The Long Ride

Saturday clouds rolled in but the temperature stayed warm and the humidity was oppressive. We played tennis in the morning and had a birthday party to go to in the afternoon and just couldn't squeeze in a ride. We did manage to give the horses a bath and get a week's worth of sweat and dirt off of them.

Sunday morning the clouds had cleared and it was drier. After a nice breakfast, we tacked up and grabbed some extra water and headed for the city farm. Our trip on this day was actually going to take us all the way through the city farm and out the other side. It was about 5 miles to a major road and a little store where we knew we could get a snack and some fluids (for us anyway.)



Heading East

There is one big road to cross before we can get to the city farm property. It's busy on a Sunday morning. We had left around 9am and headed to a fallow alfalfa field to work on some circles and do a little loping. Both horses did pretty well with the warm up.


Outbound

The roads in the city farm are pretty wide and it's a lot of fun to ride. We worked on some speed control and when Jessie got too fast we just did a circle and took off again. It seems like she can go on forever.

The developments in that direction had limited us to certain roads and at one point we had to walk along the shoulder of a busy street. They both stayed calm and collected and it was nice riding by the homes at a pace you could actually look at them. Many of these houses were built when there were nothing but fields out here, but as things change, this area was getting an influx of new homes. There is a new high school that was just built and they had a grassy area that was very inviting. Ranae rode on it first. The grass was established and the dirt underneath was firm. When she loped on it it didn't leave any marks, so I decided to give it a try. Boy, was that nice to lope on. The grass cushioned the footfalls and it was an extremely smooth ride.


Some BIG Bales of Oats

We got to our little store and bought some snacks and drinks and found a shade tree to sit under for about 15 minutes. It was a nice little break. We had been riding for about 2 hours at this point.


Relaxing Under the Tree

After the break we worked our way back. One of my goals was to lope Jessie for a mile. As we got back on city farm property we found a good long road (or so I thought) and took off. She broke down a couple of times as we crossed intersections and we kept going until we hit an edge of the farm that was a dead end so I turned her around and we road back to Ranae and Dusty. It actually was about a mile and a half and she still had some go in her as I was getting ready to stop.

Ranae took off for a lope and Jessie was pretty concerned about her buddy leaving. I tried to have a collected trot but she would have nothing of it. We had to do a bit of work and it turned out to be a much bigger ordeal then the long lope.

We did a little more trotting but, quite frankly, our butts were getting sore. We had been out for about four hours and still had another hour to go. Riding through the fields was peaceful and quiet. Some had been irrigated and when the breeze came up, it felt nice and cool. We just walked and enjoyed the time together.

We got home, gave the horses a well-deserved bath and a snack. We had some watermelon, then cleaned the saddles because it had been a dusty ride. I checked everyone over pretty good this morning and both Dusty and Jessie looked good. The distance meter on my GPS said we had gone almost 15 miles.


The Long Arm Tripod Shot

Just Another Weekend

Is there a prettier looking horse?
I don't think so.

We spent our time on Saturday afternoon going over the last half of the exercises in RWC I. I'm hoping to video those soon. And, I hope she does them just as well as she did Saturday. We had not worked on them for quite some time and yet she did most of them very well. Smart and beautiful. I AM a lucky guy.

Sunday Ranae and I went for a 6 miler. It was hot and we went out to the city farm. I want to lope a mile straight. It sounds simple, but a mile is a long way on some of the trails we ride. I figure we'll work up to it. We were able to lope almost a half a mile before we ran into the bee hives that are stationed everywhere on the farm. She broke down once or twice but she's getting it. We'll go for the full mile on a long ride we are planning for this coming weekend.

Ranae had the day off today. She rode this morning and she is going to have both horses saddled and ready to go when I get home so we can go for a quick evening ride. Days are getting shorter and it will get increasingly difficult to find some workin' time.

My Gaining Respect on the Ground I video on Youtube reached 25,000 views and I now have over 80 subscribers. That's cool. I never thought there would be that many people interested.

Our First Trail Class

After the Matt Sheridan Trail Workshop, Ranae and I decided to try a Trail Class. We found an Open Show that had a Novice class and entered. Our horses did pretty good and we came away with a first and a third place. More importantly our horses got us around the course. Here are our runs:


Our First Trail Class

Some of the other classes looked interesting like Western Horsemanship. Not sure all the requirements, but maybe I can find out more about them.

A little recap:

Thursday we set up the trail course in our yard and worked on our exercises. Friday we took the horse out on a short ride. Saturday we took them on a six miler and got to work on a bunch of stuff. I was loping Jessie in a small circle. Sunday, before the show, we went on a quick one hour ride that included a lot of trotting. By the time Sunday evening rolled around everyone at our house looked pretty worn out.

Uh-Oh Now There's Two Cameras

We went back up to Sheridan Performance Horses for a lesson with Matt. I learned a lot. Jessie has been pulling me around and I need to work on getting her softer through the body. I took video and here's a little taste of Ranae and Matt working on circles and the beginning of a spin. We had two cameras. One was on a tripod and I held the other one. I thought it would come out better actually, making it more moving and energetic, but it was fun playing with my video editor. It's not too long.


Two Camera Shoot

We are entered in the trail class of Sunday's Show. We'll see what happens.

I Don't Know What I Don't Know

We were able to ride Friday evening, Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. The temperatures were quite warm but we toughed it out, the good little horsemen that we are. Sunday we rode along the canal to a feedlot a couple of miles away. The cows are the ultimate scary object. Put them next to a canal and you have the ingredients for an exciting ride. Dusty is the brave one although we each got to take a turn at leading. Once by the cows we had a big open field to do some loping. We even loped side-by-side for awhile without them racing each other.

Saturday's ride was out to the development. We did the loop backwards from our normal direction. This is the aqueduct bridge we cross.



There were some atv riders out there and they were jumping off the bridge. We were on the bridge when one crawled out of the water and jumped from the bank of the canal into the water. The splash caused the horses to do a "standing shy" because the noise came right from under them.

They cleared a new area at the development and it's a graded, big, flat area. We practiced loping and even tried loping circles together and had a little success with that. We can tell the horses are getting in pretty good condition because they did sweat, but it was never dripping off of them, and there was just the slightest breeze. It had to be close to 100 degrees. Well, they're in good condition, that is, if sweating is an indicator of physical conditioning. By the time we get home the only damp spot is under the saddle pad.

Friday evening's session was out back with the cones and rails. Jessie did some really nice loping through the cones. She's slowing down so we can make a little sharper turn and she's anticipating a lead change and quickly drops to a trot for a step as she changes. Flying changes are just around the corner (from the "famous last words" department).


The Feedlot

We had been toying with the idea of going to a horse show. The Paint organization puts it on. They had a green WP class and a green trail class. Instead of taking the horses, after our ride on Sunday we headed over there to scout the class. We think we could have at least not embarrassed ourselves. I'm still unsure if I want to do the whole show scene. Maybe it's my experience with dog shows, but I'm just not comfortable around shows. You see a lot of hinky stuff. One guy was fencing his horse to stop in the 200 foot arena. Okay, I understand you want to train, but the show is over fella, it's 3 in the afternoon, easily over 100 degrees, the footing is not conducive to sliding, do you really need to run this horse down 10-15 times?



It was nice to see the course and we have most of the obstacles in our practice area, except for the bridge. There is another one in August so we'll see how we (Ranae and I) feel about it by then.


How many? Well, we count their feet and divide by four.

Coming up this Saturday we have a lesson scheduled with Matt Sheridan. After the workshop the girls said they wanted to take a couple of lessons and I said I would join them. Each of them have something they want to work on. Sometimes I just have the overwhelming feeling that I don't know what I don't know. The only thing I really want to work on is loping. It's an hour lesson. Can you do that for an hour? Is there something else I should toss in there? Any suggestions would be helpful.

I changed out my mecate reins for split reins. I had made these reins when I had my first horse, Tex. There were a lot of miles on these reins. They even had the little magic marker marks where the center was. Geesh. Who gets nostalgic over a set of reins? It felt funny not riding in them, but sooner or later I knew I would have to change, particularly if I ever want to ride one-handed.


Taking a Break

Loping the Big Square

It's painful in places, but I'm posting it anyway. My arms and upper body are bouncing around, the stop was less than ideal. This is the "big square" we ride when we're out. Just when I think I'm getting this stuff, I have to go and video myself. I'll say no more.

It's Only 111

Saturday evening we went out to the "development". There's a big whole. These are built in many developments to catch water in the winter time. Sewers and drains were put in first and then the housing bust hit and no homes ever went up in this development. So we have this big hole and it's fun to ride down in. People dump garbage there. Californians are such neat folks. It makes for some good "scary object" practice for us.







For those of you who enjoy feet pictures, here's Jessie's front hooves after two hours riding Saturday and two on Sunday. I haven't touched them up with the rasp in a week.




And, this was the sunset on Saturday night. The clouds came in and raised the humidity just in time because it wasn't feeling quite hot enough.