Sunday, June 1, 2008

Day Ten, L&HB

Today was sad. We had remuda with John and Tara and talked about saddling. Turns out that my pad is NOT the right pad with my english saddle. That was what I suspected. I maybe should have bought one while I was there to save shipping costs. The pad is too small and a talk with Avery revealed that I should just get the biggest size available. Bummer. I'll try to sell my current one on eBay or Savvy forum.

The saddling demo was good, but a lot of things I'm already familiar with. I did like watching John teach the horse to keep slack in the line facing him and using the 12'. He did a cutting game and taught the horse to follow the feel. Bravo, John. When he sent the horse on a circle at a trot, he did a good buck. I'm sure Darla appreciated knowing that was in there - supposedly that horse is new to her.

The closing session was very touching and Pat's niece came in and sang "One Day in your Shoes". Very nice. John recited a great poem - "Man in the Glass". He had it memorized and it was very well done. They had us come up individually and receive a certificate of completion. We also watched a few inspirational videos such as Silke, the synchronized feeding demo video and a German man named Michael (I think) and another man with his horse Red Sun. All good for giving me ideas of things to build into my horse. We also rewatched a couple videos on prey/predator relationships. We discussed our goals and we were asked to share with another student one very important thing we learned. I shared about giving up on pegging Z's horseanality - important for me.

A lot of us went out dancing Friday night and it was pretty fun. There were probably 20-30 of us, including faculty. It was Sam's (ranch hand) b-day so that made it extra special.

Corrinn had a hard day learning her colt was pretty sick and then when she moved him to quarantine, he got scared and trampled her. She had a black eye and several scrapes and bruises. Poor woman! Kara and Corrinn were forced to stay longer so he can have a chance for antibiotics to kick in before the long haul home.

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