Visiting Emily & Rico

We had an astounding day today!  We went to visit Emily, who lived next door to us for years, and who Liz and Amy grew up with.  She was going to the stable where she keeps her horse "Rico" to ride him and give him exercise.  I took so many photographs that it's not even funny, so I will post them all here and you can kind of figure out what is going on in each one.

Here is Emily and Rico in the exercise area where she works her horse.  There are bleachers at one end where we could sit and watch.

Here are two photographs of Emily riding Rico.  She competes in horse shows as an amateur and is a showjumper.  But she was not jumping today.

Kathy loves being around horses and started grinning the minute she got into the barn, and of course had to pet Rico in his stall when we met him for the first time.

Emily suggested that we could bring some carrots from the store, with the greens still attached, to feed Rico after his workout.  So here Vivian is the one to hold out the carrots for him to eat.

After their workout, Rico was rinsed with water from a hose in a special stall used for baths, and then soaped down, and then rinsed off.  Then Emily put a bridle on him and just took him for a slow walk around the grounds where he could eat some of the grass outside.  It was such a cool thing for all of us to see what goes into a workout with a horse and rider.