First Fall Trail Ride

 Last Sunday Kalyn and I decided to take Hannah and Goose on their first trail ride of the fall. And by fall I mean it was still hot AF, upper 80's, but it was cooler than it has been and Goose had a fresh clip so we were ready to roll. 

When we parked at the Camden hunt grounds, two women rode by and mentioned there was a hunter pace going on so to be on the lookout for, ahem, yahoo riders. We laughed at that and thanked them for the warning. I've since joined a local Facebook group to that area - we would have loved a hunter pace if we'd known about it! 

The beauty of riding in hunt country is that there are miles and miles of trails, and while we crossed paths with three hunter pace riders at the beginning of our ride, we had the woods completely to ourselves. It was glorious in the shade of the pines, and Goose and Hannah were happy to mosey along for the first few minutes. 


As we got further along the trail, the footing went from deeper sand to a little more packed and we picked up a trot. We soon were cantering down the lanes, grinning like fools fully immersed in the magic of the moment. The moment soon was lost when there was a baby log fallen across the trail that Hannah almost stopped at, and I had a brief moment of panic knowing I couldn't stop Goose in time to not crash into her butt, but she made the right choice and picked up her feet and off we went again. I love these horses. 



We rode for about an hour and a half and found a few small jumps to hop over while toodling around. We're starting to figure out which trails are our favorite, they're all named, and had a great time galloping down the power lines back towards the trailers, stopping in plenty of time to walk the rest of the way to cool out. 


Blogger absolutely eats videos these days unless I upload to YouTube which I really don't feel like doing for my little clips of Goose and I hopping a small jump. Here are some stills which crack me up because it always feels like he's jumping well and instead he's just kind of loping over them. Bless his brilliant brain, I trust him completely and he's perfectly happy with me pointing him at something and him doing the rest. What a unicorn. 



Hannah jumps much cuter than Goose.

I love trail riding but small groups are my preference - three riders are better than four riders, and two is my happiest number - so it was possibly my favorite ride we've done out there. Kalyn and I both agreed it was exactly what we needed to reset our brains as we head into a darker season (SAD is real, y'all) and have agreed to get out as often as we can this fall. 

In other news, we had a few pastures drill-seeded so while we cross our fingers for all the rain we were supposed to get this week but now seems to be refusing to fall, Abby has set out a sprinkler in the two closest fields. It's still safe to turn the horses out, we'll move them to dry lots if it actually rains and gets muddy, and Goose has made friends with the sprinkler. She sent me videos on snapchat so I grabbed a few screenshots. What a Goober, we were cracking up laughing he is just too precious sometimes. 






Comments

  1. What a great ride! I agree, 2-3 people is the best number for a good trail rode 😁

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