15 mile ride

Today we did a road ride. Heather and Ruth rode down and I rode out to meet them. We connected on Mission and turned around. Sinwaan had been very good to that point. Now that had turned and were heading back towards "home" he wanted to GO. I did not let him go and instead put in in the rear of the group of horses and he had a fit. We worked through our disagreements and settled into a nice pace for the remainder of the ride. It was really nice weather although we did ride through one rain shower over on Beet road. I calculated my milage at the end and as it turns out we did a whopping 15 mile ride today! The other ladies are headed to Home On The Range next weekend and I am flying to Tennessee for my dad's wedding.

Ride on the dirt trail

Today the weather was about 10 degrees warmer than yesterday. The bank said 49 at noon but it didn't feel quite that warm!

After lunch I went out and hooked up my trailer. It was really windy out at the barn so I was glad not to be riding on the road today! Loaded up Sinwaan and trailered over to Heather's.

Ruth, Heather and I did the loop(s) around near the water treatment plant and young trees. There is a short loop that we did about six times, 3 each direction. The horses were slightly better behaved today. Sinwaan seemed really happy overall, although there were a couple times that I had to fight him for his head, he just wanted to run!

The interesting thing I have noticed about him this winter is that he is no longer content to just follow along. He used to be the sort of horse that I could envision in a string of pack horses, just follow the one ahead of you. Lately he wants the lead, he will fight for it and even cop a slight attitude about it. I don't know if he would be this way in other company, but that is the position he intends to hold with these two geldings. His movement is even more extended, really covering ground. I made him follow a couple of times to force him to slow down and try to collect and he hated every minute of it. But we dealt with it and I think it's good for him to listen and slow down when need be.

We tackled the BIG HILL again today. Last week I got off and led Sinwaan down it. It looked pretty steep, not to mention narrow. This time I rode him down behind Otto. He did really well, until the end. It widens out and Otto had stopped to relieve himself. I rode Sinwaan around him since there was plenty of room. At the very end of the hill there was a steep bank. I told Sinwaan "easy," and gave him his head to see what he would do. I was hoping he would sit back on his haunches and ease down it. Nope. He jumped off of it. I had put a hand back behind me to hold the cantle and keep my balance. We hit the bottom and Sinwaan had a buck or two. I am not sure if that was because he was trying to regain his balance or because my position in the saddle bothered him. It was awkward and I am glad I stayed on.

We rode around the grid of trees multiple times, really enjoying the trail, weather and company. It was a really nice ride.

I checked the time when we got back to the trailer: 4:30. We had aimed to tack up at 2:30 but I think I was a couple minutes late. Even with a time allowance we still had a solid 90+ minute ride. Hard to know what the milage is (forgot my GPS again) but I would guess 7-8 miles today.

New trails

There was some concern last night about Sinwaan not eating his hay at feeding time, but I was relieved to hear he dove right into it this morning. When I drove out to the barn he was laying down taking a nap in the sun but when he heard the truck he got up and shook himself off and watched me hook up the trailer. I grabbed his halter and headed to the gate. "Sinwaaaan! Hey buddy, want to go someplace today?" He came galloping up to me. He was eager and ready for a change of scenery!

We trailered over to Heather's and met she and Ruth for our weekend ride. This time they showed me the trails that they frequent out back by the water treatment plant. They are double-track dirt roads that wind around through a grid of trees. It is really neat back there! Footing was great and it was probably mid to high 40s today. It was so glorious in the sun that I only wore my t-shirt and breeches, although at times I wished for my jacket.

The horses were really feeling good today and Sinwaan was testing me quite a bit. On one hill I let him go into a collected canter and heard a shout behind me, Otto was bucking and Ruth gave it a valiant effort but did eventually come off. After that we did more walking and trotting all around and trying to get the horses in a better frame of mind. One loop we did three times and then reversed and did it another three times going the other direction. There was a bit of a hill so it helped to work the horses.

The trails looked so inviting that Sinwaan was pulling me really hard. A couple times I wanted to just let him run but with the earlier misbehaving figured that wouldn't be very polite. :) So we worked on slowing down instead. My arms got a work out today for sure!

Beautiful ride, beautiful trails, and by the end of a solid hour the horses were all doing much better so we ended on a good note and walked them home.

Road ride

Road ride today, new loop from the barn, lots more rock/gravel and harder on the horses without shoes. Thankfully Sinwaan has a new set so he wasn't affected but the other horses were getting tender by the end of the ride. 9.5 miles today. Great weather.

Sunday ride with a blizzard

Today Ruth picked me up and we went out to Heather's to fetch the trailer. We hauled Otto and Quincy out to Sinwaan's crib and tacked up and left from there. Ruth had a plan for a new route today that would take us down some new roads and be a longer distance. It was pretty cold out so we weren't sure we would make it.

We headed up Forest first, since Otto had some time off, we thought doing a little hill work would be good for everyone. There wasn't snow when we started out but soon into the ride the snow started falling, quickly. There were flakes coming in at us sideways, much like a blizzard. Sinwaan turned his head into it since going along on the edge of the road had the snow hitting him in the right eye. We had planned to turn right onto Froghollow but we didn't really feel like tackling all that snow head-on so we turned left instead and had it at our backs.

From there we went up Locher Rd, which I had never ridden on. We turned onto Stateline Rd and at that corner is the Grape Vine training facility. One of the horses in the paddock got so excited to see us ride by that he galloped along and slid and fell down, not once but twice. We were worried about him and we were just walking by. As we passed the large field adjacent to the indoor arena we saw a lot of horse trailers. We saw a large group of people doing what appeared to be a trail clinic complete with lots of obstacles! Later I learned it was the Mark Bolender clinic.

We turned north on Valley Chapel, then left back onto Froghollow and right on Last Chance and another left on Stovall to head home. Sinwaan led most of the way home, a nice big trot. His hooves have been holding up really well but I am concerned that they are wearing down quickly with all this road riding barefoot.

All told we did 10.1 miles today! I mapped out the other route we would have taken had it not been a blizzard and that would have only been 9.5 miles.

Road ride

Trailered over to Heather's and we did a bit longer ride today. It ended up being about 9 miles! Horses did great, and we had a nice time catching up and learning more about each other. The weather was amazing for late January!

I only took one photo today. We saw a beautiful large owl take flight and I marveled at the intricacy in the gold and black pattern in his feathers. We also saw a large Blue Heron. Came across two other horseback riders on Valley Chapel as well.

Road ride, the conditioning continues

Unfortunately last night Ruth came down with a fever, so today it was just Heather and I planning to ride. It poured rain all night, and was still raining fairly good when I let the dogs out around 8 am. I made breakfast for the family and wished for the best. 10 am - no rain! I called Heather and she was excited to ride, so I drove out to get Sinwaan about 10:30. On the drive over it started raining again! Boo! Not to be deterred, I hitched up the trailer and as I got Sinwaan the wind picked up. Great! Rain AND wind today!? Oh well, I am an endurance rider and this would be my only chance to ride all week. I got to Heathers and groomed and tacked up in the rain. Mounted up and what do you know? The rain stopped! Happy day!

We had a great ride, taking Mojonnier to Bussell to the Old Milton Hwy, then down Springdale to Beet which put us on Frog Hollow back to Mojonnier. This was a six mile loop. We could have gone a bit farther today but I had to be back by 1:00. We chatted the whole way and it was really enjoyable to have some "girl time" this weekend!