Black Walnut Farm

E and I were able to make a trip out to Black Walnut Farm on Wednesday. It's only about 12 minutes from the house, and is on one of my most favorite streets in town. The property is surrounded by wheat fields and rolling hills that lead up to open land. Very pretty.

The owner, Anna, invited us to watch a lesson and then gave us a tour of the facility. She has one boarder leaving and consequently would have space for us. It was wonderful to watch her work with a girl a bit younger than E; she was patient and kind, and not a minute of the lesson was wasted. Even during warm up/cool down she asked questions about tack and animal.

Her boarders have access to a "break room" complete with bathroom, fridge and lockers. There is an indoor tack room as well. Everyone is allowed to use both the indoor and the outdoor arena. Horses are given a 12x12 stall with bedding and have daily turnout into small individual fields. Board includes feed (grain too), daily mucking and daily hoof picking. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? Unfortunately, the price is 5 times what we are currently paying - and consequently too much for my budget. We would probably be okay if we had only one horse, but with another in the works, it's just out of our reach.

E and I do plan to take lessons, however. We both really liked Anna and think we could learn from her. Her focus is English, which would be a big change for E. But I know that I would like to learn to ride both Western and English and E has expressed an interest in English as well.

E's first lesson is scheduled for next Thursday. We will bring Curly out and since we don't own an English saddle, E will ride Western. Anna would like to see what E knows and perhaps offer some suggestions for improving both her riding and her horse's training. It turns out that although Anna is considered an English instructor these days, she began her riding in Western saddles and didn't learn the second discipline until she was an adult. Anna said we could also borrow an English saddle to try on Curly - who knows, maybe he'll like it!

Morning thoughts

Just a super quick post this morning - it's already time to get the girls up to start the day....

I've been thinking lately about what I want to do with riding, other than chaperone E on trail rides. Without actually having ever tried it, I wonder if dressage would suit. The control and precision appeal to me at some level. And I know that the speedy pursuits of Western gaming and rodeo DON"T appeal. :-) Neither does jumping - those people are insane too!

Anyway, I'll be calling a local riding instructor who specializes in English forms of horsemanship today. I'm actually kind of nervous to expose my beginner self to another rider! So silly....

Mounted Orienteering

(The following post is being written by dear daughter E!)

The day started with mom waking me up at 4:30 a.m. - it was horrible. I hate getting up early. We got all our stuff together, went out to the barn and brushed Curly. My friend's mom picked us up at 6:00 and it was supposed to be a long hour and a half truck ride to the trail site. We made a couple of wrong turns but got there by 8:15.

There were a lot less people than I expected - only 5 trailers or so. We got our horses saddled up and started riding off to find plate number 10 first. In orienteering they give you 3 clues (like "320 degrees west from the culvert") and we would have to put our compasses on that and walk a straight line. The lines from the 3 clues would cross and that is where the plate would be. On the plate there were 2 words like "swift antelope" and we would have to put the first word from the plate on our map to prove that we actually found the plate.

Number 10 was in a little valley and was pretty easy to find - mostly because I didn't find it! Curly was kinda antsy and wanted to go faster than I wanted him to. The next few plates were a little harder to find. One was inside a tractor, another was taped on a water tower and one was hidden behind a post. By that time Curly had calmed down mostly. It was really rocky and there were a lot of badger holes we had to look out for. Curly actually stepped in two in a row. It was also very hilly - I'm now sore from having to lean in the saddle as we went up and down them.

It started raining when we were looking for plate number 2. It was a really deep valley and the plate was down at the very bottom of it. The trail started to get muddy. Then on one side, the valley had a sheer drop, covered in rocks, about 50 feet, and the other side was too steep to climb. So we had to do down this trail that wasn't much wider than our horses. Then the trail just stopped suddenly in front of us on a cliff. I was really scared at this point. I kept thinking about how bad it hurt when Curly fell on me.

So then everyone decided we should get to the top of the ridge. I had to lead Curly up it. He was drenched in sweat and tired. All the horses were, actually. We got to the top and decided it was too wet and cold to finish the last 3 plates. We were the last ones back to camp and we had been riding for over 5 hours.

Then we found out that we didn't have to go all over those valleys and ridges and stuff. It would have been easier if we had come back to camp and gone around from the beginning of the trail. Oh well. It was still really fun. I found out later that this was one of the hardest and longest rides of the year.

I really want to do orienteering again. Next ride is in May at Bennington Lake. Should be much easier.

Mom back in: Sure hope we have a second horse by then 'cause I really want to try this sport out. :-)

Our first look

Ruben's mare......


.....and Indio

E and I drove out to Benton City this morning to take a look at the horses that Ruben Villasenor is currently offering for sale. His place is out in the high desert, surrounded by hills and little vegetation. He's currently in the process of upgrading the facility, hence our ability to actually afford one of his animals - he's selling them at rock-bottom prices just so he'll have some cash to finish up some of the construction that's already begun. (Even at rock-bottom prices, some of the horses were way out of our reach, so I could only "window shop" as we strolled past the $8k to $10k horses.)

When we arrived, he already had 2 horses out: a paint mare (whose name I can't remember for the life of me!) and a pretty Morgan gelding. Both were a bit skittish on the ground, but not terrible. Once under saddle, however, they settled nicely and did what was asked. Fantastic considering neither has been ridden in quite a while - almost 2 years for the mare, in fact.

The mare's story is that Ruben did some training with her a few years ago for a family with a young girl. Once the family took the horse home, though, she sat in the pasture and was only ridden a couple of times. The family had to move and gave the horse to Ruben a few months ago. He's only put a ride or two on her since she returned to his place.

Ruben on the mare...

The Morgan has also been with him for a few years, and has learned quite a bit, including the Spanish Walk that Ruben likes to teach his horses. He is a beautiful horse, but very skittish. He also has a club foot on the front right. After doing a little homework, I've decided that even though Ruben assured me the foot has not got in the way of the horse's movement, I don't want to take on the possibility of it becoming an issue in the future.

A third horse was brought out after we talked a bit - one that is calmer on the ground. He is a quarter horse gelding named Indio. This horse doesn't actually belong to Ruben, though. A (former) client brought a few horses in for training and ended up not paying his bill or picking up the final horse, Indio. This is the horse that E and I felt most comfortable with. Ruben said that he could lease this horse out, with the option to possibly buy at a later date.

Ruben riding Indio...

Indio is not as responsive as the mare, but still did as asked and appeared to have some solid training under him. Both the mare and Indio have been sitting for quite a while and are not in top shape - but that's to be expected since it's early spring.

It was decided that E and I would return at the beginning of her spring break so that she could ride the horses. If she likes the ride, we'll come back several times during that week before making a final decision.

All in all, I felt very comfortable with the whole experience. And secretly, I'm hoping that the little mare works out.....

Dancing Horses

E's 4-H club hosted a clinic today. The morning was full of informational sessions covering everything from acupuncture to taking your horse's vital signs. Very interesting and useful stuff. In between sessions, we held hobby-horse races...all very cute to watch. But the highlight of the day came after lunch.

Ruben Villasenor held a hands-on clinic for our girls and then showed them some of his fancy steps with his horse Shadow. The two of them have been showcased at some big horse expos (see this youtube video). It was amazing - and he made it seem so simple, even though we all know it's not really. Then he let the girls each have a short ride on Shadow! While E was on, he showed her how he cues for a rear. She said later that it felt like flying while Shadow was rearing up.

His part of the clinic was a wonderful opportunity for our kids. He spent individual time with each of them, showing them some basic training tools he uses with all of his animals. He then asked each rider to name one thing they needed help with and then proceeded to give some tips and instruction while they rode their horse. He spent at least 15 or 20 minutes with E and Curly, helping her learn to get past her fear of cantering on him and also helping him learn to listen to her cues. She shed a few tears (it was all pretty intense) but she stuck with it and tried to improve her riding skills and push past her emotional blocks. Both horse and rider earned their rest this afternoon!

After the clinic, we all crowded around Ruben to say our thank yous and chat a little. He told E that Curly does not seem to be a mean horse, just maybe a bit passive aggressive. Curly has learned how to take advantage of E and she needs to work consistently with him and retrain him in the basics so that her rides can be enjoyable once again.

We then mentioned that we were in the market for a new animal. And he immediately replied that he has a few for sale right now that might be suitable for us! In our price range, even! I was just blown away and excited about the possibility of owning an animal he's trained....so we will be taking a ride out to his place ASAP to check out these prospects.

Yahoo! What a day!

Ginger snapped

We made the decision to return Ginger to her owner this evening after having a not-so-fun excursion out to the arena. The horse never calmed to a point that we felt comfortable riding her and even seemed to want to rear up several times. E ended the exercise with the comment "I feel safer with Curly than I do with Ginger." That was my cue that this is not the horse for her. The whole point in looking for another horse was to find an animal that E would feel completely confident on.

So the search continues....

(Credit for the clever post title must go to dear hubby M. Such a funny guy!)

In the saddle...and the dirt

We've been waiting and waiting for decent weather but that just doesn't seem to be happening so we decided that no matter what, we were taking Ginger out to the fairgrounds today to ride. And of course it rained. Hard. And the wind was blowing.

Our trainer, A., came with us to help me decide if Ginger is an acceptable horse. We've all felt good about the animal so far, but this was to be our first time out with a saddle. Also Ginger's first trip to the fairground arena with us. And she's still in heat. And she hasn't done any real work in almost a year. Oh, and did I mention that it was raining, hard, and that the wind was blowing? Nothing like stacking the cards against a good ride!

As before, Ginger behaved poorly while tied. She has not learned respect, but we had already decided that this was something we could live with until we taught her what is expected. Getting a saddle on her was not as easy as I had hoped. She got spooked when E approached her from the "wrong" side, plus the trailer's tack room door slammed shut during the process. Finally, we got her into the arena and E jumped on.


Ginger was tense (and I'm sure E was too!) and it took quite a while for her to relax into the ride. E kept her at a walk for the majority of the time because the horse was anxious. Wind kept blowing rain droplets in, making Ginger even more jumpy. And as E said at one point, the horse was "feeling a little too good" and had more energy than she knew what to do with. Nothing unmanageable, but not exactly easy and trust-inspiring either.

Doing tight circles to regain Ginger's attention...

Finally, E asked for a canter. Ginger immediately transitioned into the requested gait and then promptly bucked E off. Luckily E fell on her bum (which hurt enough to make her cry) and was not injured. Ginger, also luckily, stood in place. I'm not exactly sure what caused her to buck - was she protesting and being thoroughly naughty? Or did another burst of rain drops come in and spook her? E did get back on to walk her for a bit more.

So now I'm even more unsure about what we should do. E and I are planning to take the horse out at least 2 more times this week. We are supposed to give her owners a decision by Sunday. I hope the answer is more clear by then....