Sunday evening, I was feeling sorry for myself. I had just had to face financial reality and cancel my plans to attend a dressage clinic with Manolo Mendez. Just moments after I send the withdrawal email, I had a message in my in box from a friend with the heading - Lost Turbo. Turbo is a sweet little black gelding she bought a couple years ago to use as a pack horse. I helped her with training him, as he was incredibly sour. Misfitted saddles and bad riders had pretty much convinced him that… Continue

Happily, the weather has cooperated for the 4H trail trial. It was warm and sunny and very little wind. Belle loaded beautifully – I never want to take that for granted. My student’s horse stepped up beside her, and we were down the road at 7 am. The location for these trails is in the Palmdale foothills. I was looking forward to some new sights and to hopefully get a chance to push Belle for a bit of sustained speed. The first set of riders finally headed down the trail at a little after 9 am.… Continue

Thursday April 22

At some point, riding lots of miles starts to feel a little redundant. Today, Robin and I rode around the buttes – we mixed it up a little by going over the steep pass down to Ave Q, then across to…

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