QH Congress is here!

Congress started last weekend. We are planning on heading down there on Saturday. Most of the show events are Hunter-Jumper so not sure how much of that we will watch. Definetely up for some shopping and gawking at all the bling.

Brenda and I went and rode Alum Creek on Sunday last week. We parked in a different place than usual. There is a little trailhead with parking about 5 minutes from our barn. It is off of 521, in Kilbourne. We saddled up and headed out on the trails East of the river. There were large amounts of downed limbs across the path. The path was pretty overgrown in spots too. I don't think the trail maintenance crew has made it over to that side yet. We traveled a while and then turned back when we came to a fairly steep decline. We couldn't see where the trail was headed and didn't want to start down and then come across a downed tree in our way.

We went over the bridge on the roadway and went to the West side of the river. These trails had clearly been tended to recently. (thank you Delaware County OHC). They were very nice, wide and clear. The trail went through woods and some field. We had a little creek to cross, some fairly good ups and downs and a wooden bridge to cross. Doc and Rio did it all without a fuss. It was a VERY nice ride...hardly any mud. I would label this an "easy to intermediate" trail because of the creek, wooden bridge and the roadway bridge crossover from the parking area. It is also my guess that it would tend toward the intermediate side after a good rain. We came across several other riders who seemed to be enjoying the day and their ride.

Rio managed to pull her shoe off halfway. It was still on her foot but she had bent the nails so the shoe was somewhat off over to the side. I figure she caught it on a root or something. We decided to turn around and go back since we didn't want to come across any hard obstacles with a shoe half off. As we got further, the shoe got twisted even more. Finally I dismounted and pulled the shoe off by stepping on the part that was sticking out and lifting her foot. She showed some tenderness on that foot but seemed to be much happier with the shoe off.

Monday we went over to Terry Myers and had him trim both horses and replace Rio's missing shoe. Got to ride some as Doc was being trimmed. Rio was a complete angel that night. She stood still as a statue in the cross-ties in the barn. I thought that was pretty impressive considering she was in a strange place surrounded by strange horses. We took the horses back to my house to spend the night since it was pretty late by the time we were done.

Not much else going on horse-wise. I haven't been able to get back up the barn all week due to all the kid running around I had to do this week. We are busy getting ready for the GiddyUp Girl Roundup at Smoke Rise Ranch next week. Imagine I'll get some quality horse time in then!