Trail Riding

I'm happy to report that our newest boarder, who has been a friend of mine for years before she started boarding here last month, is down for trail riding pretty much anytime. I live 35 minutes from a wonderful state park with lots of dedicated equestrian trails, but what with cell signal being non-existent there, the forest being incredibly dense, and ground bees and timber rattlers being regularly reported on the park's Facebook page, I never feel comfortable going alone.

4 out of our 6 horses were on the move Saturday morning!

In a lot of ways, new boarder feels like Future CobJockey. She has a 19 year old QH who is her absolute heart horse, and she bred her to get her next riding horse 3 years ago. That baby is now 2, and she's doing all the things with him I'll be doing with Disco shortly.

Girl can drink a beer while riding one and ponying another. Meanwhile I spilled White Claw all over myself just trying to ride one horse down the trail, lol.

On Saturday we took them out for baby horse's first trail ride, just a quick 90 minute loop in our local state park. We kept it positive and he was a really good boy, although he had Feelings about baby's first water crossing:

"NO."

He was a good boy though, really stopped to think it through and explore and make good choices, and pretty quickly she had him through it 3 or 4 times, back and forth. She apologized for holding us up, but I was like no no, in a few years you'll be returning this favor for me, lol

As is his MO, Connor did not appreciate standing still on the trail waiting on baby to cross the water. I know I should work on that but as I always say, he's not for sale. Disco, however, will be learning to park it quietly wherever I put him!

We kept it pretty short for baby horse's sake, but also for Connor, since this was his first long ride in his Western saddle and also my first time taking the Scoot Boots out on an actual trail (although I've done a lot of riding in them at home).

Pony's first time wearing a rear cinch, and as expected, he didn't even blink.

Happily, we had no equipment issues outside of temporarily losing a Scoot Boot once when I steered Connor into some mud that went UP TO HIS KNEES. Sorry buddy. And I didn't have my mud straps fastened correctly, which didn't help.

But the saddle performed great. Since it isn't the absolute perfect fit that my jump saddle is, I sprung for a Toklat T3 shimmable woolback pad, which Mary set up with the shims where I needed them. The sweat marks were nice and even when I pulled it off and he wasn't back sore at all.

Looking forward to doing this a lot more in the future!