Day 3 - no riding

I had a great day of hiking, hanging at the site with the family and then later in the day, some riding. I pulled out Gem and Rain and helped Chrissy work on her riding with Rain. This was interesting as she was unable to get Rain to do some things. This was eye-opening for me as Cowboy sometimes responds to Chrissy the way Rain did today. That tells me Chrissy needs to keep developing her cues so that Cowboy continues to get softer. We just stayed on the campsite, but it was fun to ride Rain and play with her before Chrissy got on. I rode Gem around the campsite a little too. It wasn't a trail ride like I planned, but it was nice to ride 2 of my horses before the sun went down.

Day 2 of Camping

Marla was sitting out the horse ride today as her headache was painful. Kendall wanted to ride, but only after she did some other things she wanted to do. So, I hopped on Z and ponied Gem out for a ride by myself. We went about 2 hours, mainly at a walk. Rain and Starlet called a lot and Gem occasionally called back (or initiated the calling!). However, he never got silly. Z was my trail horse extraordinaire, like always. The mosquitoes were very bad and we couldn't stand still for long. I tried to give them a few breaks to munch on the grass, but I needed to keep us moving so the mosquitoes would be bearable.

Day 1 of Camping

Phew - 3 dogs and 4 horses is a handful. I would have brought only 2 horses, but my vet wanted me to bring Starlet so I could care for her wound every day. I brought another horse so that she could be left behind with a buddy. I couldn't figure out any other way.

We decided to try to head out with the whole group: Kendall on Rain, Marla on Z and I was riding Gem. Starlet was our pony horse. Kendall immediately was having some trouble with Rain's energy level. All the horses wanted to hurry down the trail and everyone's adrenalin was up. About 1/2 mile in, I called it. It just felt like an accident waiting to happen. Rain was starting to get light in front and Marla was learning how to handle Z's very forward nature. My hands were overful and it seemed dangerous.

We went back and Marla and I headed out, me on Z and Marla on Rain. We had a nice ride, about 2 hours in the gorgeous mountains. Marla was struggling a bit with the altitude and I think the riding may have exacerbated the situation. I'm glad we got to ride, but the first ride of our trip was less than simple.

Later on, I pulled Gem out and just rode him around the campsite. I was trying to further develop his left and right circles. It was just 30 mins, but I enjoyed him.