Sunday's ride

Yesterday Rick and I went riding. The trails weren't perfect, but they were better than the slop on Saturday. I know he reads this (:P) but if you don't want to read about yourself, then stop now Richard.

:P

I thoroughly enjoyed my ride. Peanut was responsive and brave, and we cantered and gaited - including in some places where I had major attacks of the nerves in previous rides. I was able to relax and enjoy the scenery (I wished I was able to do that before, thinking it was an impossibility), but if I relaxed too much and sighed over how good life was then Peanut would stop. Whoops. Guess I was giving him the brakes. So he'd get a pat or a hug and we'd go on our way.

I also wanted to try a new approach: following on trail. I've been leading trail rides for a long time now, mainly to prove to myself that I was brave enough to. Well, I am now. Now I get nervous about other people setting the pace, so it's time to fall back in the pack and deal with it.

Well, that was the plan. Gene did not want to lead and was acting nervous - unusual for Gene. So, for a good amount of the ride, we led anyway. While I was in my own euphoric world, I kept hearing snatches of what Rick was saying to Gene. I could tell that they were fighting the whole time - mainly about him walking on the middle of the trail - and I had to keep pushing it out of my mind so that I wouldn't transfer it to the Nutters. Nutters was walking pretty much wherever he chose, but if I really wanted him to do something I'd just head him off with my aids and force him to stay between them. I've found that the less I demand that Peanut do something, the more apt he is to do it on his own. Like me.....

Rick trail rides with very loose reins, and neck reins more than anything. When he would get in situations where he'd have to maneuver Gene, the rein would be so long that direct pressure was ineffectual. I'm been working on shortening my reins as of late, and getting great results. They aren't super short, barely any contact, but when I need them I don't have to pull in a couple of feet of extra. Besides, I often only use my legs, so the reins don't really do much. But, when I need to keep him between aids, it's easy.

At one point, Rick was in the lead and I watched him suddenly stop and leap off. I figured that he was tired of fighting, but I didn't want to get into it while I was still mounted so they walked the rest of the way back. I later found out that Gene had wedged a good sized rock in his foot, and so Rick got off because he was getting trippy. Rick's not one to remount on the trail, not even when there are large downed trees to use as mounting blocks, so he punishes himself by having to walk it out every time he gets off of a horse which, it seems lately, is more times than not.

But, anyway, I was pleased with how Peanut and I did. At one point, walking up a hill, a biker stopped at the crest and took off his shirt to wipe himself down. Of course, he did it in a way that waved and flapped it all over. Peanut watched him like he thought him a moron, and Gene didn't even react. Good boys. Hopefully the biker was just ignorant and not malicious.

I also didn't say anything when we were trailing and Peanut stopped for one of his myriad potty breaks. Instead, he would do his thing, then he would have to catch up. Rick didn't even know that Peanut had peed twice on the trail, because for the first time I didn't call for him to stop. :)

I almost forgot:

At one point on the trail there was a small tree at the side of the trail, with a faint trail circling around it in addition to the regular trail going by. I decided to leave it up to Peanut to pick which way to go around the tree... and he just kept walking straight towards it. Maybe he was waiting for me? Nevertheless, I'm glad that I was wearing my half chaps as I otherwise would have taken a good scrape on my leg. With my chaps, we just kind of squeezed by.

Also, yesterday was the first time in months where I didn't have to mess with ticks. I didn't pull a single one off of Peanut or myself. Now I'm paranoid....