Riding with Linda in Pittston

12/2/2009

The weather is still holding out and it was beautiful today. Linda and I decided to go riding today in Pittston. Not much water on the trails there and where there is, it is in the open so ice would not be a concern. Nor would I need to put boots on Louie to ride there. I was a bit apprehensive about how he would load all alone. And much to my delight, he loaded up very well. He locked up a few times long before getting to the trailer but that was easily worked through. Then once there, he sniffed the floor for a second, then jumped right in. He did paw a lot but I’m not too worried about that right now. I arrived at Linda’s house and she’d had both of her geldings down in a lower pasture and handed off Gus to me and went to put Mac in the pasture by the barn. Gus stuck his head right in the trailer to see who was in there, so I asked him to load up. After a few tries he did. Two feet, then back out a couple time. Then he hopped on……and immediately tried to turn around to come out. Linda was back by then and it was a bit of a scramble to get Gus secured in and tied so he couldn’t try to turn. He was fine once he was tied. Though we left him tied with his lead rope just long enough so that he got his head over the divider and slobbered all over Louie’s back. Poor Louie. They both unloaded quite well. We got tacked up and headed out with Louie in the lead. He did great. We came to one long puddle and he walked right in with no hesitation. Half way though there was some thin shelly ice and when he started crunching through that, he froze for just a second, then went on through like a good boy. Linda and I took turns leading. Both boys did well. They both eyeballed a few things such as rocks and cut wood. But neither fussed about anything. Gus did spook at some blue barrels on the side of the trail. Louie wasn’t bothered by them. We did a wonderful canter up a long hill. Louie was great and such a wonderful smooth canter. Today I used Ruby’s bit on Louie and he rode just as well in that as the Mikmar bit. Louie loaded pretty well for the ride home. And it didn’t take too long to get Gus on the trailer either. Dropped Linda and Gus off and got Louie home safe and sound. Another great ride on the little brown mule!