Today we did our first official grandmother, granddaughter trail ride! Wooohoooo! Madison, who is 8 years old, has been doing very will with riding Marie in the paddock. She has pretty good control of Marie and understands all the basic cues. So, I figured it was finally time to try ponying her out on a trail ride. I've been nervous about it because............ well, because I'm a worry wart I guess. But, Madison is a still small and my horse, while extremely gentle, is 15H so quite big for Madison. I've used Marie a lot to pony other equines but I've never ponied her. And I did not know how Luke would handle it though I do know that he has been used at least a few times to pony other horses.
Madison and I groomed and saddled Marie first (so nice to have the new barn with center aisle to cross tie in!!!) Then we both groomed Luke. I put Madison on Marie in the paddock and let her ride under the watch of her grandfather while I saddled Luke. I first led Madison on Marie with Luke right in the paddock to see how it went. Luke tucked his butt the first couple times the lead rope went around his butt but then seemed to know what was up and ignored it. Phew! After going around paddock in each direction a few time with no problem, I had my husband open the gate and off we went. The trail from my house is single track so I had to give out enough lead so that Marie could follow behind Luke. And right at first Luke wanted to walk out fast as usual. But, he soon realized I really wanted him to slow down and seemed to realize it was important and he geared right down and went nice and easy on a loose rein. We only went about 2 miles but we did do one long down hill and crossed a stream which Madison thought was quite exciting. When we turned for home Luke didn't speed up at all and carefully led Marie and Madison home. Luke could not have been a better boy and I was soooo proud of him. I feel fortunate to have two such fine equines in my barn as Luke and Marie. And such a wonderful granddaughter of course! It was so exciting to do a trail ride together.
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