Sunday 17 August 2008

Two old pics today I am afraid. This one is from the Welsh Pony Show. This lady is riding her little stallion without the bridle on, she is very talented. She asked me t capture some shots of her after the one class because no-one had ever done so, they were more in awe of what she was doing than thinking about hitting the shutter, I was too LOL

I am sure some of you have heard about The Extreme Cowboy Race here in US which is aired of RFDTV where they have all sorts of obstacles to do and tasks and the quickest time wins. It is held in a few elimination rounds and she got Reserve Champion at the one last year on a grey pony that she also rides. I know she competed on this pony this year but I dont know where she placed but know it was in the top 4. If you click on the link above you will be able to see a video of the race and most of if not all of her ride if you can sit long enough through the ads LOL. Definitely worth watching. My point is that This little stallion would rather ride without a bridle than with one, the only reason he is riding with one here is because it states he has to in the show rules!!

I didn't take my camera with me yesterday because I anticipated a green newly broke horse to be a handful in the forests and on the trails, first time out, boy was I ever wrong!!! Cayenne was an absolute star. We had a long ride and she stepped over all the tree limbs, went into the river for a drink and waded through parts of the trail along the river in knee deep water. I never felt her tense up once and you would have sworn she had been doing this all her life, I was so proud of her, considering that I have ridden her maybe a dozen times only in her life!

She wasnt too sure about the mud and the first mud spot we came to we were already in themiddle of it when she realised it was gooey and stopped, but I rode her through it and that was the first and last hint of unease that I had from her.

I nearly ended up in the middle of a hornets nest, literally. There was a downed tree on the one trail so we were going around the tree to make a new track and meet up with the original one and the next second there it was hanging in front of me about 12 feet away!!

I just about had a fit and one of the hornets made a B-line for me, it stung me above the right eye but fortunately it didnt get a good shot and my hair was not tied up because I swatted it off and kept swatting around my head with my hair flying all over the place so it got caught up in that, and yelled at the guy in front (who had stopped) to keep going, if the rest of the swarm got a hint of his attack they would all be onto me in no time. We put some mud on it and it is nearly gone today. I have been taking a lot of antihistamines because of the pollen so I think having that in my system helped a lot too.

The nest was about the size of a football, I have never seen anything like it. Thee was another one on the main trail hanging directly overhead of where you ride which we already knew about and they are going to have to find a way of moving it because you cant ride under it. I am just thankful it stung me and not Cayenne, she probably would have reacted to that LOL.

Well that's it for today, I may try to post again later to make up for missing so much time. If I dont hope you are all having a great weekend.

Lori