Running Horse Ranch

Good morning long ear lovers! Janine's nine year old standard riding donkey Handy, here for a tune up. Donkeys in stereo this morning when I fed. I love it!

Back to Long Bar again today but I rode Tonka and Paige rode Tessie. This was the first time Paige and Tessie had ridden this trail. Tonka was very happy to be on the trail and led most of the time. A large "horse eating rock" worried him and Tessie took the lead - nice! Lots of hikers, runners, people and their dogs, not to mention the tunnel on this trail. Excellent exposure to many obstacles!

Trail lesson today with Diana and Merry at Long Bar. I haven't ridden Long Bar in a long time. So nice to ride there today! Thanks Ron for standing by our trailers (kind of dicey there sometimes). Beautiful Fall day to ride along the water. So pretty! Merry was an angel today. Hollywood, however, was not acting like a 19 yr old horse :) He was feeling good!

Trail lesson for Bella at the Afterbay today. I rode Bella at the Afterbay last week and it was terrible. She refused going forward, she got humpy underneath me when I asked her forward, she excessively backed up, kept trying to turn back to the trailers and even popped up a little. She jigged all the way back. So today, I took off the pressure of a rider and ponied her from Missy. This allowed her to gain confidence, check out her environment and most importantly- move f...orward! Bella did great. Tried a couple of times to turn back but sorry girl, you're moving forward! She was pooped at the end keeping up with my Fox Trotter. She even walked into the water without issues. I'll do this again next week and build on her trail experiences :)

Lesson with Bella and her owner today at my ranch. Really good progress with both of them. I cannot express enough what a difference a proper fitting saddle and bit make for your horse. Working on being calm and being the leader went so well! Every day and every lesson we build and build on better experiences!

Missing my horse Snazzy. This beautiful Thoroughbred, off the track, was just a wreck of a horse. He didn't make it on the track and was on his way to slaughter. The Pegasus Foundation rescued him and I adopted him a couple of years later. I sure loved that horse and it was a lucky thing for him, he was a lot of work. But, the horses that are a lot of work teach us the most. This horse is the reason I started using Natural Horsemanship training. Snazzy was with me until the day he died at 19 years old. I sure miss him....

Training with Bella this morning. Bella is a good arena horse and riding around the ranch but really struggles on the trail. I started ponying her from Missy so she feels more confident when we hit the trail. Riding and ponying two strong mares is pretty tricky to say the least! Both mares need to move past any "attitude" as I will be doing this on the trail soon. Bella is now being ridden in a wide tree Crest Ridge saddle and a Myler bit. That has already helped her attitude. She looks much happier in this saddle but it will still take time to move her past any baggage she has. Good work to be done this month!

Poker ride at Spenceville. Tracy riding Missy :)

SFHA annual poker ride at Spenceville. What a perfect day for a poker ride. Cool weather, not windy until later, great group of friends and fellow riders! Kelli, Janet, Lisa and I all had a great time. We all hoped we'd win the 20 bales of hay but no such luck! Ah well, next year :)

Diana and Merry here for an arena lesson today. Due to the fires and smoke and Covid and just life, they've been off for a couple of months. That 22 yr old Hafy mare can still be full of beans! Merry got a little grumpy under Diana and Diana shut Merry down like a pro! A great refresher lesson today :)

My donkey Pocito and my cat Sebastian.

Trail lesson with Paige and Tessie on the upper Saddle Dam trail (goes to the Visitor Center). This trail has many obstacles on it, mainly as you ride behind homes with dogs and humans and mowers - oh my! Both Missy and Tessie got pretty rattle by some dogs barking coming back. A year ago, Paige would have fallen apart. Now she is a better rider and more confident. She stayed on Tessie, bent her to a stop and spent some time calming her mare down. Way to go Paige!

This dog was found near Oroville during the fire evacuation. If you know who this dog belongs to, please contact the phone number listed. Hoping it finds it's owners :)