First Beach Ride of the Season

Most people look forward to summer so they can go to the beach. We equestrians here in Maine look forward to winter........ so we can go to the beach! We are allowed to ride on the beach from October 15th to May 1st. There are two good riding beaches less then an hour drive from where I live. We decided to go to Scarborough. There is a 6 miles stretch of beach there that is split between the towns of Scarborough and Old Orchard.

Vicki Austin on her wonderful pony Baby

Cindy on Luke and Susie on Bayzen.....and Baby's ear

My friend Susie and I had planned to ride but made the last minute decision to go to the beach. The weather was good and the tide was right. In December here in Maine you have to grab every good opportunity you get. I picked up Susie at 9:45 am and after a stop for gas and a quick stop at the Scarborough town office to purchase a season permit to ride at the beach, we got to the beach around 11:00 am. This was the first time I'd taken Luke to the beach but I do know he's been before with his owner, Kyle. So I knew he'd be fine. Another friend of mine was already there and out riding when we arrived. There was one other horse trailer in the parking lot. It was a harness racing horse and driver just coming off the beach. We often see harness racing horses out on the beach as it's such a good place for conditioning them. We quickly tacked up. Being the Christmas season, I left the silly elf hat I had put on my helmet for the Christmas parade I rode in last week. And I put Luke's elf hat on him. I didn't want to be the only one looking silly.

When you first get on the beach, above the high tide line, the sand if very soft. This worried Luke a little bit but he followed Susie's horse, Bayzen with just a little bit of snorting at the sand. Once below the high tide line, the sand is nice and firm. We headed down toward the Old Orchard Beach pier. Luke usually takes the lead when with Bayzen but he decided to let Bayzen go first today. BIG CHICKEN! And he really wanted to keep Bayzen between him and the ocean. About 1/2 way to the pier, we met up with our friend Vicki on her wonderful Appy pony, Baby. Luke was really keeping an eye on all the Sea Gulls. He was quite suspicious of them but only kept a close eye on them. As a mule that lives with guinea hens, I was surprised he even noticed them. We stopped to take a few pictures of Vicki and Baby riding in the surf. Then Vicki and her brave pony led the way under the pier. We did a lovely long trot and canter down to the river and crossed that and kept doing down towards the Camp Ellis jetty. There was a short stretch of soft sand that we walked through then nice going again down to the jetty. The equines showed us how well their brakes worked a few times as we trotted up on some scary, equine eating, water filled dent in the beach sand or ribbon of  running water. And once as we were passing some rocks that Luke was intently staring at, a wave snuck up behind us and attacked us. Luke spun around and showed us how well a mule can run backwards. It was funny!

The pier at Old Orchard Beach as seen through Luke's ears

Just after we'd crossed the river again and were back on the Old Orchard section of beach, we had two German Shepherds approach us and they did not look friendly. The circled around Susie's horse with hackles raised and were growling. At first we didn't see anyone that seemed to be with the dogs. The dogs got behind Susie's horse and were sniffing his legs. Bayzen was not happy about it but he stood still and stayed quiet. We then noticed, quite a way down the beach, someone hurrying in our direction and yelling for the dogs. The dogs were not paying ANY attention. The owner finally got to where we were but she was unable to catch and restrain either dog. Dogs are NOT supposed to be off leash on this beach. The dogs did get away from the horses in their attempt to evade their owner and we rode off. The dogs did follow us for a short distance but when we picked up a trot, they gave up. Dogs don't normally worry me but these two dogs made me nervous as they really looked like then might go after Susie's horse.

We did another nice long trot most of the way back then walked then the last 1/2 mile or so to let Luke and the horses cool down. Luke, Bayzen and Baby were all so good and we had a wonderful ride. And only 3 people asked me if I was riding a donkey.   On the way home we stopped for a quick bite to eat and coffee. We dropped the windows on my trailer so Luke and Bayzen could stick their head out. From where we were sitting in the restaurant, we could see the trailer and it was funny watching the two of them playing around with each other.