The rides that take your breath away...

...one of those happened for me tonight. I had one of the best rides of my life tonight on my new mare, Ally. If this is a sign of things to come, I can't wait. I'm just in love with this mare. She's so push button... we worked on hunter under saddle, western pleasure, equitation, and horsemanship. She would move out wonderfully for HUS with some clucks and kisses and would slow right back down to WP if I just closed my legs and said "easy". We did some horsemanship patterns, with slow circles and big fast circles... we'd lope a beautiful slow circle then I'd just cluck to her and she'd immediately extend out for the fast circle without any hesitation. The best part is, this is a relatively green mare. If she is this natural, and this great already, oh boy, I cannot WAIT for our future together.

I don't think anything feels better than riding a fluid, responsive horse. Just sitting up there along for the ride while my horse obeyed every cue... you couldn't wipe the grin off my face. After riding, I gave her a baking soda bath to help soothe the heat hives she broke out in after her transition from cool northern WI to 90+ degree FL :(, pressure washed those stockings with the hose which is a multiple time per day job (the downfall to my being a "lover of chrome"), conditioned her beautiful tail, and fly sprayed her to keep those pesky mosquitoes off of her, of which she is apparently not used to as well! Poor Miss Ally is going to have to adjust to being a FL girl... lucky for her she doesn't have to deal with it long, since our first cold front is supposed to arrive next week, already! Next, we had our second showmanship lesson. Just the second lesson and she went from having no idea how to trot in hand yesterday, to trotting off right when I cluck and stopping on a time when I say "whoa". She's also pivoting 1/4 of a turn, and learning how to move her feet back and forth to set up.

Then, I gave her scratches while I hand grazed her during a beautiful Florida sunset, while the breeze blew in that wonderful air of my favorite time of year, fall.

Corny as it may be, does it get any better than that?? :-D

~Amy