Stepping Up the Pace

I was happy that my new trail riders were willing to ride with me again just the day after nearly overwhelming them with our ride the previous day. Mary-Jo was not able to join us due to work but Cierra and Brooke were ready to go again. I am getting them ready to do a 15 mile CDR (conditioning distance ride) in Fryeburg at the end of July. We needed to start picking up the pace of our rides now. Our only two choices to ride were either my house or Upper Pond as we had more equines than we had trailer space. We decided on Upper Pond as the trails from my house are a bit too rocky to keep up any steady trotting. We'd have to do laps around the trails at Upper Pond but that was ok. I was working at Upper Pond that morning so took Luke and Marie with me to work that morning. Brooke was keeping her stallion in that morning so I put Luke and Marie in his pen. I don't want Marie to have grass and it was the only pen without grass. I gave them hay and they were both very happy to hang out, eat hay and groom each other.

I did a mock vetting today to show Brooke and Cierra what to expect when they got to the ride. Mary-Jo was at the barn right then and she helped us out by watching our trot outs and giving her opinion on how each equine looked. She spotted right away the stabby left hind that Marie has always had and the vets always comment on at ride. Unless it's a vet that knows Marie and knows it's not a problem. The temps were was only in the 70's but it was quite humid and felt much hotter. We tacked up and headed out. We walked them around the pond once to warm them up then picked up a trot. They all did good and I was so pleased to see what a nice steady trot Tinkerbell had. She just did great. We did several laps and on the first one Tink attempted to go back to the barn. Cierra handled it great and got her going back down the trail quickly and Tink was great after that. After a few more laps, we stopped at the pond to sponge them all off. On the next lap, Brooke got a call that she needed to come back to the barn. Her farrier had arrived to take a look at her horse as he'd been a bit lame. So, we took Brooke back to the barn, I quickly unsaddled Marie and put her back in the stallions pen (Don't worry, the stallion was still in the barn) And then Cierra and I headed out again. We went down the driveway and then down the to the trail just 3 houses down from Upper Pond. This trail has lovely footing. We trotted down to the end and back. This time as we trotted by the stable it was Luke that made the move to go back as Marie was calling for him. This too was quickly nipped in the bud and he was a good boy after that. We did several more circuits of the trails behind Upper Pond, stopped again at the pond to let them drink and sponge them off. Tinkerbell did not drink and this worried Cierra. She told me Tinkerbell doesn't drink well when they go to shows either. We walked them back to the barn from there. Just as we got back, the sky opened up and it started to pour. GOOD TIMING! We untacked in the barn and then we did a "final vetting". It was a good ride, productive ride.