Walkabout Tour 2010 Redmond

I had a weekend away with the girls down in Redmond, Oregon enjoying the Clinton Anderson tour. This is my third time going to see the Aussie. I headed down Saturday morning, the girls were a day ahead of me, so they enjoyed a day of shopping in the lovely city of Bend followed by a night of wine and hot tubing. As I rolled in Saturday, I met my crew headed out for their lunch break....Joni was grinning ear to ear. She just won the grand prize ($800 value) "Fundamentals" program. High five! Guess who is going to borrow that:-)
I missed the morning session, but arrived in time to watch a ground work session with a beautiful, but pushy, dominant buckskin named "Leroy." I took away from this session that I should strive for a "higher grade" with Maddy. She does most of the things I ask, but does she do them enthusiastically or the speed I want...sometimes, but not always. So I am going to raise the bar. I need to raise my expectations and get my horse out of kindergarten.

After that Clinton rode Diez, his quarter horse gelding. Diez looks like a body builder in the horse world, compact and muscle bound.

We stayed with Jim and Shoshana Buckendorf of Suite Escapes. They have a beautiful, jaw dropping property they rent out. We enjoyed the western themed decor, gorgeous copper accents, and big cozy rooms with fireplaces. It was so nice. I feel inspired to re-decorate after staying there. It was amazing.

We stayed up drinking wine and talking horses. We could have talked horses until dawn, but we had a clinic to get to! Sunday we watched advanced ground work, work under saddle, and trailer loading. When it was over, we went down to get our picture with Clinton. Of course, we had to torture our barn owner Tammy who couldn't come due to a agility dog trial. We got Clinton to sign a calender that says "Tammy, Where were you?" Clinton. He was happy to play along. He is signing her calender in the photo below. We missed you Tammy, but Clinton promised to return to Oregon on his next tour.