Friday Night Rides

A couple of Friday's ago I went out for an evening toodle ride around the yard with a couple of barnmates. Nothing was really planned, it just worked out and was a lovely evening ride. After the ride I said we should plan this again and put something up on the barn's Facebook page to invite whoever wanted to join us to which the others immediately agreed.

The next Friday didn't work out as it had rained for 36 hours and the roads to the barn were crap. But last week the weather was just perfect for riding, with no bugs. No bugs was important as it's hard to swat them away with reins in one hand and wine in the other. 

I added my cantle bags and seat saver to my saddle. I didn't really need the cantle bags but definitely needed the seat saver.

Four of went out for a trek down the road. We don't have a lot of options on places to ride out from the barn - we are surrounded by farmers fields, and it's crop planting season so no riding on the fields. The road that the barn is on is a relatively quiet dirt road. But it's full of gravel, so it's not my favourite place to ride. Especially with Cisco, who is barefoot and a bit thin soled.

The hoodie was needed because it had a pocket to put her drink, not because it was cold.

So this was the first time that I had really taken him down the road. And other than a momentary loss of brain at the end of the driveway (there was a horse in a paddock where there wasn't usually a horse, and it was running around but behind the trees so it was terrifying), Cisco was super.

When I head out with my friend T her horse is usually way ahead of us. But on this night Cisco was walking quite forward so we were just behind her and the other two riders were the slowpokes. Well, until we turned around to go home. Then Cisco decided to poke along way behind everyone.

Intentional physical distancing or just slow?

Cisco kept wanting to go into every driveway and access point into every field. Maybe he's going to turn into a trail horse - I wasn't sure if we would ever get there!

He definitely felt the gravel at times, so I wasn't going to make him do anything other than walk, and it's not something we'll do regularly. I had hoped that the shape of his feet had changed enough that I could find hoof boots to fit him, but after his trim his feet are still wider than long, and other than going custom, hoof boots don't come in that shape.

There's a place that breeds Belgians further down the road from the barn. The babies aren't usually very close to the road but on my way home that night they were! Look at that chonky baby body!

We're going to try a fun ride every second Friday. I think that next time we're going to stay in and set up some pole challenges to play over. Hopefully a few more people decide to join us.