The Last Couple Rides

Bitter sweet for sure.  These aren't our last last rides, but they are very likely our last rides in the cities.  The boys are moving out to our farm at the end of this week, I'm a little sad about it actually.  So we packed in a couple more trail rides before it was too late.  Our first ride was on Monday, which I already posted about.  Then Friday we went back to the same trail for another after work ride.  The weather was a little gloomy but no matter we had a decent time anyway.  We headed off in the opposite direction on the trail as Monday and Cody was as calm as could be.  We had even picked up some b-calm supplement just in case but he was so calm on his own we didn't give it to him.  I think we ended up going a little over 5.7 miles that day.  We're guessing Monday's ride was between 4 and 5.

Cody behaved really well.  Still a bit of trotting to keep up but he wasn't calling or trying to turn around all the time.  We even let the boys run for a stretch.  Got a little hairy near the end when I wasn't sure Cody would turn a corner or even listen to me if I asked him to stop but Booker was a star and reals it in when asked so then Cody slowed down as well.  But for the first few strides of the gallop, it was a great ride.  Both boys loaded in the trailer with no issues and we made it home and got everything put away right as the first sprinkles of rain started.

So Sunday we planned to take more of an all day ride and have a little lunch.  But when we woke up Sunday morning it was storming and the weather people said storms on and off all day.  After breakfast things hadn't picked up and the weather forecast had changed to no storms.  So we rolled the dice and met at the barn at noon.  Turned out to be a gorgeous day and thank goodness we decided to go!

We made it over to Murphy Hanrehan park this time.  Figured we needed change of scenery.  The parking lot was a lot larger than I remembered and there was only 2 other trailers in the lot.  Despite the large area I still couldn't back the trailer in a straight line!

So in total we rode 8.27 miles on Sunday.  Covered just about all the trails at Murphy.  And the sky was blue and the bugs were minimal.  Couldn't really ask for much more.  Cody was calm despite the mud.  The trails were pretty mushy and we even had a water crossing in the beginning.  Not sure why we didn't take a photo but both horses went through.  Booker was awesome, Cody needed a little encouraging but it's been a few years since we've been swimming.  The water was up to their bellies.

We rode one trail, took a break at the trailer to dry off and get more fly spray.  Then set out for a longer section of the trail.  The boys were pretty sweaty from the ride, Cody's saddle was sliding back like crazy.  I guess the Tacky-Too saddle pad is no match for heat and high humidity!  Had a few spots of trotting, a nice little canter (would have had more but everything was so wet), ran across some dogs, chatted with a little girl who called out "Hi Cody!" when we passed later on, jumped a log, and even chatted with the park police for a bit.

The boys loaded like pros and we made it back to the barn in one piece for our last adventure (of this part of the story - there's bound to be more adventures in a different form later on).  Daniel and Jeff even came out to meet us at the barn and Daniel had a little ride on Axel for a few minutes.

I'm surprised at how hard I'm taking this move. I will see the boys about as often but I guess not having them right near by is tough.  Plus now that we've had three progressively better trail rides I'd love to do that all summer. I'm just going to have to get Cody out in the pasture and push the cows around a bit and get Daniel riding Haji this summer instead.  Plus I'll still go to the barn and work with and ride Booker.  Our plan is to do a few rides/runs a week with Booker.  There's no Ride and Tie events in Minnesota but we're going to try our hand at our own version.  One of us will run while the other rides and then we'll swap.  Then I think in the spring we're going to get signed up for some Mounted Shooting clinics and try our hand at that.  We think Booker will take to it well.  So that will be the next chapter of this blog.

So I guess that ends this chapter, the next chapter will start with our move on Friday.  Like I said, bittersweet ...