Well, I did do two blogs in the last two days, but apparenly they didn't get posted. I guess I'll start over. I am entered in the Extreme Cowboy Race at the NW Horse Expo and Fair in Albany, OR. It's about two weeks away. I have been working hard at getting myself and my Arab Mare ready. We can go through water, over bridges, through tarp strips, over logs and we can change leads, open gates and I'm even working on my ropin skills. The hardest things that we have been working on for us have been the gate and side passing over medium sized logs. I can do small logs with no problem, but if they get more than 6 inches around she gets a little dramatic and doesn't want to side pass. We can side pass to a mail box and open it and even dally a log behind us. Still not quite right with the haunch turns but I think we will be okay.

The one thing that I am worried about is this coarse will be in a fully enclosed arena. We have worked in many covered and somewhat indoor arenas, but this one will be fully enclosed. I'm worried that it might scare her with the different lighting and shadows. I think we will be okay, but you never know when it comes to horses.

Thursday I worked in the arena for about a half an hour in between rain showers. I did some fun stuff though. There is a gymkhana tomorrow, so we did some pole bending excercises. I thought it was actually today, but it's tomorrow, so I took her to the fairgrounds anyway and worked on our stops and backing up and haunch turns. The last few days have been rainy and miserable.

Tomorrow should be fun. I will try to practice on the gates tomorrow inbetween races as well. Counting down until we leave on Thursday March 27th. I hope we do good.