's a little more than six miles away. We got about five miles out and clouds started to roll in. Not wanting to risk getting wet we turned around. As it turned out there was not a roping be held there anyway. I was wearing the GPS and we were trying to keep the horses moving, we averaged 3.8 mph, which is pretty good considering it included a short break. It was a 2 and 1/2 hour ride that covered 9.5 miles. We loped quite a bit and, as we continue to put miles on, Jessie gets better and better. It's not a slow lope but it is controllable and that's what I'm really looking for.

Sunday's ride was in the afternoon and it had warmed to the mid-70's - a beautiful afternoon for a ride. Jessie and I worked around the big square as Ranae rode off on her winding road trail. We worked on trying to two track at the lope and she was moving off my leg with just a little spur. We also tried some rollback, which she would like me to note here, she HATES! We did a couple of stop, backups, and rollbacks and about the third one she stopped stopping. She knew what was coming and she didn't want to do it So we spent about the next ten minutes working on "whoa" and when she got that we did one more rollback and headed for home.

Ferrier came yesterday and said everything looked good. On a side note, I am once again volunteering for a CA Tour stop in Rancho Murietta in May.

2 comments:

Tuff e Nuff said...

Did you say 70's? Glad Jessie's lope is getting where you want it. Sounds like you are having some nice, enjoyable rides.

John Harrer said...

Yep, 70's although it's cloudy and cooler today. Almost looks like rain.

We are having some nice rides. Dusty is behaving and we've even done some side-by-side loping down some long roads. That is A LOT of fun.

Any more ACTHA rides in your future?