Colours in my life

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Stepping out in Hungary

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So its the last night at the ranch in the steppes, or grasslands, of Hungary. Its mostly quite flat in an undulating kind of way with patches of forests and marshlands. This national park is a bird sanctuary and we see the occasional deer along the way. While much of it feels familiar because of the sand and pine forests, there are a few notable differences. First, the sand roads go on for long distances which has us often cantering 3-5 km stretches. Thats 3-4 times the distance we generally do at home. Second, there are no electric high transmission power lines to mar the view. Third, the grass sections stretch out for miles in each direction with a view that is not customary. The ranch is great. We figured out a good rhythm after a few days that had us gathering in the sauna and jacuzzi in the evening because there is literally nothing else to do. The beat here is very relaxed, and we have all achieved a great zen state. We had a good reining lesson this morning when they p...
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Golden 2 0 0 🎉🎉

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Annual Trail Rides: 200/200 (Bareback 29/40) It was a big lofty goal, but today I did my #200th trail with Q, through all kinds of intemperate weather, discomfort and fatigue. Essentially I did a trail ride 2 out of every 3 days despite ice, scorching heat, wind storms, pouring rain and tornado advisories. We still have another month to go, so I can already consider this goal achieved. I still have my bareback goal to work on, but Im feeling pretty good about that one too. It was just a gorgeous autumn day, slightly warm at 13C with deep blue sky and bright sunshine. Not a cloud in sight. Footing was good too, so we cantered with much delight. We covered lots of ground and stayed out almost 3 hours to snatch some last golden pictures of Fall 2021.  
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My worst hour

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We were midway on what was to be our longest day. We had just met with the ground crew after a lovely swim across a river where my Nippissi greedily drank after four hours in the dry canyons. We dropped off one of our guides and switched it out to have one of the volunteers join us for the afternoon drive. We would be without help, water, or access to civilization for the next four hours. I chose to carry on. One of the guests bowed out. We followed our young intrepid guide up the road, and then crossed a gate. I remembered the stories told on the first night about accidents happening on this section. The gopher and badger holes create tripping hazards for the horses, and one very skilled rider and horse flipped over at a full gallop with the horse crushing the pelvis of the rider. The supposed lesson learned about this story is that we must pay attention, and if we feel ourselves fall to just let go. Other stories of rattlesnakes were told.  So here we were, following our leader t...
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Just enough spice

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Its been a rough go these last few weeks between a significant increase in work, brutal cold snaps, icy trails and skating rink parking lots. Ive only ridden a handful of times on those rare occasions where the universe converged. This has made for a spicy pony and while it makes me more prudent on how I engage in speed when the brakes are fairly absent, it also makes me super appreciative that this spicy horse does keep his excitement under wraps most of the time. Clearly Q is fit and feeling good, and his daily turnout with bestie Chester is absolutely insufficient in expending energy. Especially since these two lazybouts just stand in a corner watching the world go by.  We went out today after a little snow fell to cover our thick ice. Footing was good, and it was our first outing in over 10 days. The strategy is always the same: long steady trots for 5-10 mins until Q starts relaxing and blowing through his nose in loud bursts. During the first stretch we kept on trotting throu...
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Bucket Lists

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Annual Trail Rides : 148/200 (Bareback 10/12) Ive been wanting to do this for a long time. Ive been amping up my speed on trail quite intentionally, being more consistent with canter departs, lead changes, and transitions. Ive also been working on much longer canter stretches, pushing my endurance and managing my breath.  The result is that Q has now defaulted to a lovely cadenced canter on trail for long consistent stretches, while I have dropped all contact and sit on the buckle. Which helped introduce two bucket list items: 1) cantering downhill (Im so fearful of tripping hazards since my last horse was a daisy-cutter) 2) I managed to film a long sequence with my phone while cantering on the buckle Talk about trust! The small clip is below. Ive also been spending consistent time with my horse loose grazing under the power lines after a ride and bath. He loves it because his turnout is in a dry paddock! And recently he has been coming to graze next to me, while I sit in the grass...
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