I didn't take a single picture of India today despite having the camera with me. Why? Because I was too busy working and riding her, that's why!

I had such a wonderful ride with India this morning that I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone better than Jenny to start your youngster. Today we worked more on softness on the ground, which translated into a really nice horse when I mounted. We've moved from one rein stops to consistently asking for softness and a feel of India's mouth and she's coming along so well. We had quite a few 20 meter circles where India was soft, bent, and really using her back end very well to power through. We'd do those in the corners and then I'd give her a loose rein as we'd go down the long side of the arena to give India a break and also to encourage her to move on out freely and with impulsion and she did. It was wonderful. After a bit of that, we took a ride around Katie's farm and opened and closed six gates. India is really doing well there, too, if I can figure out the best attack. Again, rider incompetence is so often to blame! But when I had it together, India was side passing and leg yielding and backing when asked so that we opened and shut all those gates with minimal fuss. To a non horse person that doesn't sound like so much, but to anyone who's ever tried it, well, you know how difficult it can be and how quickly things get discombobulated. There was no discombobulation at all. Sweet!

We rode for about an hour and a half and then I stopped by Washington Memorial Park in downtown Macon to hear Shawn Mullins give a free concert. He played for about an hour and it was good. This is the second time I've seen him perform for free in Macon and I feel rather lucky.

This afternoon Diana, John and I ran for two miles. I've been running for the past week now since Jann and I decided that we're going to participate in a ride-and-tie race in September 2011 that's held in Tennessee. Jann and I met running and we love to ride and fortuitously, our stirrup length is the same as we found out last weekend when switching between Asia and India. Why aren't we going to aim for September 2010? Well, not only is work keeping me from getting myself and India ready in that short a time frame, but the rules require that the horse be a minimum of five years old and as you know, the POTU is only four. And although I've run a marathon (1997's San Francisco Marathon), I've not run further than a 10k since 1998. Yeah, I can run Macon's Labor Day 5k for the past two years without really training, but I don't think I can do 15 miles the same. So, stay tuned.