Weekend Update

Here is an old picture of Cruiser. Ellen is riding him. She sent it to me, today. It is nice that I can replace the images in my head of him being old with the images of him in his prime. He was an extremely fun horse to ride—as you can see in the picture.

With all the rain, the river was too high to cross on Saturday. Too bad, since we had our niece out to ride, and she hasn’t crossed the river since last fall. she rode Dante in the arena and then 3 laps on the loop out behind the barn. Then, we saddled up Ranger and Cole and did 3 trips on the hill with a lot of trotting back and forth at the bottom. Ranger did throw a challenge in once when he did 3 of his “kitten bucks” in a row. He was definitely feeling good! We had a nice time, but it sure would have been nice to cross the river with her.

Sunday, the river was low enough to cross, but too high for Ellen to feel comfortable on Dante—so I rode him. I certainly don’t mind riding him, but I am looking forward to her happiness when she starts to ride him on the trail, again. He crossed like dream—stopping when I asked him too. A few times, he slipped but didn’t panic. Once, we stepped into some rocks we couldn’t see, and he stopped on his own and carefully picked through them. He is a champ—and ready for Ellen as soon as she is ready for him. She was on Ranger; watching Dante do both crossings and was very impressed. We had a nice ride with a lot of trotting.

The only unusual thing about the ride happened on the way home. Dante put his head down to sniff the ground, and he became glued in the spot. He didn’t want to go forward. At first, I thought he wanted to roll, but then I glanced over to the side and saw a dead coyote. Once I saw it, Dante seemed satisfied and walked on.

I like that Cruiser’s old saddle fits him. Well, actually it is Mingo’s old saddle. It’s my WWII Japanese military saddle. I think it is just so comfortable. It is too long for Cole’s short back.

I then took Cole on a nice ride with Kevin on Starry.