Indian Territory Saturday

We timed out at 700 to start our novive 18.1 mile ride. It startedout cloudy, though it didn't look as though it would rain. This is a rocky ride so pacing was a lot of starting and stopping between the walk and trot. We had mostly natural obstacles. The first one right out of camp was a steep uphill observed by the horsemanship judge. Later we had another steep uphill of rock that were a series of steps. The vet judge asked us to put the horses front feet up on a rock. We usually ace this as he likes to step up on rocks. However right as I went to ask him to step up, the horses in front of us started to leave and Dixie ran into Liberty's backside. So, we blew the obstacle. Major bummer. Later we had a mount, which went well. He's super turned on by treats for mounting. I always had to back up to a ribbon and then trot over a bunch of brush. The back as decent, if rushed job. The trot was not good as we smashed the sticks to pieces. Our P&R's were both good, and since it was a hot day, I was very pleased. Liberty has been calm and cool and mostly well behaved and easy to rate He improves every ride.