June Gymkhana

Saturday was the last show for the season for our gymkhana district. I have to say that this was just not a very good season for Lorna. Sierra came down with a cough on Wednesday evening and it got worse on Thursday so we had to take her to the vet on Friday. The cough wasn't anything serious but the vet said she shouldn't be ridden for 3-4 days so her airways could have a chance to become less irritated. Of course this meant Lorna wasn't able to ride her on Saturday. She did have Missy to ride in schooling runs but she didn't receive any points towards year end awards.



Malachi had an off day, actually quite a few of our riders had an off day, but he still improved his best times on 4 events. Overall this has been a great first season for him, it's hard to believe he's only been riding for a year! Since most of his times have been in the A division (higher than the FC division he's actually in) he will be bumped up to the A division next year. His goal is to be running AA times by the middle of next season.



Missy continues to do really well. She's gained quite a bit of weight and is slowly building muscle. Lorna was able to lope her through a number of events and she was a really good girl. She's the type of horse that just really wants to please. I will be taking a few lessons on Missy over the summer so that she and I can build our confidence so we can do longer trail rides.

Lorna doesn't really have any goals for next season. I can tell that this year was really discouraging for her and I'm not sure what her plans are. Part of the problem is that it's difficult for her to watch everyone sailing through the events on these wonderfully trained horses (Malachi included) and getting these really great times while she continues to struggle with a green horse. When she rides her trainer's gymkhana horse in schooling runs she has a blast! I'm confident, if she can continue struggling through and working with Sierra, they will eventually be a really great team but it's going to take a few years to get there. I'm really hoping the next few months will see Sierra maturing so that they can progress a bit more. The most difficult thing for her right now is that she had to back off of training because Sierra was not mentally ready to go any further. I really miss seeing her smile when she rides and I haven't seen much of that over the past few months. She's considering running for Jr Queen in a small local rodeo in September. This particular competition is heavy on the riding with no modeling and only a short interview. She would be riding Amigo for the Queen run, pattern, and cow penning. If she decides to do this maybe it will give her something to focus on and look forward to.