Nothing I see can be taken from me

Lots to write about today! Lucky readers. har dee har.

One of my very best friends brought her horse down for the day so we could drink heavily work diligently on all things dressage. She had a really great lesson. My lesson was OK, but Hamps just wasn't in a great mood. The instructor I have been taking some lessons from recently does not have great things to say about Hampton sometimes. That may or may not get (yet another) bitchy post about these damn instructors. I just want help in how to ride my horse better. Keep your nasty comments to yourself.

But oh well. She did not ruin the rest of our day in which I drank WAY too much, or the next day in which we went on a 4-hour trail ride around the connecting trail system.

It was AWESOME! So, we may have gotten "lost" but who cares! It was sunny, breezy and we saw some stunning places on the trails. Both horses were impeccably behaved. I was so thrilled with Hampton and he seemed more than happy to get out of the sandbox. He is a solid trail horse. I couldn't get any photos of the difficult terrain because I was too busy grabbing mane and trusting Hampton with my life. 

Hamps walked around like this the entire time.

Some of the trails started to get rather "challenging" and at one point we almost turned around because there was a ditch with a drainage pipe in it that looked rather sketchy. Hampton was unsure at first, but I just patiently kept asking and he jumped the damn thing! I mean, if you are going to go trail riding, might as well do it right! What a horse. He's no dressage ring snob that's for sure.

Front of the sales pavilion

One of the places we trespassed upon came across was the old L'Esprit sales pavilion. I am not positive, but from what I've heard this used to be a rather grand sales/auction barn for Arabian horses. It was owned by a shiek. It has 52 stalls but the barn area is very run down. It has not been used in years. The pavilion though it kept up rather well and is rented out for weddings, events, receptions, etc. A lot of the old parade railings are still up from the sales days. The place is for sale, by the way, if you have an extra $8 million lying around.

Old parade lane

Right up next to the pavilion.
haha big old Hampton next to my friend's elegant pony

Lane from barn to pavilion
Hamps: "Oh look that's neato!"
Simone: "Who gives a shit."

We ended up doing a big loop, but just didn't realize we were doing a big loop. Our 2 hour trail ride turned into 4 but oh well. We saw multiple abandoned farms (NICE ones, with covered round pens, etc), llamas, many creek crossings, banks, ditches, steep inclines, rocky areas and plenty of wildlife. All 4 of us were pretty tired when we got back. The hangover certainly wasn't helping at that point. lol

Yay! We found a road! We will get home now ...
1 hour later...

More trespassing

I've also been doing a little of this ...

Please ignore my pasty white equestrian legs.

And finally, the big news ... there is a new furrball in my life. 

Meet Buckley!

Life's not too bad at the moment. We have a show this weekend and I am super excited. My only goals are to improve on our scores from May. And to have finish a bottle of wine have fun.

Cheers!