Conquering the Lagoon, Again

Conquering the Lagoon, Again

Ellen and I finally got to go to the Pig Trail.  Funny name--irrelevant story.  We would have gone earlier, but between Dante's hoof abscess, my torn retina, lots of rain and some very hot weather, we just never made it until now.

Ellen was nervous for her first ride over there, because that is her nature.  Her horse, Dante, is just such a good boy; there just wasn't much justification for it.  I had already gone a few times when Shari when Dante's abscess was happening, so I knew Cole would be pretty good.  Personally, I was just looking forward to riding somewhere we haven't been for a while.

The Pig Trail is really nice.  The tough part is getting there.  We have another river to cross, the very busy Lagoon area to ride through and a huge hill to go up.

To make the long story short, the ride went terrific except for one hiccup.

On the way out, as we were heading through the Lagoon, we had a little trouble.  It can be a tough place to ride.  I have written about it before.  The trail runs parallel to the road.  On the other side of the road is the fisherman's wall.  It is a steep rock wall with the river below it.

There were no fisherman on the wall, no cars in the parking lots between the road and the trail and there wasn't much traffic.  I told Ellen we couldn't have asked for it better morning for our first trip through the Lagoon together of the year.

I took the lead and headed off at a trot.  Cole was pretty excited and wanted to go fast.  I didn't want to get too far ahead of Dante, who naturally trots much slower.  If I did, I would have to stop and walk much sooner so they could catch up.  I asked Cole to slow down and got a little response from him.  I asked him, again--and suddenly we were off and running!

I had trouble stopping, but I must confess that part of the problem is my hand got a bit tangled in his incredibly long, luxurious and very inconvenient mane.  I didn't want to pull his mane out, so he got away from me.  All I could think about was Ellen behind me.  I had to get him under control. 

He wasn't going top speed, so I don't think he was all that frightened, but he still didn't want to stop.  I large truck started to pass us on the street.  That couldn't possibly be the problem.  As it passed us, I could see it was towing a boar.

It wasn't loud or going too fast.  There wasn't any real reason for Cole to take off from it--and then I thought of Dante.  Maybe he spooked at is and that set Cole off.  Maybe Dante was right behind us in a panic!  My big sister feelings kicked in.  I had to take care of Ellen!!!

Once the truck passed us, Cole began to slow down and I was able to get him to stop.  I immediately turned him around to check on Ellen. 

There was Dante, a couple hundred feet away.  He was trotting along nice and slow like nothing even happened.  Why do I worry about them?  Why does Ellen worry about riding him in different places?

She said that she saw the boat and stopped Dante.  Dante just stood there as it went by.  She couldn't yell a warning to me because I was already too far ahead, and my old ears wouldn't of heard her. 

The rest of the ride was flawless for both horses, and we really enjoyed ourselves.  They seemed to enjoy the ride, too.  They were both a little more excited than usual, but they behaved lovely. 

I can't wait to do it again.