Buckshot feeling his oats

Open Barn at Upper Pond Stables

Today was a really fun day over at Upper Pond Stables in Litchfield. They had an open barn today and lots of fun activities and demos. They day started out cloudy and chilly but not bad. I trailered Buckshot and Marie over around 11:00 am. Brooke and I were doing the obstacle trail course demo at 1:00 pm but I wanted to see some of the other demos going on earlier. When I got there, I unloaded them and tied them to the trailer with lots of hay. Brooke came out and we groomed them both and saddled them up so we would not have to rush when it was time for our demo. We had only practiced the course just once the previous day. While that went fairly well, Marie was feeling quite fresh and kept putting in a buck each time we went up over the bank jump. Buckshot decided he would do the coffee can drag but he did not want to go near the fiberglass fence posts we'd set up to loop the end of the drag's rope on. They were electric posts and he was NOT going to touch them. Smart boy, but not good for the demo.

(The Chickens were having a great time hanging out in all our trailers. Silly things!)

This morning I threw in a couple extra obstacles so we had a water obstacle, tarp to walk over, sand pile to climb over, bank jump, triangle of logs, stone wall, coffee can drag, bridge, tires to walk through, side pass pole, backing, ditch jump and a gate. Just before it was time for our demo, it started to rain quite hard. So, we switched times with two other demos that were to be done in the indoor arena hoping the rain would pass. As luck would have it, the rain did pass. Brooke and I hurried out and did a quick run through of the course before everyone came down to watch. When it was time for the demo, both Marie and Buckshot did fantastic. They did each obstacle calmly and competently. I led the way with Marie and Brooke followed. I handed the rope for the drag off to Brooke but then Buckshot did go close enough to the fence pole so Brooke could hang it back up. GOOD BOY! He even did the side pass pole. He was unsure of what he was supposed to do but Brooke was calm and patient with him and got him to understand what she wanted. Once he understood, he was happy to do it. I am blessed to have two such wonderful equines.

After the trail demo, I did a quick talk about competitive trail riding and did a brief demo on the vetting process. Katie helped us by doing the trot out. I played the part of the vet judge and Brooke was the lay judge. Marie played herself. When we were done, we tied Marie and Buckshot back to the trailer and went in to watch Mary-Jo's bareback bridleless demo with her horse Tanqueray. She did a great job with this and everyone enjoyed it.

Brooke doing a showmanship demo with her horse Levi

Mary-Jo and her mare Mustang mare Tanqueray doing the bareback, bridleless demo. 

Frye Mountain Ride With the Posse

I had a great ride today with some friends I haven't ridden with in way too long! Caleigh Wright and I have been posting on facebook that we haven't ridden together in a while so she picked a date and time and made it happen. We decided on riding at Frye Mountain in Montville, ME. This is a game preserve and there are many wonderful riding trails and dirt roads. The original plan was for a friend, Kerry, to ride my mare Marie. But, I ended up trailer pooling with Linda so Susie brought her mare, Dixie, for Kerry to ride.  Linda, Kerry and I met at the Exit 46 Truck Stop in Richmond. I hooked up with Linda there and she hauled us up to Frye Mt. We all arrived around noon time. The original weather report was for rain. Then it changed to just chances of showers. We hit rain on the drive up but it was fine when we got there. It was overcast but quite nice overall. After joyful greeting between riders and equines, we saddled up and headed out. 

Amy led us onto the "secret trail" It's a trail that is closed to motorized vehicles and is quite challenging in it's terrain. The first obstacle for me is the trail starts with some tight squeezes between trees. My mule Buckshot is quite a wide boy. I was pleased to find that he would aim square between the trees with no direction from me and he didn't knock my knees at all though we brushed on both sides on a few of them. We had such a cold snowy winter and a late start to spring so the trails were still muddy in spots from frost coming out. We really rode through some rough spots on the first part of our ride. There were nine of us riding and all the horses and my mule handled everything very well. Kim did a bit of trick riding when her gelding Reiny decided to leap up a large bank instead of picking his way though boulders down a river. And Buckshot refused to cross a muddy little stream when I was leading but followed Amy's horse across with no trouble. Buckshot handles tough terrain in typical mule fashion, carefully and calmly. 

After the single track trail we got out onto some snowmobile trails and dirt roads. Some of the snowmobile trails were still muddy from the late spring. But again, all the equines handled it fine. Several of us were using hoof boots on our equines and were surprised no one lost a boot. Kim's horse lost a shoe but all boots stayed on. We stopped to let the horses graze in a nice field. We enjoyed relaxing and visiting with each other and even managed to line up and pose for a group photo. 

On the snowmobile trail, we came to a spot where some beavers had built two dams right across the trail. We had to ride right over them both to keep going down that trail. It was very weird riding over the dams but all our animals made up proud by calmly handling yet another tough obstacle on this ride. But, there are going to be some very angry beavers tonight, we made a mess of their dams. On the way back to the trailers, we did get in one little canter up a dirt road. Buckshot was very good but he did throw in one little buck at the start. It was a very hard ride for Buckshot. He is not yet in very good shape and we were out about 3 1/2 hours. I was so pleased that he never ran out of energy and was very forward and eager the whole ride. This big bodied boy is surprising me. He only slowed down on one big hill about 3/4 of the way up.  Once back at the trailer, we untacked and I found I may have to reevaluate how my saddle on Buckshot. My knees really hurt when I got off. And Buckshot had dry spots on his back and had a small girth rub. Hummmm. I try one of my other saddles on him for the next ride and see how that works. Linda and I let Gus and Buckshot roll, much to their delight, and then loaded them onto the trailer with lots of hay for them to munch. We all gathered and had lunch and visited for a while before heading home with promises of doing it again soon. It was a wonderful ride with wonderful friends. We hit rain on the drive home and were thankful that the weather had held off and stayed nice while we were riding. 

TROT Club Ride In Acadia