Chance's First Trail Ride

The other day I got to leave work a couple hours early and the weather could not have been better. I'd have to say it was the best day of the year so far. It was probably 70 degrees outside and sunny! Only it didn't last too long, the next day it was back to cold, drizzly rain which has continued through the week.

Since I was home early enough, I decided to get my silly Mustang out and groom her up. Every one is shedding like crazy and I haven't been able to get anything done with my horses due to the rain. I tied her up to the fence next to her pasture since my OH was doing yard work, so my usual tie up spot down by the house was out of commission (huge fire burning up yard debris). Chance stood perfectly still while I brushed away. She has been getting so good and patient standing tied now. Once I was done grooming her, I took her down to the "field" over by the horse shoe pits to walk her around. My OH came over with the dogs to walk along with us. We walked through the front yard, over railroad ties, up the driveway where we waited for cars to drive by. She has been a little jumpy around moving vehicles on the road so we waited until a couple cars drove by. Each time a car drove by she got more relaxed, so we continued on our walk.

We decided to take her out on the trails on the other side of our property. Then my OH said we should take her on the trails on the neighbors property (neighbor J is a good friend of ours and does not mind us using his property).... I have only taken her on one walk to the back of our property and that is when she took off running when the neighbor horses came running down to the fence. That is also when I couldn't hold on and she escaped from me. This time I had the chain on so I had more control for our "trail riding" walk. Our neighbors property has really nice, wide wooded trails, which is perfect for trail training. We headed up our property line and entered the neighbors trail. My neighbor has a lot of "obstacles" on the side of his trails, like forts, platforms and fire pits (his son used to do a lot of paint ball on the property so that is why there are lots of platforms and forts out there). Chance got to see a all kinds of different sights that she has never seen before. There were also fallen trees she had to walk over and crackly leaves she had to walk through. Chance did not mind this at all and she didn't even spook. Our neighbor was also out mowing the lawn with his tractor, which you could not see from where we were at on his property, but you could definitely hear him. My dogs were even running around through the woods and disappearing then coming back in different places making a ton of noise. Chance wasn't bothered by this at all, so we kept walking. She did walk a little faster, but she didn't try taking me for a walk. That is a big no-no in my book anyways. She stayed at my side and when I would ask her to whoa, she would whoa. I would just let her stand there and take it all in, then we would move on.

We had a great first "trail ride" even though it was just leading her through the trails in the woods. But it counts, right? I think every little bit helps. She just needs to get out and see the world and know that everything will be alright. And I just have to say it again, this filly is so darn SMART! I have never seen anything like it before in all of my years of owning/working with horses. WOW. I was so proud of my girl, she was so brave! I can't wait to get out and do it again! If it ever stops raining.......

One more thing that I forgot to mention..........I will be gone at another horse show for the rest of this week, so I will see ya all next week!