Trailriding with Kendall

Today, Kendall and I took Rain and Cowboy on the trail for a quick ride. It was my first time taking Cowboy on the trail in quite some time. I knew I wanted to take one of the geldings on the trail (Gem or Cowboy) and I decided that I'd take whoever wanted to go. So, Kendall and I walked out to the far pasture to the herd and amazingly, both Cowboy and Gemini came trotting over! Kendall and I laughed and tried to decide who actually made it to me first. I thought Gem was a nose ahead of Cowboy and then he moved Cowboy away, so I thought he was the winner. As I went to put the halter on him, he decided to move Cowboy away with some energy. I decided to take Cowboy at the moment instead. Not sure why, maybe just didn't feel up for Gems energy. Cowboy was happy to be haltered. I also haltered Rain and Kendall and I led them to the barn for tacking up.

Of course, all the other horses wanted to come too! So, it was a wild horse frenzy on the track while Nina and Gem (mainly) monkeyed around behind us or in front of us. Deuce didn't help matters. Oh brother! So many antics and playful horses.

I gave everyone a bit of grain and tacked up Rain and Cowboy. Kendall grabbed a snack while I made sure Cowboy was in a good place mentally and emotionally. We did some groundwork and I pushed him just a tad, making sure he would have appropriate responses to the pressure. He did ok and I felt confident about riding him. We did some figure 8's, some circles (some canter circles, too), cavalettis, and some sideways.

We were ready to go. We mounted up and off we went up the drive to the road that leads to the trailheads. Kendall wanted to trot, so we trotted most of the first 1/2 mile. Cowboy was doing fabulously - softer than normal to the bit, willing to go and whoa, just a nice partner. Rain was also doing very well for Kendall, which was why KK felt confident to move out.

The sky was gray and looking like storms could hit and after my storm experience from the other day, I wasn't up for getting way out there on the trail to potentially get hailed on. So we only went a few miles. It was a nice short ride, but a very good ride! We played leapfrog - something KK and I have never done. She did a great job of taking Rain into a trot-speed gait and back down to the walk. She also kept Rain at the walk nicely when Cowboy and I trotted past. I was pretty proud of her and she was proud of herself.

Nice little ride with my girlie. Hopefully she'll want to ride again soon.