Susie, Linda and I were trying to coordinate riding together today. Susie was available all day. But both Linda and I had time constraints that didn't synchronize well. Linda had from 9:30 am to 3:00 pm. I had to work at Upper Pond in the morning and then I had an appointment to get my car inspected at 10:30 am. So, Susie decided to ride her horse Dixie in the morning with Linda and then ride Bayzen with me in the afternoon. I called my friend Amy Beem to see if she might be free to ride in the afternoon. She was!! Yippee. So, Susie and I decided to go up to Palmyra and ride with her.
I met Susie at the Exit 46 Quick Stop at 1:00 pm and we trailer pooled in Susie's rig from there. We got to Amy's around 2:00. She had just gotten home from a hay delivery and was grabbing a quick bite to eat. From her house, we went over to Judy Mcpheters house and parked. Judy was waiting for her farrier so told us to head out and she would meet us on the trail after her farrier left. Another friend, Carole Norton would be with her. We tied Bayzen and Luke on the same side of the trailer and Bayzen crabbed at Luke. At the start of the ride we had a mile or so of road riding before coming to the trail. Luke was full of energy and took the lead doing is power walk. That was until we came to some red barrels at the end of someones driveway. Luke froze for a moment, then when I asked him to walk by, he did a "lock and load jaw move" as his owner, Kyle, calls it. Luke turned around and walked a few feet away and I could not stop it. Once the others walked by though, he was fine and quickly moved to the lead again. Big chicken! The section of trail we rode though was not bad. There is still spots of snow and ice in the woods. It was warm enough that the ice was all soft and was not slippery. Susie has winter shoes on Bayzen. Amy has regular shoes on Washburn and Luke is still barefoot. None of them were slipping. It was a little tricky though as there were spots they would break through the ice. Again, it was soft and they didn't drop far but just made for weird footing. Once through the trail, we were then on some lovely dirt roads with some nice hills. I wondered how Luke would handle hill work as we've been on flat ground all winter riding in the arena or at the beach. Luke handled the hills with ease powering right up them with plenty of energy. We did some nice long trots on the dirt roads. We didn't really do any cantering as Susie's Bayzen was getting excited and doing a bit of bucking. We were trotting along at one point with Susie and Amy just in front of me, when a dog on a leash surprised them all moving around behind some brush. Luke put on the breaks hard. Bayzen and Washburn put on the breaks too but both threw in a spin also. Both Susie and Amy teetered to the side for a moment but both managed to stay in the saddle. It was some good riding on both of their parts.
On the way back, just as we got back to where the woods trail was, we met Judy and Carole. We decided on riding back to Judy's by way of the road rather then going back through the woods. The distance was longer going back by road but we could travel along much faster making it the quicker route. Not that we wanted to end our ride, but it was getting late and we didn't want to get caught out after dark. We had a nice long stretch of riding along a dirt road and got in some more nice long trots. Luke continued to move along with a lot of energy. Bayzen continued to get over excited and sneak in a few bucks when he could get away with it. Amy's Washburn was a little excited also and wanted to do some jigging. Ah, the joys of spring riding! We then had a mile or so of riding along a busy road to get back to Judy's house. The road had a nice wide shoulder so was fine for riding on. We did have a truck go by us that had a round bale in the bed wrapped in white plastic. The plastic was flapping and that startled Luke. He did a little dance in place which in turn spooked Bayzen who jumped sideways. Nothing serious though and we got back to Judy's house safely and happy from such a nice ride. We were out for 3 1/2 hours so it was a very good ride and I feel much better about Luke being ready for our first CTR in early May.
No comments:
Post a Comment