Busy day today! I'm getting to that point where I cannot seem to remember what happened just a few hours ago, never mind a day or so ago... I'm hoping this blog will help to jog the old memory so that I actually have a few tales to tell my grandchildren beyond "Yes, I went to Argentina for three months and rode horses..."
Katie was given the task of helping Rodrigo with the youngsters today, because with the four new young horses in he's got a lot on his plate what with lunging, backing and riding each of them. That left Alice, Martin and myself to do the riding. First off I got on Uxmal to warm him up for Martin. I hadn't ridden him until today, and staring up at him I was pretty intimidated: he is one tall three year old! But he's also an incredibly well behaved and supple three year old, so warming him up was very enjoyable.
My next horse was Pastrocito, and I had a little jump lesson on him. Martin gave it to me for cutting off my turns and being in a constant hurry; and I have to admit, it was a struggle for me to just take a deep breath, push him into the corners and just ride a floaty course without careening everywhere. But once I did it, I felt pretty darn good about it!
After the lesson I warmed up Luli and Benito for Martin so he could school them. The wind had started picking up like crazy and was spewing sand everywhere; I've yet to excavate all of it from my ears and eyes. The horses were well behaved despite this, though. Since Martin knew the wind was a harbringer of the rain to come this afternoon, we lunged all the Series I horses so they could get a workout in before the ring got too wet. I got to lunge Vitruoso, the four year old stallion. He was such an incredible gentleman. Not only was the wind howling and hurling sand all over him, but a truck had stopped by to drop off a load of rocks, and the men were hurriedly shoveling the rocks off the truck with much clattering. The clattering was spooking the horse lunging next to Vitruoso, and he was capering around madly on the line. What did Vitruoso do? Why, trotted around in perfect balance, not only calmly but with energy and pricked ears! He reminds me of one of those freshly scrubbed, all-American high school jocks that everybody loves, who is a fantastic student, an all-star football player, polite to his teachers and a real charmer with the ladies!
After lunch we rushed to ride one more horse before the rain started in earnest. Then we groomed the horses, cleaned the tack, swept the aisles: all the usual tasks! I have to admit, I am flat out exhausted and just about ready for bed... trying to make it to 8:30 for pride's sake! Not sure whether we'll get to ride tomorrow due to the rain, but even if it's clear, tomorrow is my turn to help Rodrigo with the young ones, so lots of lunging on the schedule!
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