Sarah was kind enough to accompany Desert Prophet and me on our first trail ride!
Sarah is riding Paelka, DP's half brother and leading us just in case... We started out in the arena, and went on for a half hour ride in the woods and even did some trotting! So proud of DP, he is such a good boy!!!

Zoe came in the morning to help clean put the trailer and our show things.

Then we went to see the new filly who was born while we where gone!

We moved Shirin and Leucosia to a new pasture, soon they will be bred.

The boys are quite excited to see them!

Then we moved the geldings to a fresh pasture, and the ponies got moved.

We are on the 8.30pm ferry on our way home as I type this!

Aspen is an amazing beautiful facility and we feel honored to ride there!

Zoe rode Puding, his show name Jumping Jack. His first recognized event. I rode Paktaly.

It rained on Friday and the warm up was quite slippery and Paktaly slipped and did not want to pick up canter anymore...

Then when it was our time to do our dressage test the arena was even wetter and he wasn't very found of the canter...

We did our test, but our score was 44.3

To be barefoot or not...I walked the XC course and it was clear to me I needed more traction...

Zoe and pudding had some trouble settling down, his first show and he was quite excited at first but they had a good test.

After taking care of the horses I made an appointment with the farrier on sight and paktaly got shoes all around and studs in the rear.

We had stadium on Saturday and warm up Watson the grass, freshly rained on so I tried the studs and I must say Paktaly jumped better!

We had a clear jump round, except that I made him trot to change canter lead and we got 3 time faults.

Zoe had a double clear round! She did have to work for it! Pudding took a good look at one of the color ful fillings..

Sunday cross country! I rode first again, and we had quite a few jumps either on a down hill slope or simply down hill...

We had a great warm up and we had a good run, I should have slowed Paktaly down to a trot coming up to the log TM front of the water...we had a refusal there, we had another refusal for the barrel of the army tank,...

After that was about of a gallop to a maximum vertical fence with brush on top I measured the brush where I have my "markers" on my body and it seemed 4foot tall, horses are supposed to brush through, ha ha,...my Paktaly would never do that...so I had my concerns about it, but he jumped it with room to spare.

Next was the jump down hill and by then he was getting used to his new traction and jumped it well.

Then the pirateship, a jump he would prefer to take a look at since it is big, canons stilling out and all, it is wide and the landing down hill, over the speaker I had heard horses had refused it but we went clear! Off to the next water where my next concern was, the up bank to a sharp left turn to a big sushi looking coop going down hill, I had debated circling right if we had a bad landing out of the water but we did well so I did the turn and we cleared it.

We weren't done yet with my concerns on course...the log over the ditch, the ditch to the coop, and the corner and 2 strides to the silver painted wood saw,...but he was such a good boy!!!

We finished 13th.

Zoe had agreat warm up, people were all commenting how cute her pony is!!!

For his first XC competition it is hard to know what to expect, and he did not expect to see jump judges all over the place!!!

Zoe did a fabulous job getting him around the course! Keeping him balanced.

She did get a refusal by the barrels, he spooked at the jump judge! Then she got a refusal at the 2nd water...it is down hill, if she would have trotted...but he's been so good with water...

She got him right in and finished without time faults!!!

We are both happy and learned and will do better next time!

We got picked up at the airport by students and taken into a car to our hotel.

We were a day early and around the block from our hotel was a market with delicious sea horses on a stick and life scorpions ready to be deapfried.

Our hotel was perfectly centered near Tiananmen Square and the "forbidden city", also one of a large wking street with stores like Prada, the alleys with street vendors and a street where nightly vendors sell street food like sheep pense is and testicles, fried spiders and so on.

Besides al these temptations we usually ate at our hotel.

The arts and crafts are so beautiful, it is one of the highlights of my trip, besides seeing breeders from all over the world, and our gracious tireless hosts.

On the race day as usual we got up early in the morning, and as we sat in the bleachers Kerim had the great idea to let us witness the first brick laying of a new building soon robe build.

We had to go for a bit of a walk, and came across thes camels...

None of us wanted to move on, I was fascinated by all the trappings, finally understanding how the are used!!!

We got to the spot just in time.

The white carriage was standing there waiting for the president to arrive and be taken to the race course where the dancers were waiting to perform for him and the streets lined with people waiving white balloons.

Here is the carpeted road for the presidents carriage.

Not only did they perform the traditional dances, they must be getting teams ready for the AsianGames...

During the races we walked the displays of arts again, and the new library with books some written by the president, including cook books and postcards.

Carpet of Boinou!

Orissa helped me take DP for his first pony ride.

Always hard to know who's who, his brother looks just like him!

Talk of the torkoman looking handsome...

He was good with cars, and seemed to really enjoy himself!

Welcoming committee did not make him heard bound!

Back at home there was no time for jetleg.

Only nine days before going to China andots of catching up to do, breeding, riding and staying tuned for competition as I have my first big show the weekend we come back from Beijing....

Little Kara Gush is turning into a swan...

Alajoz her mama looking on...

Moving horses around

An bagful soon moving to minnesota

Losha maturing nicely...

After our ride we drove to old Nisa.

We were free to walk the ruins as we pleased. Nancy is an avid birder, and with her binoculars showed me a bird...that I had seen sitting perched on a pipe dismissing it as a common crow....

Looking at it with the binoculars, I was shocked how exotic it looked!!!!

A Bee-Eater!!! What a magnificent bird!!!

A bit of a life changing experience for me towards birds!!!

We walked around and had our dreams of life in Nisa in its days...

Now the paintings make so much more sence to me!

On Monday we spend the day with Nancy and drove to Ktja's stable to go for a ride!!! Our dream come true at last!!!

Jenny got to ride an AT mare

I got to ride a Yomud

It is April, and it had rained a little, so this must be as lush of a vegetation as it gets!

Here is Katja

And her helper

We rode by some shepherds settlements

This one we rode right trough it...at a canter while our Turkmen guide chanted...

It felt very macabre and there was a lone scare crow....it certainly gave us uh chills!!!

Here is another camp with pens for the sheep we guessed.

We saw quite a few of these nooit ride...

Back at the stables the felt sadepads where for sale and I bought one!

After all these years of coming here...to finally go for a ride in the hills was unforgettable!!!

We walked to the Russian Bazaar a few times during our stay.

And some of the hotel lobbies have great little gift shops.

We saw the endurance races, while the horses were on their rounds we walked the stables of the new hippodrome.

We saw the beauty contest, each horse was decorated in a different theme.