solo trail ride

Work has been downright insane lately. These last two weeks have kept me going at such a rate of speed that I don't even have time for lunch some days. Today after work all I wanted to do was go on a trail ride and forget about all the stuff I need to accomplish at work before Friday! I didn't think I'd actually be able to get out on the trails, especially solo, but tacked Lucy up and tried to be optimistic.

Wouldn't you know, that horse was quiet as a mouse on the lunge line, and warmed up great in the ring, so I said why the hell not. Off we went into the wilderness all by ourselves, no roly poly Arab to accompany us ;) Lucy was such a good girl. She spooked a few times, but they were the "pat the ground" spooks, not the big bolting blind panic spooks. I played it as safe as I could and left her rope halter on under her bridle, and attached a 21' lunge line to the halter. I held the looped-up lunge line in my left hand during the whole ride. My plan if I fell off was to let go of the reins but hold the lunge lune, which would give her some space to do her thing if she needed to, but the halter would give me some leverage to hold on so she couldn't run.

Amazing how my way of thinking has developed...it was an unfortunate necessity after November's disaster.

Out on the trails, we passed a young man riding a bike. Lucy gave the whole situation the hairy eyeball, as if she had never seen a guy on a bike before. This man was so nice and considerate, though. He stopped his bicycle, got off, and gave me right of way on the trail so that I could get the horse by him without anyone getting killed. He was so kind. Believe it or not, a lot of people would just keep on trucking by without realizing or caring that they were putting everyone involved in danger. I thanked the man and Lucy even let him pet her.

Today's ride was VASTLY different from last night's ride because last night:

-I rode in the indoor
-I rode BAREBACK
-I almost got bucked off like 50 times
-the first few attempts at a canter were borderline disastrous
-as soon as she pulled the first nanosecond of a dirty move, she got her head whipped around and found her nose squished up against the side of the indoor. when you've got no saddle or stirrups to hold you on the horse, there really is no room for playing nice!

Anyway, it wasn't pretty at first, but I got her to cooperate enough to do a nice little polite canter in both directions and then I cooled her out and got out of there so fast it wasn't even funny ;)

a bareback ride: the perfect cure for a hangover

Photos by my barn owner, Valerie :)

That's right, I've been nursing that classic "I had way too much fun and one too many martinis last night" hangover headache today. I rarely drink and by the time I was halfway through the first martini, I was feeling giddy. By the end of martini #2, I was DONE.

I didn't even know if I was going to ride today. I rode yesterday out in the fields and trails and Lucy was awesome, especially considering she had Tuesday through Thursday off because of her lameness and I wanted to also give the cut on her RH a good solid chance to heal. Yesterday it was looking really good, almost normal even, and I saddled up and off we went. She was really confident on the trails and on the way back to the barn, we made a pit-stop in one of the outer fields and had a nice brisk canter around. Going to the right, she picked up the left lead accidentally but one stride out she did the most lovely balanced flying lead change on her own initiative. What a smart girl.

So today rolled around and I didn't even get out of bed until 10:30. Then I moped around the house until 4pm. Finally I got myself in gear and went to the barn, where I then debated for two hours if I was actually going to ride. I didn't even decide until I was bringing Lucy in, and instead of just putting her in her stall, I put her on the crossties.

I was too lazy to get the saddle out of the tack room so I rode bareback :) She was great!

What is up with me staring at the ground in ALL of these photos?!