The three musketeers. We finally saddled up to go on a trail ride. Just a short one. It's funny how the world wheels around. I used to think that people who hardly ever rode their horses were so weird and not doing the right thing for their horse. And now I've become one of those people. I wonder if those people I saw not riding understood the importance of groundwork and the undemanding time spent with a horse??? I may have judged the book by it's cover. However, I am having a blast playing with Madeira on the ground, and better yet, she is having a blast too. The other day she got really "wild" and what looked like completely right brain behaviour, but she was so in sync with me it was unbelievably incredible! Several of the ranch hands came over to the fence to watch and were totally amazed at what we were doing. (And a little jealous I might add.) Paris Wallace, our professional ranch photographer happen to be around too and took all these awesome photos of us.

I send Madeira out on a circle and she ran around wild until I disengaged her and she cantered over halting exactly on front of me and as I signaled her she reared. (The guys think, that the strange orange stick has magical powers.)

Then I asked her to "heal" like one would ask a dog, and she walked when I walked, trotted when I trotted, cantered when I cantered, stopped when I stopped and backed up when I did. We also moved sideways in harmony, towards me and away. And imagine, all this stuff is quite easy for us these days. Yep! We had a fun play day.

Then on Sunday I went back to Moss beach Ranch to watch some friends of mine competing in a small show. Here are some photos of Penny on Prince, Ronda on Iris and Gloria on Iris.