Merry Christmas and yee haw!

["Karen Sullivan" <greymare@jps.net>]

MerryChristmas to everyone....thought I would share yesterdays horse story.

We woke up to foggy and cold Northern California weather and spent the
morning cleaning house frantically as two of my husband's sister's were
comming for the night.  His sister Linda was going to be bringing a new
boyfriend, and she wanted to know if we could all go for a short ride.  He
had only ridden a rent horse, once.
Linda is athletic, but hasn't ridden for years.  I told them to bring bike
helmets (or borrow mine), wear biking tights, and sneakers.  I put the guy
on Connor's horse, the one I feel is the most steady for beginners; still,
she has lots of go.  But I assured them we would only walk.

My daughter Brenna wanted to ride her own Arab, so I had to decide wether to
put Linda on the laid back and slow, but green 5 year old, or my
fire-breathing cantankerous and difficult-to-slow-down big mare, Chancy.
Gut feeling told me to put her on Chancy.  After all, we were all walking
and Chancy should be fine.  I took them to a long uphill, climbing a local
mountain with a nice view.

Got them all situated and stirrups set, gave the guy rudimentary steering
instructions and we were off.
The sun came out, one of those just brilliant, crystal clear days.  We
started up the road, all the horses walking energetically.  Norms mare
lagged, so jogged to catch up, so he got used to some short trots. He
thought it was fun.....so we did some trotting, which everyone handled fine.
Brenna lagged behind so she could canter her horse to catch up.  As we
climbed, we could see all the valley below,  with is't patchwork of
vineyards, Walnut and pear orchards and pastures.  Far mountains were
covered with snow from the storm the day before.  The lake (Clear Lake,
largest natural lake in California), was smooth as glass and reflecting the
surrounding hills.  As we came into our favorite straightaway, Linda
discovered Chancey\s extremely slow, comfortable slow canter.  That picked
up a bit, then Norm was cantering too.  The green 5 year old I was on was
handling this all fine (thanks to daily riding).  On the last hill before we
turned around, they wanted to canter again, so off we went, straight up into
the sun, so blinded you could not see the road
(but the horses knew it well), just riding blindly, but into the warmth.  It
was just awesome.  Norm  was so incredibly jazzed and Linda too....both
handled the horses well and had the time of their life.  Brenna had waited
at the bottom of the hill, then let her horse go all out to catch up, so
just blasted up about a quarter mile gallop.  It was just an incredible
Christmas Eve ride (and i got 4 horses exercised!)

Hope everyone else has peace and happiness and awesome rides in 2002!
Karen Sullivan