Dapples!

So the good news is that Rico and I are back on track. Our clinic is this Sunday and I'm actually feeling fairly confident that we won't make a fool out of ourselves. I'm excited to take a lesson at a facility that is less than a half hour away!


First, I need to make this announcement: RICO AND I JUMPED!!

Such an intimidating jump!

Rico hasn't jumped anything since 2009! It was hilarious, I put up my ghetto fence and cantered toward it (in my dressage saddle... the most attractive). Rico slammed to a stop about eight strides away, he tensed up, snorted, picked up a canter again and found a beautiful spot. He CRACKED his back over the top of it, landed and started looking for the next one.

I'm not going to start jumping him big or often, but it's fun to let him pop over some small fences every now and then. If he stays sound, I might get him over to my jumping trainer for a poles and cross rail lesson :)


Anyway, in preparation for our clinic on Sunday, Rico got a lot of pampering today: a bath, a mane pull, and I clipped the ugly goat hair on his face.  He should be looking mighty fine for the clinic! Except that he still has those stupid rubs all over him but they're starting to go away so that's good. He's also getting some hardcore dapples all over him, so I'm expecting to have an appaloosa pretty soon!

Dapples!

After his morning of being pampered, I took him out for a ride. It wasn't perfect but he's doing much better than he was last week. I ran him through a few fourth level movements today just to check that they were still there. The lateral work in the trot is a bit lazy but it exists so that's good. The pirouette to the left is good as always and the one to the right was actually better than I expected. Lead changes are fairly good (which is awesome since I haven't done them in a week), we only had two bad ones. We'll be a bit rusty when we go on Sunday but it should still be a good experience.

I also got a chance to take some pictures this week! Here are some of the ones I took a few days ago, I'll have the ones I took today up later.

Dandy, my old pony :) he's 25!!

Rainbow in the front yard

Dandy in his pasture

These birds love to groom Rico, thanks birds!

Dandy

Such a good dog!!

Rainbow!!