Not that I'm biased...

I wanted to add that as Curly and E. lined up with those 10 other horses yesterday I was very proud to see how nicely he is shaping up physically. He was truly one of the best looking animals out there.

Pre-fair has happened....

E. and Curly just finished showing in the halter class at a pre-Fair competition. And they did better than I expected! The judge gave them 90 points (out of a possible 100) and she placed 5th in a group of 11. Not bad! They were criticized for not setting up quickly/easily (they were both pretty fidgety for this part) and for not picking up a trot when she took him back to the lineup. I was just happy that he didn't act like a big ol' anchor at the end of her lead rope!

It has been a long day for E. She must have hurt her knee worse than we thought last Saturday (at least that's all we can trace the current problem to...). It was swollen and pretty painful all day today. She even quit her lesson short this morning due to pain. I gave her Ibuprofen, iced it down for a while and gave her a knee wrap to wear. That all helped but she still was very happy to put the horse away this evening. It was kind of cute to hear her announce to everyone, "I have my first sports-related injury!"

We are taking tomorrow off from all horse riding activities and will be sleeping in. Yahoo!

Daily rides...

We've been up and out the door by 7:00 am every morning this week. Crunch time is here! And the riding lessons have been 2 hours long at minimum.

E. is quite happy with Curly's lope these days. He has very nice foot action and fairly good head placement, and is even becoming better about picking up the correct lead. He isn't always good at staying on the wall while loping, but that's improving. We are also happy with his general conditioning. He looks great!

She is still working hard on halter skills. Curly is beginning to understand what is required but is not always consistent. Everyone that leads him is quick to reinforce "the rules" - no walking past the leader, pay attention to cues, respect a person's space, etc.

The 4-H group is very supportive of E. and Curly, recognizing that she has the most challenging horse at the moment. But all agree that he is a sweety-pie and truly wants to please. As I've said before, with a little hard work he's going to be a great horse!

A close call...

E. had her first trail ride on Saturday and she loved it! Her trainer took her up one of the surrounding mountains on a ride that lasted about 4 hours. Curly did really well and only hesitated at one stream.

The end of their ride was not so calm and uneventful, however. E. was trying to lead Curly across the highway to be loaded up in the trailer and as usual, he was being a non-cooperative anchor at the end of the lead rope. As she was pulling, her trainer whacked him on the rear (she told E. she was going to do this, of course) and he leaped forward, tripping E. and causing her to fall on the pavement. That alone is enough to make your heart pound a little. But it doesn't end there. Curly actually ran over E., clipping the back of her head with a front hoof and missing the middle of her back with a rear hoof by inches. E. ended up directly under the horse - a place a rider NEVER wants to be. In the end, E. only suffered some scrapes and bruises from the fall. Her trainer took them to a place nearby for milkshakes so that she could make sure E. didn't have a concussion - and to calm her own nerves! Did I ever tell you that riding horses is actually more dangerous than riding motorcycles?

We are so lucky that no real harm was done!

Curly will be receiving some intense training on being lead and respecting a person's space this week.