Athena's New Pictures

Hello everybody! I know it's been a while, but life has been extremely buisy. I'm going to start off by giving you some background on the many photos that I have posted. They are all of Athena, who is now a year and five months old. It will be our one year anniversary of Athena belonging to us on October the nineteenth. We've been evaluating Athena's confirmation, however a lot of things could change. So far, though, she looks like she'll be a pretty good jumper! A few days ago, Java had an interesting experience. My friend Melissa came over after school, and we worked with Java. We started by longeingwalk trot and canter, then longeing Java, who is now two and eight months, over her very first crosspole! Java did a wonderful job, although she was a bit confused at first. She really wants to please people, though, so she came up to the jump, looked at it for a second, then gave a big hop over it! We then decided that I would ride Java bareback with Melissa leading. Java is totally fine with being ridden bareback, and I was wearing a helmet, so it was fairley safe. We did some walking and trotting, before I hopped off and gave Melissa a turn. This was Java's first time with someone other than me getting on and trotting her around! It was very exciting. Java seemed to handle it fine, which is good considering Melissa will be the one showing Java when it comes time because i'm a bit too tall. Anyways, this morning I had a riding lesson again, which went very well! After some warm up, Thunder and I did a figure eight at the trot, then cantering over poles. It really was a good exercise, because once you go over one pole, you do a lead change, then have to straighten out for the next pole. Even though we weren't actually jumping, Thunder still got very excited, and I had to sit tight and do some major spongeing and half-halting to keep him under controll. That's the only thing about Thunder, he does get very excited about jumping. It makes for a pretty fun ride, though! Once I got home from lessons, I groomed Athena, who is looking pretty good as far as weight goes. She might even be a bit chubby! I don't mind, though. Since she's a growing thoroughbred filly, going into winter with a little extra bulk won't hurt! Anyways, I hope you all have a good weekend, and for those of you up here with me in Canada, happy Thanksgiving!