Liberty and Riding for a video

Lara called me at 9 am to talk about our plan for the day. Matt was scheduled to shoot some video footage of Imaginn because Lara would like to have a short video clip of her for her website. So we met at the barn about 11 am and groomed the horses. Imaginn looked great despite some 'war wounds' she has attained. Sinwaan had laid down in manure so I had to put him in the shower bay and hose off any accumulated dirt and grime. He cleaned up pretty fast and then we hand-grazed the horses in the sun while they dried. After manes and tails, feet and faces were done we loaded them up into Lara's trailer and also loaded up the tack.

First stop: Bob and Sue Westergard's place. They have nice pastures with white fencing which we thought would be a great backdrop for the Liberty videos. First we shot Imaginn and she was difficult because she wanted to race all over the place and it was hard for Matt to keep up with her on the camera. She was also a pro at snatching long bites of grass that hung out of her mouth as she tore off yet again. Matt shot footage of her for about 20 minutes and then we decided she was done. So we tied her in the shade and brought out Sinwaan. By this time Levi had woken up from his nap in the car so I put him in a backpack and carried him around. Thankfully Sinwaan was EASY - taking off in a huge animated trot back and forth in a straight line. We got some nice footage of him moving in a way I have never seen him move before. What a horse! Lara said "Oh man, look at that! He is moving so perfectly, now I am bummed about my horse!" Oh well. We learned a lot from taping today.

After that we loaded the horses up and trailered them up to the top of Bennington Lake. After tacking up we walked down a portion of the trail so Matt could get some footage of Lara riding Imaginn under saddle. This worked out great and Lara was very happy with this particular footage when we watched it later. We also got some video of the two of us riding together. I tried to focus on my expression since lately it seems everything I see of myself I am FROWNING. I used the Abetta saddle today and had to dismount and tighten the girth after riding for the camera.

When that was done, we sent Matt and Levi home and we continued around the Lake for a trail ride. It felt wrong to just be walking so we picked up the pace until we got to the water crossing. Lara was surprised to see that water was still flowing into the Lake. I am starting to understand why some endurance riders ride so fast. It has a lot to do with the conditioning mindset and having not ridden since our endurance ride last weekend I was raring to go :)

We had a nice little ride but it was over too quickly. We did the middle loop which was only 2 miles. There were rain clouds moving in so we decided to play it safe and head for home, commenting that the horses had a good deal of exercise today anyway with all the running around in the pasture before our ride.

Pulling into Darold's we saw a ton of cars parked all around his circle where we usually turn around the truck and trailer. Lara surveyed the situation and decided to pull clear up to the barn. Just as we went to open up the trailer door we both felt a raindrop. We unloaded the horses and got them into the barn. After a quick currying to get the sweat off we put them into their paddocks and then the clouds opened up and the rain came pouring down! Big cold drops like at the vet check last weekend. We raced out to unload the tack from the trailer and got pretty wet in the process.

Another boarder, Emily, was there with a friend that was hoping to ride but their plans were squashed at the moment so they stood in the shelter of the barn as they waited for it to pass over.

Lara did a bang-up job (no pun intended) backing the trailer out of the driveway, it was very tight with a hard turn, in the pouring rain with basically no mirrors. I was impressed! We headed over to my house where Matt had started dinner. We then got to sit and watch the footage and start editing it ourselves. What a great day!