What a beautiful day!

Very pretty day.... I got home late because of a road closure (gotta love Kansas City) but I was able to take advantage of the nice weather and get to work on the girls.

This is Hope (Hope likes to pose for the camera). She is an absolutely gorgeous mare that my friend Darlene is graciously allowing me to borrow so I can get my riding legs back. She's a very pretty, sweet, well-bred mare. She hasn't been ridden much over the last few years as she's been busy being a broodie, but she's going to be packing me around some this year instead (poor girl LOL). We're both out of shape so we're working on getting into riding shape together. I got to saddle her up and lunge her some today. We both felt great starting out but we both wore out fast so that's as far as we got, but we'll be off and riding soon enough.

It's not really fair of me to post a picture of Paula up beside a stunning mare like Hope (poor Paula got her momma's looks LOL), but here she is...picture taken yesterday while she was playing with Sophie. I couldn't remember if I had ever saddle Paula before, but even if I have it was only once or twice over a year ago. I threw the saddle on her tonight and she did great. I sacked her out, lunged her, and asked her to bend. She did so well....except for the bending lol. This girl has no give at all so we'll have to spend some time on that, but otherwise she did great for what very well could have been her first saddling.

I'll leave you with another Hope pose (she held this position for 5 solid minutes, I swear...). I'm renaming her "Tyra." She wants to be on top. ROFL!!