My First Post

If you want some background information about me before you start reading about my life, visit my website: http://www.schmick.org/

I had such a good weekend that I decided to finally start a blog and write about it. I met a woman through the local FOSH group named Libby. She also has a Spotted Saddle Horse, whose name is Natural Ice. She wanted to meet me and Apache because apparently there aren't very many people around here with Spotted Saddle Horses. So, we agreed that she would come by my barn this weekend to watch my Saturday lesson on Apache. She sat on the bleachers with my trainer and some of the other folks from my barn to chat it up while I rode. Apache was pretty darn good, not surprisingly – he knew he had an audience and he is a big ham. Libby later told me that she could see him eyeing them every time we came around that side of the arena. His gaits were right on and his canter was nice – he was being good about his headset, after all the work we've done on that lately. After the lesson, Libby was really excited. She said his gaits were awesome and he had one of the nicest canters she'd seen on an SSH. She chatted with me for quite a while after my lesson. She couldn't get over Apache. She said he had incredibly good feet, she loved the angles. She said his confirmation was perfect – short back, nice croup and haunch, perfect neck size and arch, beautiful face, great legs. She said, "I'm standing here looking at him thinking about what I would change and I can't come up with a thing. He's perfect." She said over and over how sweet and how beautiful he was. I was having a major proud mom moment. It was such a thrill to have someone else who's into gaited horses and knows the confirmation and the bloodlines and has been to the shows come over and say all these wonderful things about Apache. I certainly think he's beautiful, but it's nice to hear someone else say so. : ) I can't wait to get to some shows out here now and see how we do. It will be very different, I hope, than trying to show in Texas where the performance horses are what's popular.