Susan and Moneypenny

Our friend Susan and Moneypenny are burning up the show circuit! They look so pretty and confident. Someday Paloma and I will be going to the show too!

Camp Ellen July 2008

In July, we went to camp with our trainer, Ellen Eckstein for a week. Ellen and Katie A. helped Paloma learn that she could canter on the right lead! We went from pitching a fit and bucking and rearing to having a pretty nice right lead canter! It was a big breakthrough for both of us, as I learned how to hang in there and not give in when she gets worked up - Katie is my role model for riding what you get, and staying firm, but always being kind and trusting the horse. I'll add video when I figure out how to edit it for the blog, meanwhile, here are some pictures.

September Ellen Clinic

Ellen came to Somerset for 3 days of lessons on Sept. 5-7. It was HOT , over 100 degrees for two of our rides. But, hot as it was, we worked on smoothing out that right lead canter and started working on shoulder in and reverse shoulder in. By Sunday, however, we seem to have hit a bump in the road, as we couldn't get the canter at all. Ellen rode Paloma, and found that she is pretty tricky, throwing out one shoulder then the other. So, now we are going to work on some more basic elements, get the right feel and have Paloma really accept both reins, and get to both hind feet,before we move on. I was reminded that she is a project, although a very smart, beautiful, loving, and capable project. These are the ups and downs we go through. Once you get one thing, you think it ought to lead to another achievement. But sometimes you find out that you still need to work on the basics before you can get fancy. We had a great weekend, with good food and good company, with Ellen, Federica, Sharon, Katie D, Eva, Susan, and Tessa.