The Weekend - Cool At Last!!

This last weekend was sunny, cool, and somewhat breezy- in short, a perfect weekend for riding! Finally, after suffering through Santa Ana winds and extremely hot weather, it finally cooled down.

On Saturday I wound up riding by myself so I wandered down to the Orcas Arena and did some basic work- cantering, trotting, side-passes and the like. Max definately got a work-out and was then rewarded with a lazy walk home. There was a horse show going on at the Equestrian Center so Max got to watch various horses going through their paces jumping. Pretty cool but I doubt if Max would made a good jumper (not that I'm any expert).

Sunday, there was my lesson and I then hit the trail with a friend of mine. We rode at a leisurely pace towards the ponds and it was quite pleasant with no issues. We even stopped off at the arena and ran the horses out.

Overall, an excellent time and Max was especially happy after he got his bucket.

I also wound up riding another horse, a Standardbred named Kisses, on Saturday as a favor to a friend. Kisses is an ex-harness racing horse and she hasn't had a lot of traning for being ridden under saddle so things can get real interesting sometimes, especially if she sees another horse that she wants to race. Oh, and did I mention she's also a mare? Another interesting challenge. What's really interesting is that she doesn't canter but rather she paces- it's a weird feeling that takes some getting used to. More later on Kisses.

I'm going to be sore on Monday from all of this...