But before we got there, Richard asked if we'd like to do a mountain trail loop. I asked him where I should tie Fame up and he said "Why don't you just take him with you." So, not knowing how CRAZY the trail was, we set off. (Here are some pics from the trail.)
At the first hairy part, Fame balked and I lost the rope I was holding him with, but he was so scared, he came right to me. I managed to get off Badger at some ridiculous grade, get Fame's rope and get back on and off we went. The funny thing was that that part of the trail wasn't even close to hairy. There were parts where you couldn't even tell there was a trail - you were going straight up, over solid flat, slick rock, there were hairpin turns - it was nuts! But Fame had learned that his best bet was to follow Badger and I knew my best bet was to just let Badger do his thing. There was a time or two after that where I had to slow Badger up for Fame to catch up, but we all made it with nothing more than a minor scrape on Fame's knee. Whew! Talk about a confidence builder! Then we went to the jump arena.
I tied Fame up outside and Badger and I went inside. Richard set the jumps up so there was everything from one pole laying on the ground to about a two foot jump. I wasn't really happy because I don't like jumping, but by the end of the session, Badger and I had worked our way up to going over a 1-footer and it was quite fun. After lunch, we watched a gate opening lesson and another independent seat lesson and then Richard played with the bronc, Mijo, gentling him with a ring rope around his flank. What a rodeo show that was! During the break, I saddled Fame up and brought him into the round pen where we walked, trotted and loped in both directions unassisted.
It was very exciting - especially the fact that it happened without incident! By then it was almost time for dinner and after dinner, we saddled up, rode up to the big arena and played with cows!
What a blast. Richard had people open the gates and send the cows into the arena, then we all surrounded them and took turns riding through the middle of them. Then we separated them into two groups and, at his direction, cut a certain number and sent then to the other group. By the time we were done, the almost full moon was bright, we put the cows up and headed home. When we got back, about seven of us girls sat out on the patio (it was the first relatively warm night) with glasses of wine, told stories about other natural horsemanship clinics we'd been to and about this one. Another great day.
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