The Inevitable Uneventful Rides

The Inevitable Uneventful Rides

I don’t know what is happening to my sister, but I like it.  Shortly after her first trail ride weekend, she went on a ride without me!  Yes, it is true.  She went on a trail ride with Kevin and Starry.  Dante was wonderful.

The next weekend, she rode with me, again.  Each day, we went a little further and a little faster.  We are now trotting and cantering as much as we were at the end of the year, last year.  She’s been leading Dante on the street to the trail—last year, I think it was June before that happened.  There are days during the week when she is alone where she rides to the end of the driveway and plays bus stop.  All of this is happening and it has been so uneventful—giving me nothing at all to write about.

It’s great!

Trail riding, at least in a very urban setting like ours, is one of the hardest equine sports.  A horse has to get used to so many stimulating experiences and learn to handle them in a calm, matter-of-fact way.  Even a horse like Dante, who had trail experience before Ellen got him, had to adjust to our difficult trails—and adjust to Ellen.  At the same time, Ellen, had to learn about him.  Some people are lucky and get a great horse right from the start like Kevin did with Starry, but most horses have an adjustment period.  (Starry did have an advantage that he was born at a place close to our trails and had experience with them.  I can recall seeing a cute buckskin colt being ponied with his palomino mother on our trails—I am certain it was him.)

The ironic part of training a horse for trail riding is it can be so very difficult—and then it suddenly becomes very easy.  Once everything falls in place, it is effortless.

So, if you are still in that difficult stage—if your horse seems to be spooking at everything like Cruiser did the first year I was riding him, or he just doesn’t want to settle down and walk—the way Cole started out—take heart and keep trying.  If traffic bothers them like Dante—or they just want to run home like Brandy, keep trying.  Things typically get better and then they get wonderful!

Now, what am I going to write about in the months that come?