Just a quick update - John has been sick with the swine flu for several days, so there has been a lot of work to do! However, Tracy has been doing more and more with feeding the barn, and Hakim and Elana have been helping me bring horses in and out. The first couple of days were really rough, because Erin was also out and I had to work all of her horses, so I did not get to ride much. However, today I got to ride quite a bit. Erin, Iris, and Jean are all leaving to go to the ATA tomorrow and will be gone until Sunday, so we will have to keep things running. Hopefully John will get better and come back to work. Actually, I hope he comes back, because we don't actually know where he is right now. Regardless of all the work I have been doing, I am staying positive. I know that Jean is seeing how dedicated I am and has been grateful, and I am making it clear that I am working so hard because I really want to ride. She says that I have come so far, and she really wants to make sure that I can continue to ride and improve, which really means a lot. She is also giving me a raise which is nearly unheard of!

We just had a pony come in for training, and guess who gets to ride him - me! He is so gosh darn cute, I just want to eat him up! I will have to get pictures, he is really something. He is a German Riding pony, so he is really fancy. I also have a new training horse, Raniero. He is a black Hanoverian, really big, beautiful, and athletic. I am doing some ground work with him right now until we are confident that he is not going to over react under saddle. I can't wait to get on him though!

Luc has been steadily improving. He is really smart and seems to think the work is fun. We started doing lateral work, and now all he wants to do is go sideways! I practiced riding a quadrille on him today, and he really did well.