Is it Monday or Tuesday?

I truly wish every weekend was three days. I was able to get alot of stuff done and still fit in some relaxing, fun time with friends and with the horses. And the weather cooperated!

I worked part of the day on Friday, but threw the towel in early as there was no one around. I didn't even have any meetings scheduled. Connor and I ran some errands after his doctor's appointment in the morning. I got busy around the house. I finally got around to trying to organize the mountains of stuff in my office. I got so busy that I didn't even ride that night. I knew if I left it halfway finished, it would be another 6 months until I had the heart to tackle it again.

Brenda brought the horses home after their farrier visit in the morning. My neighbor Karen brought her horse and her daughter's pony home for the weekend too. The three of them rode on Friday night while I toiled away in my office.

Saturday morning was full of football practice and some running around. Brenda and I had another lesson with Terry Myers at 1pm. We got the horses ready around 12 and headed over there. The lesson day was pretty good. We mostly worked on moving off of the leg and our hands and seat. I feel like I am making progress but it is frustratingly slow. I am definetely more aware of what my hands are doing. I am trying very hard to be light in the hands but I still pull back way too much. I can't even imagine what Terry will say when he sees us canter. I better practice some before that so that he doesn't give me too hard of a time.

We joined the Standbred Pleasure Horse group for their hunter pace at Taft Reserve on Sunday morning. We headed over there around 8am. Taft Reserve is about 1 hour from us. The horses were really good for the whole thing. We joined the "Go, Horse, Go" group. This is the slower of the three options. After the last one, we knew our horses (and us for now) are better suited for the slow group. The trails were well marked and mostly dry. There were slightly over 20 jumps. We jumped a couple of small ones. Brenda and Doc walked over five or so. There were a couple jumps that were quite tall. I am amazed at the bravery of the people that ride these trails really fast AND jump the jumps. Talk about NO FEAR!

There was one area of very deep mud with a bit of water in it toward the end. Rio walked through it with no problem. Brenda had a bit of a harder time as Doc rushed through it. A horse can really hurt themself if they go too fast through deep mud. Luckily, no major events and no injuries were reported.

Taft Reserve trails were wide and easy to ride. There was a good mixture of woods and open fields. It would be fun to ride there again. The SPOH group did a nice job of organizing the event. We had to leave around 1 so I could get to Quinn's football game. When we left, there were still 3 slow teams out. As of the time we left, we were in fifth place--we were 10 minutes too fast. The course was a little over 5 miles long. We ran it in 1 hour 8 minutes. Guess we should have walked more~!

The horses spent the weekend at my house. They had a third horse join them as Karen brought down Blue to spend the night last night. They all got along well...just the usual running and kicking at meal time. Doc ran Blue off a couple of times, but otherwise they got along just fine. I love my new fence. Now if only a barn would magically appear.....