Trail Clinic ~ Day 1

 

It’s a 4 Advil night. I think I should figure out a way to ride more than once a week. When I would ride Baby Doll 2-4 times a week, my muscles didn’t ache as much as they do now. bah!

I got to Cedar Hills Farm an hour late because I couldn’t get my rear-wheel drive van out of my driveway with all of our snow. So, I talked Ranchman John into accompanying me to the Trail Class and being my personal chauffeur driving our 4-wheel drive GMC truck. It was actually really nice having him there with me. And he offered to take photos, too.

(Watching Colleen share different safety techniques for tying out on the trail)

I had a good laugh at a few of the photos he took.

There were many more that I deleted. I didn’t think you all would enjoy seeing me decapitated. But at least I was wearing my helmet.

 

But he was sweet to try and it’s always tricky taking photos inside an indoor arena……….especially when his smiling wife is kicking up huge clouds of dust from TROTTING!

Yeppers I trotted Rosie in the indoor arena today for the first time. It was so much fun that we did it over and over and I had her circling around the cones and trotting over the cavalettis.

I kept thinking of how I never enjoyed trotting on Baby Doll and how she made it so unpleasant and uncomfortable. I had no idea these past two years that trotting could be such a blast! It made me so happy when Colleen and Christine noticed me out there trotting and cheered me on, saying “Look how far you’ve come in such a short time!”

I was happy to see that Rosie seemed to remember me and I was also maybe a little smug, too. Colleen always tells me how difficult Rosie is to catch at home. And right after I arrived for the Trail Clinic, Loetta, another one of the volunteers at Walkin N Circles Horse Rescue, told me she had already groomed Rosie and did me a favor by locking Rosie into her stall so I wouldn’t have any trouble catching her later. I told her that I‘ve never had any trouble catching her and that she walks right up to me and stands still for haltering. I don’t think she believed me, but she did open up the stall door to the run for Rosie. (And I never did have a bit of trouble with catching her both times today)

Loetta asked if I would groom another horse, a mare named Bunny. She is a new rescue horse at Walkin’ N Circles and has spent most of her 7 yrs of life as an unsuccessful broodmare, suffering through miscarriages and deceased foals. It’s sad that she was even bred at all. Loetta offered me some cookies to help catch Bunny, but I had brought my own and some carrots, too. But as soon as I stepped into Bunny’s run, and walked past her, she followed me and let me halter her, with no troubles. And of course Bunny was given carrots for being such a cooperative girl. Loetta told me on several occasions that I should consider adopting Bunny. It’s tempting, but after watching Colleen work with her all day and ride her on the trail, I could see that Bunny needs more exposure to new things and more trail miles. She is cute, though, and a perfect size, not much bigger than Rosie. But just a little too many issues and baggage for where I am in my life right now. (I’ll try to get a photo of her tomorrow)

I did discover that Colleen doesn’t actually own Rosie, but is owned by a gal living in Denver who is just letting Colleen ‘borrow’ Rosie for her riding company.  Apparently she was bought by a friend of Colleen’s from a farrier, but this friend didn’t like Rosie’s stand-offish nature and wanted a more affectionate pocket pony kind of horse. So, she ended up being sold to this lady in Denver. I find the observation that Rosie isn’t affectionate, ironic because Rosie is always friendly and sweet with me. She nuzzles me and noses around for cookies, and she drops her head onto my hands and closes her eyes when I give her cheek scratches.

She’s also a good girl in the saddle and is happy to head out on the trail with no testing or arguing. She can be a little naughty sometimes, though. If I don’t pay attention and I let my mind wander,  she has been known to try and wake me up by running me into a bush or under a low branch. She’s tried this a few times, but not in a mean-spirited way. It’s as if she is trying to ask me if I am still up there ‘driving’ and not just riding as a passenger.

She also doesn’t like any horses following too closely, especially geldings. But, so far, the worst that she does is give them the evil eye, pin her ears and growl at them. But she also grumbles and groans while she is being ridden, too. It’s kind of endearing and funny.

I was really impressed with her today. The arena was making all sorts of cracking, sliding and crashing noises all morning as the snow melted and slid off the arena roof. Most of the other horses were spooking and jumping and quite nervous about these loud noises. But never did Rosie spook more than a tiny step to the side or just widen her eyes for a moment.

I did have a little bit of trouble with Rosie today as we were walking down one of the farm’s private roads to reach the Eventing Field. The road is fairly steep and it was, of course, covered in 6” of snow and coated in ice in places. On one side of the road, a palomino stallion and his gelding buddy pranced, snorted and acted all studly up and down the  fenceline. And on the other side of the road was a pasture housing a little paint mare and her foal. And they joined in the fun and galloped down the fenceline, too. It was probably a little too much over stimulation, but I had to keep holding Rosie back from joining those horses and running off down the icy snow covered road. And she didn’t really like it. But I disengaged her hips a number of times and I told her to cut it out, and we were finally back in control again. She never gave me any more trouble after that. I had to laugh as we walked back past the stallion pen, though and he was showing off to her. Rosie laid her ears back and shot him a nasty face. She’s funny, that Rosie girl.

We worked on arena stuff until about 1:30pm and then after we enjoyed a delicious lunch of hot soup (Nothing like being warmed up from the inside. I was so cold all morning in the arena. It was actually warmer outside in the sunshine) and cold cut sandwiches, cheese and crackers, provided by Colleen, we haltered our horses and led them to the arena, where we tacked them up to take them out on the trail. We ended up riding on the snow-covered trails for over 2 hours and it was a lot of fun.

(Ooops. Sorry about the camera flip in the beginning. That horse being ridden on the right is actually Bunny)

Tomorrow I go back down to Cedar Hills Farm to ride some more trails. I’ll be sure to take some Advil before I ride so I can stay on top of the aches and pains. lol!