Mother's Day

Once a Hobo

Chocolate Amigo

Happy Mother's Day to all you ladies. It was a good one here. I hope it was the same for all of you. My Navy son is traveling but I got an email last night from him and he called this morning to wish his wife a Happy Mother's Day and told her to be sure to call me. He is out of the country on Navy business and it is not easy to get a call through.

My youngest daughter Debbie was working at the hospital today but got a few minutes to call me and wish me a Happy Mother's Day and I got to wish her the same since she is the mother of two almost grown sons.

My son Mike and his wife were sitting on my deck when I got up to wish me a happy Mother's Day. They were here for supper and we had a great cook out. There is nothing like steaks on the grill with all the trimmings and banana pudding for desert. Not to mention fresh lettuce and green onions out of the garden.

My daughter Mary Beth was here with her granddaughter so we saddled up Hobo and Melissa went for a ride on her. I still am keeping Melissa on lead line especially since the only places I have to ride right now is open and I don't think that Hobo and Melissa have come to an understanding or agreement on who is boss yet. They both believe they are the boss so that pretty much means Hobo is since she out weights 6 year old Melissa by several hundred pounds.

Hobo is a really nice mare. She is only about 14.2 or 14.3 hh. She is a awesome black with a beautiful white blaze on her face. She has a really sweet disposition. I think when Melissa rides her a few more times she may convince her that she is the one in charge. Melissa is gaining self confidence and is understanding how to make her go where she wants her to go. We worked on the steering wheel today.

Melissa already knows how to make the mare stop. She knows if she won't stop when ask to then she pulls her head around and rides her in a circle until she does stop. I was also working with her to let her know how to train Hobo to stop and stand. I told her to tell her to whoa. If she doesn't whoa then she pulls back on the reins until she does stop and then count to 5 and release when she stands still for that count of 5. This is a refresher of what she is learning in riding lessons. So we were doing some practice to get that to come more automatic today.

Hobo is already good at all of this. She has had a lot of training. She was going for training in the show ring but she wasn't quite making it for showing so I bought her for a brood mare. She is a terrific riding mare so we will be riding her until she gets so big with foal that it would be uncomfortable for her. That means she can be ridden most of the summer since she won't foal until March of next year.

I did not go to the N Middletown Show yesterday. I had promised to move some horses for the girls that come to the farm to help me once a week. One of my boarders had someone coming to look at her TWH that she wanted to sell so I stayed home to wait for what turned out to be a no show. That's ok I guess. I got a lot of mowing around the house and barn done. So it was not a wasted day.

But I did miss what turned out to be a great showing by my chocolate gelding, Chocolate Amigo. He placed 3rd out of a class of 9 or 10 Trail Pleasure entries. This is only his second time in the show ring. When I was at Cool Shade Stable last week, Chris and Stacie were teaching him to back up. This was one of the things he hated to do. But according to Stacie, he did a nice back up.

Stacie was pleased to report that people came up to her after the class and wanted to know who that gelding was and who owned him and where did he come from. There were some of the big names in the business that was very impressed with him. He is a stunningly beautiful gelding and he looks better this year than he ever has. I have Chris and Stacie to thank for that. I took him there and he was looking rough after a hard winter and some of the other horses picking on him.

Stacie has brushed and brushed him until he lost all the winter hair without having to body clip him at all. He has had some really good feed that has brought the shine out in him and made him look smooth and shiny as silk.

Thank you Chris and Stacie for another excellent job of training and showing. I think he will do nothing but just get better all the rest of the year. We didn't make the winner's circle yesterday but we will be there sooner or later.

Later everyone

God bless you and keep you in his loving care.