Fall Trail Ride

I've changed up the blog a bit with a nice grassy theme.

Ok so I'm not the best photographer lately. I took two photos today on the trail ride. Oh well. Anna and Tricia came and picked me and Axel up in Anna's fancy 4 house slant load. Axel jumped right in like a champ. Of course he was most concerned with trying to see Olly on the other side of the divider and gave me a heck of a time trying to snap his halter. We cruised down to the state trail 4 miles away and attempted to unload the horses. And by "attempt" I mean Axel did not want to back out of the trailer. Being a slant load there's no room to turn around safely. Tricia and Anna fought and fought and he would not budge. He did get himself to the edge of the trailer and stepped down with one foot but he went right back in. Finally he got the best of them and turned himself around. At that point it wasn't safe to turn him back around so we let him exit.

After resting a bit and gathering all our junk, we tacked up the boys and headed for the trail. As we guessed, Little Man and Olly were much faster than Axel so we had to trot every few minutes to catch up. I couldn't quite convince him that if he stepped out a bit more he could walk just as fast as they were. We had a few canters that went pretty well. At one point Axel passed Olly (albeit ears pinned as he did it) and seemed to enjoy the fact that he pulled ahead of another horse. Highlights of the ride were: All three horses jumping a big rotten log in the middle of the path, one right after another. Full out galloping up a hill and Axel actually making it the whole way and kept going once we got to the top. And finally, Axel actually whining because he was too tired to keep up with the other horses on the way back.

I think we rode for 2 hours or so. Axel was mighty tired by the end and he's probably going to be sore. I couldn't find the bute so he's gonna have to take it easy. We'll probably have a long line lesson on Tuesday instead of riding. He jumped up in the trailer to head home without an issue. But as prior he wouldn't back out so we had to turn him around to get him out. I think along with the long line lessons he's going to get backing lessons. Maybe I can get Jeff or Dad to build a little fake bridge to practice on. It would be helpful for the young horses to learn to step up on and good for Axel to learn to step off of.