October 4th - 8:38pm

Incredibly full day here at the barn! After being out most of last week, today was my first day back in the Rodrigo/young horse rotation. Between 7:30 and 12:45, twelve young horses were worked on the line and then undersaddle.p Or maybe thirteen. Honestly at this point I dont even try to keep track. Some of them were a little fresh after two days without work but everyone settled back into the groove pretty quickly. Now that I understand what Im doing and am improving in my ability to handle the young horses, I actually enjoy the work. Obviously actually riding is my absolute favorite thing but these young ones are fun as well.<br>
About midmorning Martin and Meg packed Benito up to head into town to compete in the Breeders Cup. Thats the young horse style class that we've been getting him spiffed up for. With those two gone and me helping Rodrigo it was all on Alice to start knocking horses off the list. So as soon as Rodrigo was wrapped up for the day I switched over to helping her ride. Holendesa and Mauro before lunch with Uxmal, Boss and Herodes after. Riding still isn't the most comfortable thing in the world with my knee but still determined to get in the saddle. I miss it so much even when its just a day or two off. Cannot wait until Im back riding at 100% though. I feel so weird trying to change my balance and motion to compensate for newly weaker areas. But definitely not going to complain. Just as long as I can keep riding.
Since there was a decently long list of horses and for the most part just Alice and I riding (Martin and Meg did a few before they left) we werent done till 5:00 or so. Which happened to be right about when the trailer pulled in. And some great news came with it! Benito had jumped clear in both rounds and was moving on to the classes tomorrow! He'll have to go back tomorrow, jump a couple more rounds and hopefully finish well! Go Benito! Alice is probably headed to the show tomorrow to groom/help so she'll get a bit of a break after the full day today. Fingers crossed for more great rounds and a top finish!

Photo of our house guest at Rancho Pampa for the next little while. Its Pampa!! She's back for a bit and positively huge compared to the first time I saw her. Will definitely get some better picks in the day light tomorrow.