Sister's New BFF

Alaina - Sister says that she would much prefer a lighter rider. We will have to see.
We had several fun horse evenings lasts week -

Monday - the girls hit me up to ride before my car was parked so I rode Splash, Ivy rode Pico (jumps of course), Alaina rode Sunny a little and worked Sister in the round pen and then did a little riding too.

Tuesday - The neighbor twins came over to ride and Rhett tried Sunny and then Diez while Riley made Splash walk and trot a bit. Both Ivy and Alaina jumped poor Pico who is wondering if jumping is the only thing 12-year old twins want to do. Then the 4 of them did a little trail ride around the ranch.

Wednesday - I took Splash to Rita's for my first YaYa ride this year - Rita, Nancy, Sherry, Kathy, Judy, Julie, Christiana had a sunset ride with yummy eats after. Splash was very good and the girls made fun of my efforts to skip the steepest slopes to spare Splash's haunches from strain - don't want to re-injure him now that we are riding again. They are pretty sure I am just a scaredy-cat.

Thursday - 4-H ride night - we took Pico, Sunny and Sister as well as our jump blocks/poles. Ivy worked Pico (jump-jump-jump) and Alaina worked Sunny a little western before mounting Sister to see how she handles real work during a busy ride night. She was GREAT and Alaina worked the cross bars and caveletti - even got some good canter departs over the cross bars.

So, we finished the week with the Saturday party lessons (Ivy, Alaina, Roxy, and Maddie at 10; Margret, Mallory, and Cathy at 11) followed by lunch at Graham's. It was a real party day since Saturday was Patty's birthday but since Kathy B had planned a surprise party Sat. Night at Pepper's, we didn't let on to Patty any hint of our plans.

Kathy B took Call to the ATRC schooling show and had some great rides. Sister and I worked on bend into corners while we all worked leg yields and circles with bend. We tried right lead canter first (the good side) and Sister was fairly good on our canter depart then we did several 20-meter circles, continued down the long side and circled in the other end. Decent downward transition too. Right was Bounce's difficult side, but Margret looked good to me and Raffles gave Mallory some lovely canter work too. When it was our turn to canter left lead (Sister's BAD side), she took the depart in under 3 strides and we circled before going down the long side and cantering a couple more circles before we transitioned to trot and then walk. The best canter work for us to date. Sister finished her work with Alaina and some practice over cross bars (for Sister) and in jumping position (for Alaina).

Later that same day (evening), we gathered at Pepper's in Claremore to help Patty celebrate her birthday. We were all cleaned up and be barely recognized each other with our "cloths on" since usually we are covered with horse hair, green slime and dust. Very fun. YAYA.