Fortunately, I decided to start by giving him a quick warm-up in the indoor arena since he had been quite fresh on Saturday night. At one point at the walk on Saturday, I dropped a stirrup by accident, and in the wriggling I was doing trying to get my foot back in, he interpreted this as "she must want me to canter like a maniac". Sigh. Then later in the evening, he had another one of those stupid spooky moments where he freaked out at his own shadow. His own shadow! And man, that shadow thing will chase you wherever you go. It took a while to remind him he had a brain. I mean, what are they feeding him!? I can only imagine someone has switched out his Fat and Fibre for the Stupid Spooky Supplement.
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| Maybe I need a vacation |
We went just the two of us,* and he was a bit spooky. Luckily, he remembered that he is usually the smartest horse on the planet so when he "spooked", he would just stop until I asked him to go forward again. I wanted to go into the woods to where this nice little field was.
Unfortunately, the woods part has a pretty steep hill. On the way back, he kept wanting to trot down it, and I kept wanting him to walk since I could just imagine the King of the Forehand toppling down the hill head first. Anyway, he decided that my plan was a stupid one and took off at a canter.
There comes a point in every trail rider's life where they think: should I do a one-rein stop on this steep hill and narrow path that will probably result in us either slamming into a tree or rolling down this hill sideways, or should I simply let my non-jumping horse continue cantering downhill towards that big log in our way even though he can barely manage a crossrail? I went with number two. We survived the jump, and then Walker thought, "Hey. I'm in control" and kept cantering down the path while low-lying branches whipped me in the face. So I did a one-rein stop into a tree.
The rest of the trail ride was quite nice.
*Disclaimer: I know that it is unsafe to go on a trail ride alone. I'm not a big fan of "rules". Don't do this at home, kids! For reasons enumerated in this post.
I almost always trail ride alone because Archie doesn't like to follow. And likes to kick the heads of those following him. It's a lose-lose. I say, so long as you have a cell phone and there might be someone at the barn who would noticed a tacked up horse wandering about without a rider, go for it! At my old barn, a solid 95% of my rides were completely solo, so I might be a little less cautious out of necessity.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I almost always ride alone, whether it's on the trail or even in the arena. My life is hard enough to schedule, let alone including other people in that whirlwind. However, I can understand why people think its dangerous,
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