Where Have I Been?

Where Have I been?

I have been riding Ellen and I took a 3-day weekend, and finally, the river was low enough for her to cross. I have been crossing on low days during the week, but the weekends haven’t been working out until now.

On Saturday, she allowed me to ride Dante across the river for the first time this year. She took Cole. Both horses crossed without a problem. We went on a short, but great ride—mostly trotting on the way out and we walked home. Dante was awesome. We let him lead—where he is happiest. He was excited to be out on the trail, so he went a little faster than I remember from last year. His only mistakes were not wanting to stand still, stopping rather slowly and trying to trot without permission. I credit his excitement for that.

On Sunday, Ellen had no excuse to keep from riding her horse. He was just as good as the day before. She also crossed the river with Ranger on Sunday for the first time of the year. I waited for them on the other side. When he saw me on the river bank, he charged across the water to get to me. He remembered all the rides I walked with him last year. Ranger walked very fast—a good workout for me. She did a couple short stretches of trotting, too. We walked back home. He crossed the river, and I watched from the other side. When he got over there, he realized I was no longer with him. He stopped, looked at me and neighed for me! I was so flattered.

Monday, the river was a little higher, and it made Ellen nervous—so she got to ride the little horse across. I don’t know why she feels safer on a pony when the water is higher. Dante didn’t care that the water was higher. He gave me no trouble at all. Cole didn’t want to go down the river bank with Ellen and gave her some trouble. She would have been better off wth Dante.

Once we were across, we switched horses. Trotting went well, once again. When we got to the place we like to canter, we asked for a fast trot. Ellen then asked Dante to canter—and he gave her a lovely canter. I remained at a trot—Cole likes to go fast there, and I didn’t want to fight to keep him in the back or pass and ruin Ellen’s canter. Of course, we had no problem keeping up at a trot. Ellen was ecstatic. It looked like rain, so we did trot a little on the way home. The rain still caught up with us, but it was such a nice ride, we didn’t care.

The picture is Ellen’s cat and dog—best buddies.