It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it

Yup, somebody has to ride the horses so they get some exercise. WOE is me who gets stuck with this job. ;)

Thursday, Foxfire joined me for a ride, since he was down my way in the afternoon. Friday I took Saga out for a really long ride. We took the trails to the arena, did some dressage work, then had a slow ride back home. We ended the ride by going all the way down our street and back - I think I spent about 1.5 hours in the saddle.

Dry creek bed where we cross over.

There's some water in the creek, but it's not flowing.

Excellent spot for a bit of trot/slow canter. Footing on most of the trail is really quite good, with only small rocks.

The teeny brown spot at the end of the trail is a deer. We usually see a dozen or more of them if we ride around dusk.

The "arena" where we ride. No improved footing, but it's flat and doesn't have any holes in it. At one point it had lights, but I don't think there's power any more. The city owns this land; it used to be a privately-owned barn, but the city bought it as greenspace.

The old barn complex. Arena is on the left.

Saga's dressage work has regressed a bit. We were having some fairly major issues with him sucking WAY back on the right rein trot and doing his canter-hop garbage. To the left he was great, though, so I assume it's something I'm doing, as I know I don't ride as well to the right as I do to the left. However, I spent Friday's ride and Saturday's as well really pushing him through in the the trot right, and he was more and more consistent. I think I may be asking for too much bend right and not enough forward, because when I just concentrated on forward it went quite nicely. Saturday's ride was particularly encouraging and I feel like we're getting back on track!

Saturday morning, M.C. joined me and rode Red. I took her on the trails and we did a bit of arena work as well. It's really nice to have someone to ride with!

Saga gets in a good post-ride roll.

The horses will have off the next few days since we're supposed to get some rain, but hopefully the footing will dry out again by mid-week and I can get a few rides in. I also am hoping to get back into taking lessons since I'm now a lot closer to a lot of the big H/J and dressage barns in the area.