Six Training Miles Down

We survived our first trail ride!  She was very looky and very 'up' and I'd be lying if I said everything went completely smoothly, but I will say that even my barn owner is quite impressed with Miss Ruby.

I had to be on the road to pick my kids up from school by 1:45 pm, so I didn't have time to lunge Ruby before our ride.  After doing bare minimum barn chores, we loaded up and got to Tenoroc around 10 am.  Unloaded ponies - Ruby was alert but willing to graze so I set up her bag of hay and got down to grooming.  About 45 minutes later, we were ready to hit the trail.

Before we even got to Tenoroc, Heather told me that I would have to read the map because she always got lost out here.  No worries, I have a decent sense of direction most of the time, and I can get down on a map.  As we left, I turned on Strava (amazing phone app that tracks your path and mph) and off we went. We decided that we wanted to take the trail to the right (according to the map) because it looked like the shorter trail - a complete guess because the map did not show the trail miles - so we went the way the map said we should go...It wasn't long before we came upon a place where some wild hogs had been rooting - both Candy and Ruby were sure they were horse-eating hogs.  It took us about 20 minutes to go the next 100 feet.  There was lots of sideways, some backing, lots of stopping and looking but eventually we made it through - the great thing was that after this first area, the girls would march right through the hog rooting areas, success!  We went another mile or so when Ruby decided that forward was too scary so she was going to start backing - holy crap are my legs going to be sore tomorrow!  It took kicking, kissing, clucking, slapping with the reins and even two hard smacks on the butt to get her moving out again - but when she did start moving, wow.  She has a super-walk so fast that even when Candy was power-walking she was being left behind.  We had no more trouble with forward movement after that, now the problem was waiting for Candy and Heather.  She did have a few mini-fits, usually when asked to stop, but nothing major.  I think she spooked three times, two were freeze spooks, the last one was a run-straight-sideways spook.  I'm lucky I stayed seated on that last one - it was fast!  And once I accidentally stopped her in a fire ant bed.  I couldn't figure out why she was stomping and getting a little crazy when Heather said it looked like she was being bitten by ants. I felt like such a jerk, I'm just not used to watching for ant beds while riding.  I hopped down and wiped them all off, and all was well.

Around noon, I started getting worried that maybe we wouldn't make it back on time - especially because there were a lot of optional trails that were not on the map, grrrr.  Anyway, eventually Heather recognized the trail and we made it back - note to self: either Ruby was happy to be out or she has a horrid sense of direction because she didn't seem to recognize when we turned down the trail back to the trailer.  By the end of the ride, I was convinced that it wasn't Heather's map-reading skills that had gotten her lost - it had to be the map.  The first turn we made should have been on a trail taking us on a big loop to the left, but we'd been turning right the whole way.  After we got the girls loaded, I checked Strava against the map. Turns out that the trail we took matches exactly to the longer trail on the map - the part of the map that seems to be screwy is how to get to the trails.

Anyways, I am very impressed with Ruby.  We had a few discussions, but that's to be expected.  I think she has a ton of potential as a trail and endurance horse.  I kept expecting her to get tired during the ride, but it just didn't happen.  We were riding for nearly two hours and rode 6.1 miles - it felt like a ton more than that because of all the stopping and training moments, and because I'm so ridiculously out of shape. I've got to start working on myself too.  Next week we might be going to Alafia to ride with Jennie - crossing fingers!

Tomorrow's the day!

Ruby has been going along great and has passed all of my pre-flight checks so tomorrow we are going to ride at the Tenoroc WMA, woohoo!! 

I rode her for the first time off-property this morning.  She was a little looky but trustworthy.  Before that, we were in the round pen trying our hand at trotting...it was ugly but I got a few strides out of her twice before we went on our very short road trip.  We'll work more on trotting early next week.

Looking forward to tomorrow!

So close

Much better this time! Freckles x 2

Things are going very well on the Ruby front.  I had her teeth floated on Saturday, so can start using the bit if and when I choose.  Yesterday she graduated from the side-pull to the S-hack - if things continue to go well, we'll probably mostly use the hack when not schooling in dressage.  We rode in the small arena yesterday and her pasture today.  Tomorrow we'll ride through a pasture she's never been in before we start riding off property.

Friday is another boarder's birthday and she's trying to get a group together to go trail riding at one of the local wildlife conservation areas - if the timing is right (morning vs. afternoon), Ruby and I will go on our first trail ride then.  I am so crazy excited to go on an actual trail ride that I'm almost giddy - I haven't been out on a real trail since my last ride on Karma, early to mid 2012.  It makes it even more exciting that I've never ridden in any of the parks in this area.  Soon.

Waiting for pasture buddy, Candy

First real training ride

Listening ears

 Went very well!  I didn't do any driving beforehand, lunging only.  I rode her for 15-20 minutes, reinforcing walk, whoa, turn and she was fabulous.  Her main problem today was stopping too soon, whereas previously it was walking through the whoa.  Very pleased.

If things go well tomorrow, I plan to take her to the small arena to see how she handles a more open area.  Monday I want to try her in my S-hack, and hopefully Tuesday we'll be riding the fences in the pasture.  If she handles all of that well, we may be out on the trails and the road by the end of the week.  Fingers crossed! 

It's about that time

Driving this morning

For an update, that is.  Ruby continues to do well - she picks things up very quickly and tries hard.  If I was more of a horse trainer, she'd be much farther along already.  Today was only her fourth or fifth time driving (due to weather and family illnesses) and she did fantastic.  When I asked for whoa, there was no pointing her nose to the sky - a vast improvement.  She's also been learning that taking the bit is a great thing...possibly due to the molasses smeared all over it.

After driving, we went for a neighborhood walk.  She was cool and collected, just taking in the sights even when a 4-wheeler approached.  She did spook as the 4-wheeler went out of her sight and the neighbors horses galloped up to the fence - definitely not her fault.  Her spooks are few and far between and consist of her turning to face whatever has startled her...love it!

During our walk

There has only been one hiccup so far - that is that she doesn't fully trust me when she's loose.  Approaching her in the pasture is not something that she always allows (even when there is no pressure, no halter/rope, and cookies involved).  For the last few days, I have been letting her graze in the barnyard while I clean her stall.  When I'm done, I call her and walk her to the pasture gate to let her out.  Yesterday she decided that barnyard grass was much better than pasture grass so I went to get her halter. As soon as I grabbed her halter, she took off for the pasture gate.  Hmm...whatever.  Put her halter back and started walking to the pasture gate - so she proceeded to pretend that she was a wild child and bolted for the trailers.  Okaaaaaaay...I opened the gate and called for her - she blazed by me (like she thought I was trying to trap her maybe?) and did a sliding stop about 30 feet out when she realized that I had a cookie that was now being fed to another horse.  I'm not too sure what to think about this.  She is completely relaxed around me at other times and even when loose in the round pen - heck, this morning she even let me and Heather rinse out her goopy eye with no fuss. Perhaps when she gets to know me better, she'll trust that I, in fact, do not eat horse.  We'll see. 

Sheriff's Posse and other stuff

So, after looking for months, I was finally able to determine that there IS a local mounted sheriff's posse!  Search and rescue is something that I've been interested in doing for years, but I wasn't able to find a local group until last week. Apparently they are rather unorganized and don't have the full support of the county sheriff, so I'm not sure what will happen there...but it's something to keep on my radar. 

We were unable to start line-driving Ruby last week due to three days of rain, uggh.  Today I was finally able to really work with her, so we lunged a bit in side reins.  Poor Ruby - the first reins I tried were way too short for such a greenie and she was absolutely convinced that she COULD NOT move.  I put on my own (much longer) reins, lunged her a bit, then we practiced giving to the side pull again. She'll be ready to start line-driving tomorrow.

Oh, before I forget, I was sitting on her, reinforcing the concept of giving to the side pull when a helicopter flew over really low.  She tightened up, so I hopped down (bareback pad) but it was unnecessary.  Good girl!