A playday, cantering, and another near miss!

Last week I got to go to my friend Mariah's house to plan our demo for the Parade of barns next weekend. Traffic was horrible, so it took me about an hour and a half to get there. (Practicing patience at all those red lights!) Well she let me play with her cute horse Bebe for awhile. Then we switched horses again and I got to ride her beautiful Sundance. Sundance is completely in love with Mariah. He didn't want anything to do with me so it took awhile for me to even get him going consistently!

Mariah's brother Christian who is 11 and totally fearless was also out playing with Taco the donkey while I got the pleasure of watching Mariah practice bareback and bridle less flying lead changes. No problem right?

Oh my, what fun Christian and Mariah were. And then the switching, he rode with me on Bebe, and then on Sundance. I had forgotten how much FUN kids have. Just watching them just made me laugh and almost fall off my horse from hysteria. He'd take off trotting, bareback, bridle less, and BACKWARDS on Bebe. Then he tried getting on Sundance backwards by straddling his head and having him flip him up from the top of his neck onto his back. Fun stuff! It was a riot!

I even rode Sundance up on the Pedestal! I haven't done that before!

Then on to the planning. We went in the house and Mariah and her family were kind enough to feed me some yummy soup, crackers and even a homemade chocolate muffin as we discussed our Demo and the definitions of what points we want to convey. Ok, I am extreme RBI so I was wondering why I actually AGREED to do this demo! AHHH!

So when Mariah is a Parelli professional I will be able to say to everyone "Hey look I even rode her awesome horse Sundance and hung out at her farm back in the day!" :)

Previously that day I was out riding Duck. Had a great session. Duck is beginning to offer the canter. And I am completely lacking in my riding the canter ability! UGH! She is much smoother when it is HER idea! We've gotten about half an arena lap at the canter!

Let Duck graze in her favorite clover patch near the arena on the way back. Of course I am totally relaxed holding the reins at the very end when all of a sudden she takes off full tilt. I still struggle with the one rein thing in an emergency. I just grabbed!

Turns out it was a kid on a bike. Did I mention that we are still playing with getting used to bikes? He came up right on the side of the arena in the grass instead of on the dirt road. So he was maybe 10 ft from me and the bike was pretty quiet in the grass. So another near miss. Just when I think "I am going to come off if she goes any further" I am able to stop her. At least that is the case right? Instead of her running 1/2 a mile and bucking too?