In the saddle again...

E. attended a 4-H ride night tonight - the first one for Curly in a long, long time. Between inactivity and a diet supplemented with grain, we were concerned that he might be a little too much to handle, so her trainer rode him for a couple of hours today to make sure he would be in a good frame of mind. Consequently E. was unable to get him to lope at all - the poor guy was pretty pooped out! But she said it was a great night; she was so excited to be up on her guy again.

M. had the pleasure of being the all-important "horse parent" tonight, hitching up and hauling the animal to the ride location and helping with the unloading at the end of the night. While I'll happily give him the chore of actually driving the truck and trailer, I did miss watching E. and all her buddies ride. Okay, I admit it, ride nights are a great "social hour" for me and I really look forward to just chatting with all the other parents!

While watching from the sidelines, M. took a couple of great shots of all the activity. The kids in the club played some sort of game requiring stickers - hence the strange dots on Curly in the picture below:


The club has been blessed with the use of a wonderful enclosed arena for all of their meetings and ride nights. Every-other Tuesday night all the kids gather to ride their horses, learn new skills and just plain have fun. What could be better than this??