Blown Away!

 

 

 (Warning!! This is a Photo-Intensive post. If you don’t enjoy looking at billions of photos of beautiful horses and happy riders, than you might want to quit now. Otherwise, continue on……..)

Last weekend’s back-to-back ACTHA, appropriately named, “Gone With The Wind” Competitive Trail Rides were quite challenging, not only for the horses and their riders, but also for all the Walkin N Circles Ranch Horse Rescue volunteers, too. On Saturday the winds were a steady 40-50 mph all day with gusts up at 70 mph by the afternoon! We could literally lean into the wind and it would carry us. At one point during the day, a gust blew through the camp and tossed a port-a-pottie down on it’s side!

Now that’s extreme weather for a Competitive Trail Ride!

Ranchman’s John didn’t have stampede strings on his hat, so after the poor hat’s last journey blown into another cholla cactus, John gave up and put it away. Jax found it rather funny, though.

 

Quite honestly, I’ve never seen a windmill spin as fast as we saw it on Saturday. This one typically makes a lot of creaking noises as it turns, but not on Saturday. There was no time for noise as fast as it spun!

 Several folks commented that they couldn’t remember a time within the last 15 years where the winds had been that powerful here in New Mexico.

Considering that the only shelter we had was totally open-air Kawasaki Mule, some scrawny juniper bushes and lots of prickly cholla cactus, we had no hope against battling the fierce winds all day trying to keep our eyeballs and skin from being sandblasted right off!   

 

Jax didn’t mind. He smiled pretty much all day long. He was pleased as punch to be able to drive the Mule.

 

I think it’s rather safe to say that Ranchman John was not pleased as punch. He started off in good spirits, but as the day wore on, we could hear him mumbling unkind words under his breath. By the end of the day, Ranchman John was actually quite grumpy.

But, as you can see, Jax was still smiling.

 

Personally I think the ride planners jinxed us all by giving the rides the theme “Gone With The Wind”. Not many people dressed the part of the movie on Saturday because the outfits would have stayed covered by windbreakers all day anyway. And some were concerned they’d be doing “Marilyn Monroe” dress moves with all the wind. I can only imagine how difficult it would be trying to ride a horse with a huge, billowing Antebellum dress over your head.

I still wore my little handmade thrift store outfit anyway. But this was the only time during the entire day that I took my windbreaker off. 

On our way out to the trail, we wished some riders good luck as they were warming up their horses, or trying to stay upright in the wind…or maybe both.

 

These were some hardy, brave souls coming out for the weekend’s rides. We had 30 riders signed up on Saturday and 26 actually showed up despite the crazy winds. Pretty impressive!

 

 

We had our trusty trail map, which ironically looked a lot like a Pirate Treasure Map, showing the location of the obstacles for both Saturday and Sunday and I had already planned which obstacles would make for some interesting and fun photography. Each day's trail was at least 7 miles with 7 obstacles.

Our trail on Saturday was the one of the left, The Pink Trail.

  

My plan was to take a photograph of each rider and horse at two separate obstacles. And to also take a portrait photo of each rider at some point during the ride.

Our first stop for Saturday’s Photo Locations was to be Obstacle #3, The Dancing At The Ball Obstacle, or rather The Ball Drag.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I thought most of the horses did well on this obstacle despite the blustering winds.

This was our first rider and she shared that this gelding was a mess when she got him about 2 years ago. She had almost gotten rid of him on several occasions because he was such a handful. Then she started doing the ACTHA Competitions with him and he became a completely different horse. He was finally interested, focused, and having fun. 

 

 

 

The next few photos show a Mother/Daughter Duo and their good looking mounts.

 

 The daughter was one of only 2 Junior Riders on Saturday. The first 5 Junior Riders who sign up for any ACTHA CTC receive free ride registration!

 

Cute little mustang pony. I wanted to hug him.

 

Each group of riders received a Briefing from the Judges upon arrival to the obstacle.

 

This rider, named Mike, usually rides one of his Paso Fino horses, but he sometimes likes to ride this handsome paint gelding named Chester. Chester is one of our Rescued Horses from WNCR!

 

 

This gal, Kathryn, is on the WNCR’s Board of Directors and often rides the CTC’s on her mare Elektra.

 

And this is Mike, Kathryn’s husband. He’s also on WNCR’s Board of Directors.

 

 

This man and his horse, I just really liked.

 

Looks like he could be the next Man Tracker!

 

This older gal and her gorgeous Arabian are often seen at our local ACTHA rides. Her horse gives her quite a challenge at times, but she does really well and I love to see them in action.

 

 

 These two did a pretty good job even though her horse wanted to take the long way around the post.

 

 

Another duo that did well.

 

 

 

 

This fun lady and her handsome gelding tried hard, but he just didn’t trust that pole.

 

She had loads of patience for him, but in the end they timed out.

 

She still left smiling and he gave me a very handsome pose.

 

This is the lady and her horse you saw earlier in my post when they were warming up before the ride started. I don’t think I saw her without a smile all day long. This is a rider who is happiest on the back of her horse.

 

 

Do you know who this Side-Saddle Rider is? How about her gorgeous Appy? I’ll give you a hint. Her horse’s name is Lady Bug and she lives in New Mexico.

 

Give up yet?

 

It’s our own DunAppy from Bluewater Rangerbreds !!!!

And yes, she really did ride the entire windy trail Side-Saddle….on her prancy, always-got-to-move, Endurance-motivated, beautiful Appy mare, Lady Bug. I would have given her extra points for that…and for not falling off! hehe!

 

This fun-loving, horse-addicted lady is always signed up for any local ACTHA CTCs on her spirited, opinionated Arabian mare. They don’t always do very well in their scores, but they do seem to enjoy themselves. I have a great admiration for this gal, named Dawn. She’s an older rider, with a spunky horse and she’s been hurt more times, and broken more bones than me. Yet, she still continues to ride and move past any fears. I think she’s very cool.

 Ride ‘er Dawn!

 

She’s just happy to be riding her horse.

 

I can’t remember who this guy was, but he seemed pretty uptight. Maybe that’s because his horse was uptight, or maybe his horse was uptight because he was uptight. At one point the guy rode past me and his horse was dancing and jigging all over the place, and the guy looked at me and said, “I don’t think he likes your dress. It must be spooking him so you better keep your distance”. He’s the only rider who turned down a photo op.

Either way, they didn’t seem to do very well on the obstacles and seemed to be constantly arguing with each other. Here his horse is saying, in a quiet, yet firm way, “Hell no, I won’t go”.

 

This is my friend Theresa riding her handsome Hungarian Warmblood/Lipizzaner gelding, Zeema.

 

Theresa and Zeema are hard-core ACTHA CTC Competitors. They rarely miss a ride here locally, but also travel all over New Mexico, Texas, Arizona and Colorado to compete. The two of them, along with her husband Joe and his handsome PMU Paint Draft Cross, are also members of the New Mexico Mounted Search and Rescue and are often seen at different events and parades around the state.

I first saw Theresa and Zeema at a local Route 66 parade over 3 years ago and officially met them at a Renaissance Festival in Santa Fe soon afterwards.

I did a post on that meeting with some awesome photos of Zeema, including some where he was doing the levade and pesade (Airs Above The Ground), which he tends to do whenever he’s tense or impatient. You can see it by clicking on this post: Lipizzaner 

Go ahead and click on that link……I’ll wait.

 Theresa and Zeema are a great team and she is very patient with him and knows how to ride out his Airs Above the Ground. 

 

He’s probably one of my most favorite horses to photograph. He just doesn’t take a bad photo. (You either, Theresa!)

 

This is another of our Junior Riders and she often rides with Theresa and Zeema.

 She has no problems keeping up with Zeema and Theresa as she rides a Thoroughbred and she is one tough, brave gal.

 We all thought K might get tossed when her horse freaked out. Even Theresa advised K to drop the rope. But she held on and gave herself a few seconds to gather her wits and her horse a few seconds to ponder life. And then they completed the obstacle successfully.

 Way to go, K!!!!

 

This was another horse who, quietly, but firmly said, “Hell no, I won’t go” He looked great doing it, though.

 

And he gave me an adorable pose and she gave me a happy smile. It’s not always about the win, it’s also about the try.

Don’t you just want to kiss him?

 

Another rider and horse who gave it a good go, but that darn post was just too scary to get too close.

 

Sometimes I have to make some pretty strange noises, but I love it when a horse cooperates with me and gives me the ears forward pose.

 

This is another rider/horse team that we see at a lot of our local CTCs. They gave it a good try, but it was no carrots for this obstacle.

 

Another perfect portrait pose for me, though.

 

This horse seemed to want to show off a few fancy side-pass moves before sidling up to the post.

 

 They did great on the obstacle, but only the horse gave me the perfect portrait pose. “Human, don’t check to make sure your horse is smiling…...I’ll take care of that…just look at me.”

 

Nice job!

 

Yes! That’s what I like! Even with the helmet and ear muffs and big ‘ol cable sweater….the two of you look Marvelous!

 

This rider, Christy and her gorgeous Arabian gelding are often seen at local CTC’s, too. She is usually riding Side-Saddle, like she did during the Halloween ACTHA CTC last October when she dressed as a beautiful Witch and trimmed a cut-out heart shape on her Arabian’s rump.

 

Today was no different and the two of them were looking quite dapper out on the trail, although her handsome steed was feeling a bit more high-spirited than usual. They started off quite well.

 

But half-way to the finish line, he spooked and must have finally realized the balls were out to kill him. How she stayed on riding Side-Saddle, I don’t know.

But Christy did tell me later that riding out that particular spook was nothing compared to the one he gave her earlier when he managed to get a nugget of cholla cactus stuck in his tail. The wind kept blowing the sharp thorns into his hide and he’d jump and jig all over the place to escape the attack.

Unfortunately without a mounting block, or stump, of which there are none out on the ranch, she couldn’t dismount. So she somehow grabbed his tail and managed to pull the offending cactus chunk out of his tail.  

 

Another perfectly wonderful portrait pose.

 

This is Danny and his beautiful Arabian mare. I first met Danny over two years ago during a Halloween ACTHA ride where I was a judge. Danny breeds and raises show quality Arabians and is a doting and responsible horse owner.

 

Danny is often traveling around to various Arabian Horse Shows but believes that competing in trail competitions is healthy for his horse’s minds and bodies. They sure to seem to thrive and Danny and his Arabians are often ribbon winners.

 

Very cooperative portrait pose! (well except for the nostril wrinkles....sshh. We’ll just ignore that.)

 

This young lady, Jessica and her husband Charles drove all the way from Texas across state lines into New Mexico with their two horses to compete in our CTC rides.

 

Probably from all of the riders and their horses both days, these two riders and their horses impressed me the most. And if there was an Over-All Excellence Award, they would have gotten it. Their two geldings were calm, relaxed, willing, quiet and just beautiful!

This handsome palomino is also a rescued horse.

 

My camera loves him! And she’s got a cute smile, too!

 

This is Jessica’s hubby, Charles. My camera loves this paint, too.

 

Something to think about when you see this horse calmly and willingly carrying out whatever task is asked of him, in a strange place, with lots of strange horses, with blustering, gusting wind…..this adorable fellow is just a two year old.

 

They were both so happy to have a photo of the two of them together on their horses. I guess this is something that rarely ever happens. It should happen more often. All four of them are adorable!  

 

Oh! And Whoooooo is THIS waving goodbye?

 

It’s Theresa’s (remember her and Zeema?) hubby, Joe riding his absolutely stunning PMU Draft/Paint Cross gelding as a CTC Safety Rider from New Mexico Mounted Search and Rescue.

Next up: The Tara Tunnel Obstacle