First Trail Ride of the Season

Saturday the neighbor stopped and asked if I wanted to go riding. "Heck Yeah!!!" I was a little nervous since I hadn't been on Rain for a serious ride since last October. The trailer was still hooked up to the tractor and Mike is out in the Black Hills hunting. The neighbor didn't have a trailer either.

So we decided to do it the old fashion way and meet in the middle. Rain of course was a total ditz and flipped out for the first two miles that we rode until we met up with the neighbor. She'd already gone a number of miles. Her four year old did WAY better than Rain, who is twelve. Go figure!

By the time we met up with each other (and we'd only gone two miles and the neighbor had gone three) Rain was in a complete lather. I was slightly embarrassed to show up with a horse that was all lathered up and dripping wet but I guess it does Rain good.

We rode about eight miles total. The first two miles with just me and Rain were a little un-nerving since I wasn't sure what Rain would do. But he did ok. After we met up with the neighbor we rode three more miles back to her house. OMG is all I can say. Gorgeous house!

Rain behaved the entire time we were there too! I didn't think to bring a halter so I tied him to the rail with his tie-down and he didn't break his bridle or anything! I was rather pleased. By the time we got to the neighbor's house I was ready for a break. I think Rain and I are definatley out of shape.

After our break, the neighbor and I headed back around the long way to my place. She left me at Hwy 19 so we could both go back to our places. I was a little nervous. Rain of course started to flip out. I figured the only way to keep him calm was to keep his feet moving. Unfortunatley he let out a little buck at the trot/canter. I decided after that, no more. We'll walk and he'll just have to walk and whinny at the same time. He was a good boy and wasn't flighty for the most part. I think we were both tired by that time.

We finally got home about 3pm. We definately need to get more miles in. And now that I know the neighbor is only a few miles away, we'll be making more trips. Hopefully I can try some of the other horses out too. I had thought about taking Chaos but he was still full of cockleburs and I may have a bit of an ego and didn't want to show up with a horse with a cocklebur unicorn. :-) Maybe next time it will be Chaos's turn.

I am thinking of taking Zeke and Chaos up to Madison this weekend to get a few miles in. Once I know how both of them are doing, I'll switch to Maverick. I figure Zeke will be pretty good on trails (jiggy but good). I'm a little nervous about Chaos simply because he hasn't had enough miles on him yet. I really want to get the miles on Maverick too. I think he'll be a great horse once he has more miles and more experience. He gets bored so fast with arena work, so trail riding will do him some good.

If I have time, I'll blog about Brego and the trainer.