Chaos's Second Major Trail Ride

Saturday we had our first official trail ride for the Minnehaha County Saddle Club. We scheduled the ride for 10am at Newton Hills State Park. Dad volunteered to go with me so I wouldn’t have to go alone. It’s a bit of a drive; we headed out about 8:30am.

Since King has a bum shoulder, Dad rode Rain again and I rode Chaos. Chaos did very well. This was only his second serious trail ride and he keeps improving by leaps and bounds. (He’s only been ridden three times outside of Borderlands so far.) Parking was a bit tricky. I hate that parking lot so of course I lost my temper (as normal when it comes to the truck/trailer). But we finally got settled, met all the people who were going to ride, and headed out.

We rode for about an hour. Rain and Chaos did very well. We rode in mostly wooded areas which is completely different for both Rain and Chaos. We had a bunch of hills to climb up and down. Poor boys had a workout. Chaos was completely out of shape but he’s so young it didn’t bother him. Rain has been trail ridden but he’s out of shape so was huffing and puffing. But I think that was more out of excitement than anything else. I wish we could have stopped to take a few pictures but there wasn’t any place to pull off the trail.

After riding the trails for awhile we decided to head back and have our potluck and schedule more rides. I was anxious to head back out on the trails so Dad and I ditched everyone and headed back into the woods. Without the security of the herd, Rain became very flighty. Poor Dad had to deal with Rain’s nervousness and quick reactions. Not good for a guy with vertigo!

But we managed to get Rain calmed down, and headed back out to the trails. We did encounter a few objects that Rain spooked at. You know the average rock, clump of dirt, and bicycle. Chaos only spooked because Rain spooked, otherwise he would have gone on as normal. I guess Dad and I should have switched but with Chaos only having one other major ride under his belt I didn’t want to offer. Dad had to get off Rain a couple of times. It was the safest thing to do. So here my safe little gelding wasn’t so safe after all. Poor Dad ended up getting into some itch weed to add insult to injury… well, I guess it’s better than having Rain spook and Dad getting dumped.

We rode for another couple of hours and got back to the trailer about 3pm. It was a good ride although I wish we would have had more time to ride the trails backwards. I also wish we could have had another couple of horses along so that Rain wouldn’t have been so spooky. But it did the horses good. I think we need to haul the horses over to Newton Hills a bit more next summer so we can get them into shape for when we head to the Black Hills.

This trip was the farthest I’ve driven in awhile. It was also the longest that Chaos had ever been in a trailer. He did very well. Only once did he get upset and make the trailer rock. But it was to be expected, since we drove past road construction. The last two times he got sweated up just a little but this time around he wasn’t sweaty at all. But it could be that we were on interstate for awhile and the sweat dried. I guess he just needs more trailer time. I need to start loading Chaos and Maverick into the trailer and drive around the section, unload, reload, and drive around. It all takes time.

But all in all it was a good experience for both the horses and humans. I’m not sure we’ll get back down to Newton Hills again this summer. I’m hoping to get down there one more time this fall. The trees would be gorgeous. But we’ll have to go with a few more people from the other saddle club. They are a bit better about humoring me with pictures.

I'll add pictures later today.