Thursday, May 14, 2009

Out and About

Tonight I decided to give Max and I a break (somewhat) so I decided to hit the trail and take one of my usual routes down the wash, accross the river, and loop back towards the arena at Gabriellano Park.

However, I decided to ride most of the way at the trot, where feasible, something that Max always reluctantly does- after all, he's a horse and he's naturally lazy! :-)

Everything went uneventfully and I got him moving out at a pretty good clip. We actually made better time than I thought we would so I decided to work him a bit in the arena at Gabriellano Park- it's been awhile. I did a combination trotting and cantering with some side-passing and half-passing mixed in. It was kind of funny- we actually had a small audience watching us (it was really a small family).

As we were doing our manuevers, I noticed a group of riders pass by the arena. Abruptly, one of them decided to gallup his horse at full speed along the side of the arena. The rider then stopped and he proceeded to spin the horse around in circles while yelling at it. It didn't appear that the horse was being disobedient or anything but what would I know.

It was kind of weird- there was no real reason for it as far as I could tell and it's not part of any training program that I recognize. Not sure what was up with that...strange.

After about 15-20 minutes, I decided to head home so I took Max accross Foothill Blvd. and up Orcas Ave. Max had no issues and we arrived back at the stables safe and sound. It's times like this that I'm really proud of Max- no issues and no grief but it took a long time to get there with a lot of training.

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