Pony outing

Wow, do I have some reading to catch up on!  That'll teach me to stay away from my computer - everyone has been doing interesting stuff!

Not so much here, although a lot has been getting accomplished.  But the weather finally unexpectedly took a turn for the cooler, and on Saturday evening after finally getting the last few remnants of moving stuff out of the horse trailer (ask me about the 45 minutes I spent weaving backing up the driveway - better yet, don't!) when we brought the ponies down from pasture in the evening, we popped them directly into the trailer and headed for town.

I've been wanting to take them in to the arena at the fairgrounds for a while.  They haven't been in the trailer since we got here late last fall, but all of them walked on with no hitches, and we were off.  In town, it was windy but only in the 80's.  Parked with the trailer pointed so that the two left tied to the trailer could see what was going on, we saddled Sunny and Rufus and ventured forth.

It's a big arena.  Nice fence, lots of space.  Unfortunately, while it had been disced up, the dirt looks to have a lot of clay in it, and it was left in big clods of busted up crust with pressed in tire ruts.  There is a nice soft track around on the rail where you could tell people had been riding, but most of the middle was a walk-only zone.  Not sure I'll be repeating the experience on a regular basis.  Hopefully closer to fair time they'll have it worked up better, because no way would I want to show in it in that condition.

We rode anyway since we were there - the boys were very good, and so were Amyra and Thunder, loafing at the trailer.

Nothing real enthusiastic, since changing directions involved leaving the track, but some walk, trot, and a very little canter.  Sunny's still inclined to be sticky on taking the left lead, but he's taking both easily out in the pasture so I'm hoping it's more habit than being out of adjustment again.  We had some nice stretches of collected walk, and briefer periods of collected trot.  I didn't ask him for too much - haven't ridden him enough for that to be fair, but he was willing to round up without any head-shaking or nose-poking - happiness :)

Mostly though, we just let them check everything out.  The gates at the far end were open, and Sunny was convinced he should be able to exit stage left.  No wanting to head back to the trailer and buddies for him, there was GRASS down there with his name on it. 

When we were done, I ponied Thunder around so he could get a good look at the bleachers and announcer's stand, both painted a brilliant white, the latter with bunnies under it.  My dad walked Amyra out into the middle to look around. She promptly stopped, dropped, and rolled.  I'm guessing she thought it was like turn-out time back at Eric's.

Pics later - no time to upload before work :(