May 10 2008

Since tomorrow is Mother's Day and a planned Family Day, Lara and I decided to get our weekend ride in this afternoon. She met me out at the barn about 2 pm. I stopped on the way at Bordertown Feed & Supply to buy Sinwaan a new saddle pad. We got the red Toklat cool-back pad for our new Abetta saddle. I also bought a leather billet. When I got out to the barn I realized the billet that I had been borrowing from Kittee was nylon. I talked it over with Lara and agreed that a nylon one would be a lot cheaper, and she was planning on placing an order with Country Supply that evening so I could put my order in with her stuff and perhaps save on shipping. So on the way back to Lara's boarding facility, I stopped at Bordertown and returned the billet.

When we got to Darold's, Lara took me over to the stallion pen to have a look at Radi, the stud. He is an Arab stallion that she has discovered is 17 years old. She had spent the day before bathing him and combing out his long thick mane. (She commented it had taken her 2 hours). She wanted to see him move so she had me trot him out for her down the driveway. He picked up the trot immediately and moved out with a fluid, straight stride. He was really a sight to behold. She has recently gotten in touch with his owners, who encouraged her to do anything with him, so she had ridden him as well and commented on his high knee action.

After we got done playing around with Radi, I unloaded Sinwaan and groomed and tacked him up and we were ready to ride out by 3:30 pm. His new red pad looked smashing under the black saddle. We took to the trails and planned to ride at a trot as much as possible. We were able to keep to this, and Lara had driven the route to clock the milage. We knew the out-and-back was just under 7 miles so we planned our time and also added another additional short loop to the end to make sure we got in the full 7 mi.

As it turns out we did the 7 miles in 1 hr 30 min, or a little under, even with a fair amount of walking to warm up and cool down. There was one point in the ride where the automated watering system over the crop was spraying over the road and we had to ride between/under it. That was really something! The first two times I aimed Sinwaan at it, he arched his neck and ducked down and tried to get as low as he could before backing up away quickly. The third time I urged him through and that water was COLD! But it was pretty fun and we got to go through it again on the way back, this time Sinwaan bolted through on the first try.

We had a lovely ride and visited afterwards with Emily (another boarder) and her mother. It seemed to go by so very fast today. Only a couple more weekday rides for me between now and our Owyhee endurance ride!