Wednesday, November 18, 2009

more miles, some cross-country...


We went out today with Crissy, the gal with the mustang who went with us on our very first ride. This time she brought her Rocky Mountain horse. At last, a horse that could keep up!
Santana made several improvements today. Leading him out to the trail, he wasn't as anxious, and walked next to me, as opposed to wanting to get in front of me a little.  I put  the rope halter with knots on the nose on him yesterday, and we schooled some on that yesterday on our solo ride.  Seems to have paid off, because he was much better about it today. Same with standing for mounting. He wasn't perfect. but he was better than a couple days ago. Progress, no matter how small, is a good thing. 
Once mounted, Santana took the lead. He prefers to lead than follow. But he will follow, and isn't a jerk about it. Good boy. But I let him go first most of the way. We took a marked trail for about half the ride. Crissy had to be back by 11:30, so, at one point i made the executive decision to take a trail that we used to ride a lot, but now the park says it isn't a trail.....but I knew it would get us back where we  needed to be on time for Crissy. It is a good trail, I don't know why the park doesn't "recognise" it. The trails have ben there long before the county came in and "made" the area a park. So I didn't feel too guilty for going off a marked trail.   Because it was "off the beaten path" it was pretty, and no human foot prints and no mountain bike tracks. That was awesome.  We encountered a couple of HUGE boulders in the middle of the wash. Most horses think these are horse-abducting space ships. They are about 10 feet tall, by 15 feet across, two of them. In order to stay on the trail, you have to walk between them. I have yet to go through there without every horse spooking, or snorting, or reacting in some way.  Well, Punkalicious just walked right on by. We had to turn around and wait for Crissy, her horse wasn't so sure about this.  When we turned around, Punkalicious put his mouth on one of the rocks as if to tell Crissy's horse, "see. its ok, its just a rock."  WE got around and got back onto one of the parks "official" trails, and got back to the trailer in time to et Crisy to work on time. Santana was better about going back to the trailer, but he stil tried to turn around and go the other way a couple of times... this time though, I carried a small crop to "motivate " him a little on getting back. Silly boy. 
Have I mentioned he is barefoot? All of our terrain here is rocky, gravel, sand and abrasive. His feet don't so much as chip even a little. My trimmer says he will have rock-crushing feet. Conditioning them properly is key, of course, but you have to be starting out with genetically great feet, which he has. Awesome. 

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