So, today Susie and I were planning to meet our friend Mary Batt and her daughter Lorien in Andover, ME. The riding is so nice there. It is about a 2 hr. drive north west of where I live. Susie was going to pick me up and 9:00 am. When I got up this morning, it was raining pretty hard. The weather report called for some morning showers but not hard rain. Then Susie called me and said that Mary was having some electrical problems with her horse trailer. So, we decided to ride from where Mary boards her horse in Farmington. That is a 1 1/2 hr. drive north west from where I live. And Mary said it had already stopped raining there.
So, Susie picked me and Luke up at 9:00 am. It was quite cold and I really wanted to put something on Luke but the one blanket that came with him is a heavy winter turn out blanket. That was more then I wanted. I decided to get out my nice wool cooler. I figured it would be too small and look kind of silly on him but much to my pleasure and surprise, it fit him very well and he looked so handsome in it. We arrived at the boarding stable about 10:45 am. The stable owner showed us where to park and we had Luke and Bayzen off the trailer and were grooming them when Mary and her daughter arrived. It was still quite chilly and very windy but the rain has stopped so we were happy. The stable owner and one of the riding instructors both brought their horses over to Susie's trailer to meet Luke. They felt it was a great training opportunity. Both horses were very curious about Luke but neither one was scared of him. Mary had a bit of trouble catching her mare as she was running around her turnout like a crazy thing. The stable owner said she had been running all morning.
We headed out a little after 11:00 am. We had packed lunches but decided to eat when we got back from riding. Luke was ready to go and walking out very fast as was Susie's horse Bayzen. The were both ready to do another 25 mile CTR! Mary rides a Missouri Fox Trotter and her mare Jasmine move along quickly and is in fairly good condition. Lorien's horse I believe is an Arab but he has not been ridden a lot this year and is not as conditioned as the rest so was quite a bit slower. The first part of the trail had some nasty muddy spots. Lorien was falling behind us and then her horse would get anxious. She is a good rider and could handle him fine but it was hard on her if he got fussing through the mud. So, we finally put her in front. Luke wasn't happy with the slower pace but was not a bad boy about it. He was very worried about Mary's mare also. He really did not want to be close to her. The dynamics between the 4 equines was not relaxed. We finally came out on a nice trail that took us up to the top of Bannock Mountain. What a fantastic 360 degree view from there. It was just fabulous.
Susie and I told Mary that we did not want go back the same way and slog through the mud again. She said we could just ride down the mountains access road to the paved main road and back to the stable that way. We were fine with riding along the paved road as it's a fairly quiet road and better then the mud. As we started down the Bannock Mountain rd, Luke had a little temper tantrum. Susie got out in front of us and he just did not want to be with Mary or Lorien's horse and wanted to glue himself to Bayzen. We got into a brief tug of war that I wasn't going to win but I cued him for some lateral work and did a few circles and he settled down....grudgingly..... When we got to the bottom of the mountain road, we found ourselves on a dirt road, not the paved main road and Mary didn't know where we were or which way to go. We took a right and rode about a 1/2 mile but Lorien felt we should have gone left so we turned around and rode about a mile in the other direction. Now Susie was feeling that we really should have kept going to the right and Susie has a very good sense of direction. So, we turned around and rode back the other way again. At this point Mary called the stable owner to ask where we were and indeed we needed to take a right off the Bannock Mountain rd. We had a few mile to ride down the dirt road and it was really nice. Susie saw that Luke has lost a front shoe. But, Luke was not showing any signs of being at all sore so it was not a problem. Then we came to the main paved road and rode this for a few miles. There wasn't much traffic and we had no problem. We then got back on trail for the rest of the ride and this trail was all very nice too.
When we got back, we loaded the equines up and drove over to Mary's house and had lunch. Mary just had a new house built and it is lovely. We had a nice time visiting. It has been a long time since I've seen Mary and I have never ridden with her daughter.
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