It’s my busiest time of year, and most weeks I’m only home a couple nights—which makes owning a colt challenging. Pepperoni is the kind of young horse that needs to be ridden daily and kept busy. He’s the equine version of a Border Collie (busy-minded, afraid of nothing, smarter than his own good and on the lookout for trouble) . Often this time of year, due to my travel schedule, I might go a couple weeks without riding him. He gets daily handling, exercise and ground work in my absence, but typically we have a few wild rides upon my return.

He’s still prone to exuberance (bucking) on occasion and sometimes his red-headed temper rears its ugly head. He’s not a horse you want to pick a fight with, but if I ride it out and quietly but firmly lay down the law, he usually complies. So as I headed up to the C Lazy U Ranch earlier this month (in our brand new LQ trailer!), with both Pepper and Eddie in-tow, I was a little unsure of what kind if horse I’d have to ride at the clinic. This was Pepperoni’s first trip to the ranch, and since I also had to teach off him, I was counting on a drama-free weekend. I was thrilled with Pepper’s performance at the clinic—there were plenty of distractions to keep his mind occupied (keeping track of the comings and goings of 200 horses and 100 people) and back-to-back 4-hour days of riding meant he wasn’t looking for extra work.

I took Eddie up to the ranch for the first time at the same age—he was a rock star then and now. He’s now 11 years old and this was his 24^th trip to the ranch, so he was a great role model for the red tornado and a great mount for Barbra Schulte to teach her clinics from. It was a wonderful weekend—Barbra and I love working together and the ranch is the perfect spot for everyone to come together to enjoy horses, people and good times!