Arrived at the Clinic

 

The drive down to Foothills Equestrian for the Centered Riding clinic went really well this morning. I left the house at about 9:30 so I missed rush hour traffic through Greensboro.  Seven lanes of traffic going each direction is a challenge, made even more so when hauling a large trailer!  My copilot mostly slept on the drive, Rizzo had full faith that I’d get us wherever we were going.

Once we arrived and got unloaded and parked, Rizzo made friends with 3 dogs and got into an argument with the 4th...  but since Rizzo's on a leash I think it will be ok. All the other dogs are loose, but so are all the elderly cats and I don't need her to chase or pounce on someone else's cats.  

Highboy settled right in like he comes here every weekend.  He has two full water buckets in his stall but has been reaching over his door trying to reach the water spigot to turn that on for a beverage.  Hazards of having a tall horse with a long neck who likes to play in the water.

In the evening I put Rizzo in her crate in the trailer and took Highboy for an easy ride.  We cruised around the covered arena at the walk, trot, and canter, which was a little challenging because he is a very large horse and it’s a relatively small arena. After the riding lesson in the outdoor arena ended we moseyed up the little hill to hack around there.  They had a few small jumps set up from the lessons, and Highboy fairly dragged me to them in his glee at being presented with his favorite activity. We popped over each of them, with only minimal shenanigans.  He mostly jumped in a civilized manner but did party a little over one of the brush fences to entertain the spectators. When the next riding lesson horses came in we wrapped it up and got out of their hair so they would have the arena. It occurred to me that due to a conglomerate of reasons, we haven’t jumped together since last October, a full year ago. It felt like we’d just done it last weekend, a real testament to how well Highboy and I fit each other.

I wore my yellow shirt and used one of my favorite yellow saddle pads, which got us several compliments!  Of course Highboy was sporting his yellow Chameleon Browbands jewelry to match.  When I was here back in July I had given one of the other riders a Chameleon Browbands business card, and she had bought a browband and jewelry online. It is such fun to share the matchy matchy guilty pleasure with a new friend!