Week Overview (10/12-10/17)

     Monday was my sister's bday but I still got to ride my baby girl.  I walked over to our new ranch from the high school (took about 20min) and lunged Phoenix.  I brushed her down in the round pen because I didn't feel like tying her up and then we worked bareback for awhile.  She is getting better at listening to leg pressure and giving to the bit (though she got a little sassy today).  We are still struggling with leads but I'm hoping if we keep practicing our butts off we will have them down good for state in November.  I haven't been using spurs or a crop much lately at all but today I had to really get on Phoenix about working.  She got kind of lazy and refused to go faster than a walk.  I didn't have any artificial aids (nor do I want to use them unless I really need to) so I ended up bopping her with the reins and she listened fine after that.
     I'm finding my seat a lot better and I rarely even think twice about riding Phoenix bareback anymore so yay!  When we were done I hosed down my girl and put her back into the turnout.  Then I was picked up to go celebrate my sister's 12th bday and eat the awesome cake I baked from scratch.

     Wednesday was race day and so I grabbed Phoenix after school and took her out to the rodeo grounds to run.  I haven't ridden her Western or practiced barrels in a long time but Phoenix warmed up nice and ran an amazing 20.8!!

     I guess the time away from racing did us both well and I was definitely a lot less nervous to run.  I know we can do better and that with more practice we could maybe even get faster.  Sadly I only got to ride Phoenix twice this week because I went out of town on Friday to go up to CA to attend a Luke Bryan Concert!  

     The concert was a blast and Dustin Lynch, Randy Houser, and Luke Bryan sure put on a show (even though Luke was sick and had to improvise a little bit).  They all sounded great in concert and you could tell that they love what they do.  The covers they did sounded cool and you know it only got better once they started doing shots and drinking whiskey haha.  We all crashed hard that night and slept in a ton due to going 24hrs without sleep.  My sis and I had a mini picture session on saturday.