Bear would be so jealous if I told him...

Lola and I went cross country schooling!

Just a sneak peak...more photos on Lola's blog!

Of course, at this point, Lola thinks going out of the arena means strolling along a trail, and generally relaxing and taking in the sights. That's because I've worked very hard to ingrain that in her! So she headed out to warm up on the course with big relaxed swinging strides and things got better from there.

I am so excited to have taken her out, and were head back this next weekend to compete in the horse trials. This is great news for two reasons: I'm SUPER excited, and with it over I can start splitting my time a little more evenly between the two beasts. Bear needs to get conditioned if I want to start really stepping up his training this summer. The next horse trial at Eventful Acres will be in July (on my birthday weekend), and based on what I saw of the elementary course, any horse that can lift his feet to step over something at a walk can probably handle it! So the goal is tentatively set to take Bear out for our first horse trials.

Of course this is contingent on Lola being sold. Otherwise Lola and I will be pushing up to compete BN in July. She's been simply fantastic lately. The horse market is weird, so I know I won't get a ton of response to her ads, but I really can't imagine some one NOT taking her home if they tried her! She's just so much fun.

Anyway, big open grassy fields to canter in, this is just something that I know Bear will be great at. How high he can jump is a question we can figure out later! I don't really know that I have the guts to compete any higher than Novice, and I think he can do that just fine. So now that he's five this year, I'm eager to get back into work with him and bring on the fences!