It wasn't very graceful but I managed to leap up onto Major from the ground. Horses take a lot more spring to get up on whithout stirrups. It was afternoon, after our afternoon lap swim and Whitney was taking me for a short bareback ride under strict instructions from her mom to only walk so I didn't hurt myself. In the morning (afer, of course, our ski workout) we had gone over to Whitney's old trainer to watch her cut on Doc. Cutting is a judged event where the horse and rider single out a calf from the herd and prevent it from rejoining the herd, which it wants very much to do. The horse gets to show off its athleticism and agility as the calf dodges back and forth, trying to get around the horse. Now Whitney's mom was bidding over the phone for another Quarter horse to replace the one they had recently sold. They were considering three horses; the first two up for auction quickly got bid up so they were overpriced. That's when Whitney and I left for our ride. We stayed close to the house since we knew Dillon would be up for auction in about an hour, and Doc was tired from cutting this morning. I liked riding bareback, no saddle to bother with, just the bridle and the horse. And I managed to trot without falling off, or even feel as though I was in danger of falling off. I didn't try a lope... I wasn't about to push my luck that far!

We stopped back by the house where Doug and Susan were on the porch with the phone, but Dillon still wasn't up for auction yet so we went back out to ride aroun the field. About 10 minutes later we heard the dinner bell from the house. Figuring that someone had bought Dillon we trotted back (this would sound so much more epic if I had been comfortable galloping) to see what the outcome was. We returned to find the smiling new owners of Starlight Dillon, a buckskin Quarterhorse. It was exciting, I'm going to have to come back sometime to meet him. Tomorrow there is a charity pollo game down the road and I am going to go and see pollo for the first time... I suspect it will be a different social circle than I am used to, should be interesting.