Welcome Back RAC!!!

YAY!! We're back!! I first joined this awesome Competition (if you can call it that!! Really? It's too much fun to be a contest!) in 2010 when my horse, Linus was just a weanling. As you can see in my pictures Linus (HCH Make My Day) is a smooth-coated Curly. There seems to be a trend here with some Top O The Hill horses and Linus falls in there too with his dam being OYY Uptown Girl (a daughter of the famous Lily!) and he is sired by WW Moonshadow. 

I found Linus in an ad advertising him as a hypoallergenic foal. Which was perfect because my husband is allergic to pretty much everything!! My father had also recently given me the go ahead to get my own horse after a neighbour had tried to get me to buy or breed his aged QH mare who also had some behaviour problems. So, I met Linus when he was 3 months old and it was love at first sight. I visited him as often as I could until he was ready to come home. 

Home for us is in a currently very cold Eastern Ontario!! I have included some pictures from earlier this year to give those who don't know us an idea of Linus and his personality. He is a 16hh, 1400lb puppy dog!!! I swear he does not realize his size. 

But as you can see, with my 6 year old son Owen below, he sure is a gentle boy. He loves kids!

Now, whatever antics I get up to with Linus - these are photos I will cherish!

And back to the cold! I was able to make it out for a ride on the first day of the RAC but not today. It is so windy here I think I would be blown off! 

In addition to Linus, we have 2 other horses. My Dad has an Arab cross and my son has a Paint. My husband, son and I live about 3 minutes away from the farm where I grew up. This is where our livestock stay and living off farm helps with the allergy thing! We also raise purebred Black Angus and have started our calving season this past week. This was a big reason for my ride on Linus yesterday. Not only has it been a crazy week and I was dying to get out on him but I also wanted to do some coyote patrol!We found a lot of tracks parallel to the farm on one of the trails that borders us. On these winter treks, I often cannot be bothered lugging my saddle up from the warm basement where it is kept for the winter so I use my bareback pad a lot! I love it, it is a lot warmer and I find it really helps work the seat and legs and improve balance!

Some of our goals for this year include riding around our country block bareback, hitching again (it has been a while!) and really just further developing our scope of activities. I do some fun trail rides and a couple of fundraising rides throughout the year but really, I was born a horse crazy girl and now, at 30, I am still as horse crazy and just love getting out and working with the horses! Linus is the first horse I have raised from a foal and I have thoroughly LOVED the experience. You cannot beat that bond!

I am looking forward to this year's RAC and following all of your adventures!

Happy trails!