Gymkhana and Riding

Hey hey folks,
I'm very sorry for the late update! Bad Ev!
This post is for Sunday the 17th.

On Sunday there was a little Gymkhana event in Pope Valley. Folks were nice, everyone was supportive and cheerful, and the event just had a nice small down feel overall. Some people were barrel racing pretty seriously, but everyone was good to their horses and the other racers. I didn't see a lot of the event because my alarm didn't go off, grrrr!

I did see some really cute kids'n'ponies though. You can't see their faces really, so here they are.

All of these little ones are better riders than I am, haha!


So tiny.


Look at that tail- it says WHEEEEE!


This little one was just flying!


And so was she.


I ate a hot dog at the event, which I probably should not have. I'm used to not eating when I work hard in the heat. It felt like I had a lead ingot in my stomach for the rest of the day, heh. But the hot dog was tasty at the time. I regret nothing!!

Back at the ranch, after Bo had ridden in a few events at the Gymkhana show, he still had the stamina to ride Solly. Color me impressed, heh.

Solomon is an old pro at getting tacked up now. Here you can see him looking at me but also listening to (and looking at) Bo. horses can see a lot at once. They have a couple of blind spots, but they're pretty narrow. He's standing that way just because.


So today Bo decided to try a bosal on Solly.


He was calm putting it on, and he was very light and responsive at the walk.



Trotting, however, he wouldn't frame up, and he fought the bosal, which we didn't want- too much pressure on his nose. So we moved on to the bit.



Solomon did pretty well with his whoas in the roundpen. Then it was time to ride out in the open.





Bo had a sun in the eyes look on his face here, so I cut his head off, haha!



Bo did some two-stepping (that's the term, right?) and we found that Solomon more readily bent to the right than the left. Trotting went fine as well, but when Sol cantered he seemed a bit off on his left hind, which is the leg with that old nasty injury. It might just be a bit stiff, or it might be a bigger problem. I will probably have some x-rays taken to see if there are calcifications interfering with his tendon sheath. In the meantime, we are doing walk/trot only. We don't want to take any chances.

At the end of the day, Solomon got his fly mask (the flies are getting bad even though the ranch is very clean- it's just that time of the year) and his flake of hay. He also, of course, got to graze a lot.