Day 24 – 30 Day Horse Challenge – Your best riding friend

Well this one comes at an opportune time...or I made it that way with my neglectful posting habits. My best riding friend is actually leaving this weekend to have an amazing horsey summer working as a wrangler at a dude ranch. So jealous! Uh, I mean happy for her, that's the one.

We actually became friends last summer while I was teaching at Gentle Giants. She and her mom are both horse-crazy, and they live not too far from me (but over an hour away from Gentle Giants--yikes!). I really feel like I found my horsey family with them since my family is not really very into animals, but I go over to their house and their three big dogs shower me with kisses while we all chat about what's going on with our riding, and until recently, our horse searches. She and her mom were leasing a Friesian for a few months, then decided to go out and buy a 4-year-old draft cross, much to the chagrin of their trainer out in VA.

His name is Champagne Wishes & Caviar Dreams, AKA Wish

They've had him since March, and he's green, but such a quiet, nice boy. They let me ride him a couple weeks ago, and he essentially has the mind of a draft but he moves like a warmblood. Not a bad combination! He's at a really nice private farm with fancy synthetic footing in an outdoor arena, plus trails and an XC course in one of the paddocks.

So I'm sure she'll be sad to leave him all summer but he'll still be around after she comes back from her wrangling adventures...which she is writing about on her new Tumblr, East Coast Wrangler.

I'll miss tack store runs and getting crepes in Georgetown with her this summer...I guess I will just have to make bad decisions at Saddlery Liquidators' Memorial Day sale by myself!

P.S. -- The Fix-a-Test today went great, and Midnight's owner took video for me. Super tired after 12 hours at the barn though so I'll save that writeup for tomorrow.