Trust is the key.

So, we had to miss church this morning due to sickness! Blech! But, on the brightside, mom and I did get to ride today with a friend from the barn and ride.

We got to the barn and had to find the horses first, so we waited for our friend who was mucking her horse's stall out to finish and then we headed up to the ten acre pasture, which is of course the farthest away! Haha! After getting there, we called out for the horses and the mustang and one of the Appaloosa's (Chip) came running first, then came the others. Last but not least came the lazy Red and Dixie, the 23 year old Buckskin. My horse is such a gentlemen! He stayed next to her, walking slowly for the majority of the walk, then after being picked on by one of the head honcho's of the barn, he took off towards the barn with the rest as us humans walked with Dixie.

Our friend stalled up the rest of the horses and picked out one of her horses to ride. She rode Patches, the other Appy. She tacked up Patches up front, and I tacked Red in the round pen, knowing I wanted to work him a little before going to the trails.

"Uhhh, lady, I don't think we agreed on this whole riding thing."

Once we groomed him and fly sprayed him-the flies were AWFUL today-I tacked up, pleased with his skin, hooray! And hopped on pretty quickly, mom went to go help our friend with Patches while I walked around and warmed him up. I really wanted to work on his trotting today, but every time I decide to do it, I get nervous and just stick with the walk. Red's trot is so bumpy and awful, but I really think he'll improve once  he's worked more. Don't get me wrong, I trust Red, he is AMAZING and is VERY trustworthy, but since I'm not all that great of a rider yet, it does make me nervous, however, I bit my nerves back and trotted a LOT today, and it felt really good! I had so much fun trotting on him!

I also worked on reining. Reining is my biggest flaw, I am bad at it! Haha! I always pull back too much, so I decided to start try to open rein instead of neck rein, I think it'll help.

Red HATES leading when riding, he always likes to be behind the horses, so today I made him lead and he did pretty well. :)

He has such kind eyes! :)

Once we were done we went back to the round pen and untacked. I cooled him off while mom got some treats and talked a little. Once I was done we went to the barn area and sat down and talked with some people at the barn. :)

Miss Dixie kept peeping in on us and looking at us like this. She's such a sweetie!!!

Oh, here's a picture I forgot to upload, mom took it while Red was trotting with his friends...I swear he's dancing.

"Look at what I can do, Ma! I'm running with my buddies!"