Barn hosted fun day

Yesterday my barn hosted a member breakfast and ride. They served breakfast from 9 to 11 and then hosted fun arena games or the chance the ride out in groups in the hills. My partner had to work so my friend J met me there for breakfast and a short ride before the rain put an end to our riding. At least the short ride we got in was fun! We did have to switch horses part of the way through the ride cause Pixie (who she was riding) was getting a bit nervous and not wanting to listen. It was thundering though and the barn was crazy busy! So I put her on Jess for the rest of the ride and of course he was a champ! She had to leave by 11:30, but since it rained she left right around 11. I waited out the rain inside the tack barn with a bunch of other people. As soon as the rain stopped we headed to the outdoor arena for some fun filled competitions. I put Pixie away and used Jess for the games. Why would I use Jess...well because I knew we had a better chance of winning, lol. Pixie is a great riding horse, but hasn't been around a ton of craziness like Jess when he did rodeos.

The view while on our short ride. The rain was coming!

The games started close to 11:30. We competed 3 at a time in most of the games. Then the winners had to go against each other.
First race...Move three sticks from one bucket to another bucket at the other end of the arena. You had to move one at a time and circle around the barrel that the bucket was sitting on. Jess and I won!! He got out there and loved it! In the championship round (lol) we came in second. We lost to a 30 yr old mare, lol.
Other games included: Racing down to the far end of the arena dismounting and running back to win, Balancing a stick on your wrists while weaving in and out of cones. A team race where we had to each hold on to a towel and race down to the end circle the barrel and weave in and out of the cones to the finish line. My second match in this game was with C and her horse Spirit. Jess and Spirit made a good team. It wasn't pretty as we played bumper horses a few times while trotting around the cones, but we made it home for the win :) Then we did a slow trot race, who ever was the last to cross the line won. You had to trot and couldn't break gate. We came in second, we lost to a Haflinger whos short legs helped him, lol.  Then we did the egg and spoon race. In our first match we made it to the finish line with the egg and in a dead tie with T and her horse Red. I was shocked since Red is a 17 hand TWH. So we had to go again. Our second time I lost my egg literally 2 inches before the finish line, lol. I was trying to give it one last push as we were once again in a dead tie with T. The last game was a backing race. We had to go put our stick on a barrel and then back to the finish line. It was a short distance. Jess won this by a land slide, lol. 

The games ended around 1:15. It was a fun filled few hours, lots of friendly competition. It was nice to get to know some new people at my barn and some people that just came for the day with a friends. I also got the meet the owners of my barn. They are very friendly and a fun couple. They ate with us and rode in some of the games. In fact the owner was the only person to fall off while playing the games. She flew around the barrel too fast while trying to grab the stick,but she jumped up and finished the race, lol. All in all everyone there was great to hang out with. What a fun friendly atmosphere!

My awesome partner Jess and I waiting for the fun to start

Some of the crowd before the games started.