The Best Ride EVER

This weekend was cold for SC. In fact, when Dusty woke up with Wyatt at 4:45 am Saturday morning there was snow on the cars. But the glorious part of living down here is that the afternoons tend to warm up as long as the sun is out and Sunday was no exception. While it was in the 30s in the morning, it quickly rose to the upper 50s by mid day and the sun felt great on my skin.

Feeling neglectful of my 50 mile horse (I don't ever tire of calling her that :), I dragged my lazy butt to the barn around 2:30 pm Sunday which was very hard to do since Wyatt was napping and the cats and dogs were prepared to snuggle up for the long haul.

I grabbed Miss Thing and she is looking good. I think she has gained weight since the ride, but that isn't unusual for her. Without a lot of exercise she tends to become chunky very quickly. Going into what seems to be a colder than normal winter, I don't mind the pudge.

I tacked her up and planned on a nice ride around the grass tracks to stretch her out and see how she was feeling. As I finished tacking, the boys pulled up and I gave Wyatt a kiss as I mounted up and headed off. I quickly realized that I had forgotten my half chaps, but didn't feel like turning around so I just planned on getting them after the first loop around.

I pointed her towards the mare pasture where there is a good little steep hill and off we went. She was up and spooky, basically looking for a fight, but moved out excellently and was ready to carry on with her work. I was without my GPS because I didn't really care about our pace or distance, but she was moving very well and it felt like a good 9 mph trot.

The mare's pasture is to the left

Heading away from the barn down the grass track

We went around the pasture and up the steep hill and came across our cow friends that live up behind the mare pasture. Gem has never been scared of cows which is a great thing. Some horses hate them, but each time we have come across cows out and about she looks and keeps moving forward. Cut down trees? Fallen logs? Bunched up sticks? Now those are things worth jumping out of your skin for.

A cow friend

We made it all around the 0.75 mile mare track and then cut across the entire front of the property to the gelding tracks and did that 1 mile course as well. As we came back toward the barn between the mares and gelding, there is a small but consistent hill and she asked to open up. I let her and we galloped up the hill with smiles on both our faces.

The gelding track. They are soo perfect to just fly on. It is hard to control myself :)

From there I stopped at the trailer to put my half chaps on and we headed back to the mare tracks to go again. As we headed down the beginning lane I saw Dusty hiking with Wyatt up ahead. he had taken Wyatt to see the cows. As we neared Wyatt began to ask to come up which is highly unusual for him. He loves animals and will pet, feed and kiss Gem, but in the past he was unimpressed with the thought of being on her. Well, this time he was game, so I grabbed him and set him in front of me. I guess a good part of having a seat a little too big is that there is plenty of room for a 2 year old tushy in front of you!

Dusty grabbed the reins and led Gem around the track. At one point Dusty picked up a jog and Gemmie trotted along. Wyatt bounced and bounced and his giggles could have been heard all over the county :)

We went around the entire mare track with him saying "Ready. More" when he wanted to go faster again which was more often than not. When we got back to the trailer, I figured he would hop off and I would finish up with the geldings, but he was not having it, so Dusty led around the gelding tracks.

It took me the entire mare track and part of the gelding's to figure out how to post and shove him up with me to avoid a lot of the bouncing. Once I figured that out, Gem was a lot happier and so was Wyatt although he hadn't minded the bouncing much. When we reached the home stretch, Gem broke into a lovely smooth and slow canter and Wyatt just about split his face open with his grin. I wished we could have stayed out there forever, but we needed to get going.

Once we reached the trailer again, Wyatt started crying, but settled down once he saw me get off too. He didn't want me riding without him!!!