Too hot!!

Oh my gosh!! It was super hot yesterday, a record breaker, and everyone was feeling it. Instead of riding in the arena last night, we took the girls on a trail ride to play in the river.
Hubby walked Diamond down the hill in hand, we’re still only riding on flat ground until she’s bigger and more solid, and once across the RR tracks, he bridled her up and hopped in the saddle.
We came to a fork in the trail, where part goes through a small patch of woods, and another part continues next to the tracks. This is where we split up. TX, Acacia, Sugar and I went next to the tracks, and Hubby & D (who was in the lead) went through the woods. When we got to where we could see each other again, D had her head turned our way, keeping track of us. It’s funny to see how not-confident she really is... she puts on quite a good front most of the time!! LOL
Getting her out of the arena was a great idea. It gave meaning to the right and left rein aids for turning, she obviously couldn’t walk into a tree, so when asked to go right, she understood WHY!
I first brought Sugar into the water, and she pawed and pawed, snorted and sniffed the water like she had never seen it before... then hubby wanted to ride D into the water. She had been ponied across by Mama six weeks ago, and did great, this would be the first time in the creek by herself. She wasn’t having any of it!! Before it turned ugly, I grabbed her lead rope, and walked her down to the edge of the water and let them go. She walked right in!
(Although she’s throwing her head, and hubby looks pissed, what was really going on is that Diamond is a snacker and hasn’t quite figured out how to eat with the bit in her mouth. The grass gets caught on it, and she can’t swallow it. Once we cleared her mouth of grass, the head throwing quit and she quieted right down.)
By this time TX and Acacia were in the water, so I walked back up the bank to grab Sugar (who thought she was starving... she cleared the patch of grass like she hadn’t eaten in years... yeah, my 1100lb QH is starving!! LOL)
The six of us stood in the creek, letting the cool water run over our aching tired feet. When Sugar would get warm, she’d paw and splash water over herself. Diamond stood as close to Sugar as she could get, and Acacia seemed to care less about any of it. She was just happy to be outside.

Gaming???

At the barn I board at, we have quite a few gamers. They go to the local saddle clubs and run Barrels, Key Race, Pole Bending etc. and it all looks like so much fun!
In an effort to get Diamond out into the big big world, I try to take her EVERYWHERE. She LOVES watching and seeing what happens outside of the barn.
This weekend, we are taking her to a gaming show. We will go into the arena with all the chaos and crazy hot horses, and when they call our number, we will walk/trot through our events. The first will be Cal Stake, and then we’ll have a little rest as they go through some other events, until they get to Poles, Flags, and finally Key Race. So she knows what’s going on and expected of her when we get there, we practiced a little last night.
First, we did Cal Stake. She eyed that pole like she wasn’t sure what it was all about, and took a wide turn around it. After a couple times around, she didn’t mind it one bit and was turning nice and tight to the pole.
Next, we did poles and she was a complete CHAMP. After I walked her through twice, she knew the pattern and didn’t need as much assistance from me to complete the course.
After poles, we did Flags and she was NOT having the flag pole next to her (this is extremely difficult for us also, because she’s still a two hand “training triangle” type of steerer, so the pole is moving over her neck the entire time), and then she spooked when I put it into the bucket. She took a quick turn and a couple of trot steps, which being bareback, wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve hung on to, LOL!! So we went back to the barrel, and practiced hearing the pole move in and out of the barrel until she stood calm and relaxed with it being dropped and banging in the bucket. We then picked up the flag and carried it back to the first barrel. One thing I did notice though is that she didn’t mind the blue barrel nearly as much as she did the red one...
Finally, we did Key Race. She was a little confused with the poles stood in a square. She thought she was going to weave in and out of them like in pole bending, so it took some coaxing to get her through the center of the square, make a 180 turn, and back through the poles.
By the time we were done practicing, we had quite an audience, and Diamond LOVES performing for an audience, so she was being especially in tune with my cues, which was the exact opposite of how our practice started. And all this while a fellow boarder was practicing her polo whacking the balls all over and cantering around the perimeter of the arena. I think it was a great experience and practice for our first gaming show next weekend. Tonight, we’ll see if we can get a few more people and horses in the arena to get more chaos going