Sunday’s Trail Ride

 

Sunday Morning dawned cloudy and wet. There was spitting rain and a few snow flurries at my house as I left for Cedar Hill Farm, which is only about 25 minutes south of our house. On the way, I drove through a deluge of rain, and a white out of snow, and even a sky with sunshine peeking through the clouds. There really is such a diverse difference in our mountains with micro-climates at every elevation.

When I arrived at Cedar Hill Farm, the sun was warming everything up, though the sky was still partly cloudy. I went in to ‘Sugar’s’ pen/stall and got her haltered and spent about 20 minutes grooming her as she was plastered in mud and dirt. It seems she’s not used to being inside a stall and prefers to stand outside when it snows or rains. I used some Cowboy Magic on her tail and mane and after much currying and brushing she looked like a new horse.

I got her saddled and bridled and I mounted up at the stables. Then the group of us 7 riders mosied on over to the indoor arena to warm up our horses.

After about 15 minutes we all came outside to pose for a group photo.

From left to right: Elise riding Casey, Renee’s Foxtrotter mare. Greg, Renee’s husband riding his gelding, Jesse. Colleen riding her mare, Kitty. Loetta riding her gelding Profie. Me riding ‘Sugar’. Lance riding Rosie. Renee riding Colleen’s trail horse, Sadie.

 

 

And then we headed out for the trails. Colleen and Loetta had some of the riders carry saddle bags with the flags for the April ACTHA event, so we could start getting the CTR trails set up as we rode.

What an adventurous ride! We were literally blazing new trails or as some call it: bushwhacking. We wound our way through the trees, up and down hills, and through steep, rocky, narrow sections. And boy howdy! Was I glad to have worn my helmet and been on a shorter horse because of the many low tree boughs and dead branches that tried to snag us and wipe us off our horses as we squeezed through. I could feel the branches scraping my helmet as I laid low over ‘Sugar’s’ neck as we skimmed below them.

There were several instances where Colleen, in the lead, and several of the other riders reached a certain challenging area and called back to the rest of us to turn back and find a different way because it was just too harrowing. ‘Sugar’ gave me her all and did just as I asked her to do each and every time. Even when I asked her to back up and turn around and leave the rest of the horses behind, she obeyed. And she helped me find a different route through and around the thick trees, too.

At one point, though, there was a very narrow, downhill opening with a flat rock between two thick juniper trees and instead of walking on the rock, she chose to walk into one of the junipers. Thankfully it was a short chunk off the side of the juniper and she picked her way carefully through it, but I almost thought I might lose my seat for a moment. But we just kept moving steadily forward.

At another section, on a high ridge, ‘Sugar’ could see the top of the arena from our vantage point, and she gave it a hard stare and had to be persuaded to leave it behind and follow the rest of the group. She didn’t act up or fight about it, though. She just stood still and had to be urged to move forward.

I was very pleased with how well she does in a group of horses. She seems to get along with everyone and doesn’t even mind horses up her butt or getting too close. At one point, we were stopped waiting for an ACTHA flag to be placed on a tree, and I was leaning back on ‘Sugar’s’ rump, giving her a little scratch, when I felt something wet on the top of my hand. When I looked down, I laughed to see Loetta’s gelding, Profie licking and nuzzling my hand! ‘Sugar’ didn’t mind him back there at all.

But she does mind her own business and doesn’t feed off the high energy of other horses when they are acting up. Several of the other horses were high spirited, jiggy and sometimes even squealing at one another, but ‘Sugar’ just seems to know she has a job to do and none of that matters. She just keeps her ears forward and her focus on the trail, carefully picking her way over rocks, logs, around boulders, and through mud and snow.

I also like her fast walk. When we’re out in the open, she can cover ground very quickly. It’s nice to be out in front sometimes. But when we’re riding with Rosie, we won’t ever be in the very back of the line anyway because Rosie doesn’t like anyone to ride behind her. haha!

As you can see in this video, Lance was riding Rosie, so he had to stay at the end of the group. My friend, Renee was in front of me, riding Sadie, another one of Colleen’s trail horses. Elise was way in front, riding Renee’s Foxtrotter mare that day, so that Renee could build up her self-confidence on a horse with a little less energy. As you can tell by the sound of my voice, I was having a lot of fun.

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We did get rained on several times during our ride, but it was mostly just sprinkles and spitting rain, so we just kept on riding. During our trail blazing, we got a little turned around a couple times and had to find new routes through the trees and up and down ridges, and I suggested to Colleen that she might want to change the name of her Blue Moon Riding Company to Blue Moon Bushwhacking Company instead. Everyone got a kick out of that. haha! At one very narrow opening with lots of dead branches poking every which way, we squeezed through and Loetta lost her cowboy hat’s concho and rain cover. Thankfully the concho wasn’t expensive or valuable and so she didn’t even bother trying to look for it, though.

A few times we had to ride straight down boulder and rock covered hills, maneuvering through narrow openings in the trees, too. My biggest worries were that I’d get scraped off by a pinon or juniper tree or that ‘Sugar’ might trip and fall, so I just gave her full freedom of her head and hoped for the best. But ‘Sugar’ took good care of both of us, keeping us safe every time.

Altogether we rode for about 2 hours. When we finally arrived back at the stables, I was tickled to find several ‘souvenirs’ tucked around my saddle, saddle pad, in my jacket and in my hair. Colleen joked that no good trail ride is complete without bringing home some nice souvenirs. Well, yeh, but I wouldn’t exactly say that sticks and branches are the kind of souvenir I’d choose to bring home. haha!

I had a great time, but it was time to go home, so I got ‘Sugar’’s saddle and bridle off and then we loaded her into our trailer for the ride home.