Riding With a Friend From Work

Today my friend from work, Nancy Webster-Libby, came over to ride. We've been talking about doing this for over a year I think and just never made any solid plans to do it. We finally did! We planned a Wednesday ride as I don't work at Upper Pond Stable that morning. Nancy rode the new mule Shots. He's been so good with Brooke that I was not worried. And though Nancy has not ridden in about 3 years, she is a very experienced rider. We rode from my house and I am glad I did not take the time to trailer out as it was quickly apparent to me that Luke was a little off today. I could not tell if it was from being barefoot and possibly getting a little tender from our ride yesterday or his groin muscle being sore or both or....... in any case, I knew I would have to make this ride a short one. Sooooooo, I decided to take Nancy on a short loop on a trail I'd marked out myself years ago and hadn't ridden on in at least a year. Ha! Right off I we ended up bushwhacking around through the woods as I could not find the trail markers. I knew we were going in the right direction to come out on the main trail and we did, but I didn't find my trail. Shots decided to test Nancy and turned her for home not far from my house. It caught Nancy by surprise but Shots only turned around slowly and started to walk back slowly. Nancy was easily able to stop him and turn him back around. He tried it two more times on her but she was ready the next two times and caught him right off and he quit after that. He really was a very good boy. Once out on the main trail, I decided to go up and try to find my trail from the other end. I did and we headed back along it. But, I very much need to remark and clean up the trail. There are a lot of downed trees and we did a lot of bushwhacking again. Not quite the trail ride I had planned for Nancy and I felt bad I had to cut our ride short but she understood and said she enjoyed herself anyway. Hopefully we can do it again soon and I can take her for a much better ride.