Hacking Out!

We had a blizzard of snowfall this past Saturday (which made me die a little bit inside) but also *sort of* cleaned up some of the mud from last week...that was, until it went back to 40* Monday/Tuesday and the majority of it melted back into standing water and mud again.

Monday morning though ended up being a fairly lovely morning for riding. The temp had not warmed up yet so the ground was still solid, and the 5” of snow that we got over the weekend made our long, gravel driveway back into the woods passable for horses again. Normally I don’t really ride down our back driveway - hubs put it in years ago as an access road for the site where he has been building his HUGE new garage/ag building all summer. The drive is only half topped with small stone and mainly consists of huge rock/brick/concrete chunks that were trucked to us courtesy of an old brick school house that was locally torn down. I worry way too much about my poor horses bare feet to ride down it during the summer months (although I probably should to toughen up those hooves!) but once a few inches of snow have fallen, my horses can safely don their equine tennis shoes (aka=Cavallo boots) and go for a stroll.

Monday I managed to hack both Johnny and Cool down the drive and around the back field. Cool doesn’t trail ride much...actually Cool doesn’t generally get ridden in the winter really. Mainly because I’m too afraid of getting dumped off as he spins around and peels back for home. Ever since we began keeping horses at our house year round, Cool has turned into a raging psycho any time the temp drops below 50*. Last year after Ki was born, I think I had a Cool on like three different calming supplements at once just to be able to safely turn him out and play around with him in hand.. He’s the poster child for SmartCalm Ultra (no seriously, he’s in the Smartpak catalogue all the time lol) but this winter, with me being a stay-at-home mom, the amount of money that my (now three) horses consume has to be drastically cut back, and there will be no excessive calming anything for Cool this year.

Instead, I’ve decided that I’ve HAD IT with wintering a horse over and over again that I can only ride for four months out of the year. I’m pulling up my big girl panties and MAKING IT HAPPEN. And that means getting on Cool every chance that I have, taking him out and DOING things with him. Emmy and Johnny did not become good horses by standing in a field. They became good horses because I was a kid who wanted to ride and therefore rode wherever and whenever I could. It’s hard as an adult to put yourself back in a child’s perspective, but sometimes I think that, with horse, a child’s perspective can be invaluable.

So Monday morning, while Ki napped, I saddled the big red dragon, strapped on my helmet, turned on my Smartpak Ride With Me app, and hit the trails.

Ok, it was one trail. But I hit it. And not with my face!

Cool was...confused I think more than anything. He was snorting along in the new fallen snow...trucking forward like a curious child but also feeling like a tense coil of springs that could explode at any time. Adult Katie really wanted to have more bit in his mouth, but Child Katie said no, warmed up the eggbutt snaffle and bridle him. While we trucked along walking faster then Cool has EVER walked in his life, I kept forcing myself to breathe, to untense my thighs, to leave the reins loose and keep rubbing his neck. We made it all the way down the driveway with Cool only trying to turn around once and quickly righting himself when I closed my leg on his side and insisted that we go forward. At this point, he caught sight of the enormous garage, covered in white Tyvek wrap and I could literally feel the conflict inside him. Cool is naturally a VERY curious horse. I could tell that half of him wanted to run away from the big scary white monster and the other half really wanted to go see what the heck it was. I made a quick decision to side with Curious Cool, closed my leg again and clucked, sending him up towards the garage. We made a full lap around the entire building safely before Cool tried to drag me inside one of the bays to see what treasures might be hiding in there. At that point, he deemed the whole ordeal acceptable and took a big deep breath. After exploring he building, we meandered our way along the creek for a bit, before turning back for home. Cool pranced his way back to the barn, but never threatened to be bad so I was extremely pleased!

My next ride of the day was Johnny, who was incredibly nervous starting out. It took a lot of concentration to keep him walking along straight down the drive as he was snoring and I could feel that he wanted so badly to turn back for home. I tried to envision my legs and reins like soft channels sending his energy forward instead of sideways, which really seemed to help! After a few minute he also took a deep breathe and relaxed. We rode the same track as Cool but then came up through the back field instead - John was so happy!

Two weeks until my next horse show, but in the meantime, I’ll be trail ricing!

Peace.Love.Ponies.
✌🏼❤️🐴