Nemesis

Sure, there they sit.  All innocent looking.

But, Cartman was sure those plastic lids were just laying in wait- for a nice juicy young TB to come along. 

He wasn't going to be a victim!!  Not going anywhere near those deadly lids.

Last weekend Flo and I went down to Skamokowa to the county fairgrounds.  The local 4H group was having the first of a three part series-  Trail challenge, Speed events, and Ranch events.

I had only ridden C once last week, on Wednesday.  He had been a madman in the pasture all week, running bucking, running bucking.  I was a little concerned that he might be a nutball at his first "horse show" type event.  

C is just full of surprises sometimes.  He handled himself like an old campaigner, more interested in grazing in the holding areas than spooking or getting nervous around all the commotion:)

Flo and Hotshot did the trail challenge first and Hotshot did really well.  I think they made it through most of the obstacles! 

Cartman and I were about 50/50 on the obstacles.  He was very good at pushing the giant ball (something I've never tried with him).  I was a little surprised that he refused the white lids and the tire obstacle. 

He jumped the little PVC pipe on the cones and proceeded to spook himself and do a two stride bolt. 

But he was good  going through the hanging nets, backing over two boards and believe it or not was great going through the "tarp tent"

The mailbox was OK until I dropped the lid when trying to close it, then it became a little scary.

All in all, I got some good ideas of what we need to work on- namely not pushing through the bit when trying to evade something.   Not starting to randomly back up across the arena to evade other things.  And better neck reining under pressure.

Cartman rocked the ranch event with the cows.  I was a little apprehensive, cows scare me just a bit- they don't react like horses and I don't know what they're going to do.

They had three young cows in two pens, connected with a gate.  The event was to get the cows from one pen to the other, one at a time.

As soon as I figured out that the cows would run from us, this became very fun.  We were able to get all the cows from one pen to the next.  Then they reversed the gate and we got one more.  Unfortunately the last two ran through together before we could stop one.  So all in all we got four sorted in the time allowed.  We were briefly in the lead!!! 

We had a great time, it was just a fun day and everyone was supportive and patient with us novices.  They have two more planned 7/14 and 8/19.

 It was a really fun day!


On Sunday Cartman and I hit the real trail again.  We took Michelle and Tucker with us up to our local trails and spent about three hours.  It was great to be back on our trails again.  They're in pretty good shape even though it hasn't really quit raining yet.

Here are some pics of "real" trail action!