First Trail Ride

My weekend was booked with Horse Expo and bridesmaid dress shopping but I still wante to get out to the barn. It was supposed to be super nice all weekend and I didn't want to miss out on it. After work on Friday I braved the traffic and went out to the barn for a quick ride. Axel and I decided to head up the back hill and check out the trail and make sure no trees had fallen. The first trail ride in the spring is always quite a bit faster than subsequent ones. Axel was quite excited and clipped along at a nice working walk. I had already opened all the gates so we didn't have to stop for any of that. We cruised through the woods and back out only running into a few small trees, nearly branches, that had fallen on the path. Nothing we couldn't step over.

I wanted to do some cantering in the meadow area and some nice trotting. We set off in a canter but it was quite bumpy. Axel must have been using his rear end for once. After the first canter he was a little worked up and ready to head back to the barn. I wanted some nice trotting, Axel decided bucking was a better idea. We made a few more passes and tried to work on some trotting in a circle but it wasn't happening quite as I had planned. We ended up doing some serpentines at the walk which were very bendy and nice. After such good bending I got off and let him graze a bit while I took a few photos.

We headed back down the hill and made our un-graceful attempt to close the bridge gate without dismounting. We did it, it wasn't pretty, but we managed. I decided to take a walk down by the swampy area and try to jump over the old log that's down there. We trotted over it the first time. Cantered, bucked, and nearly ended up in the fence the second time. And finally just walked over it the third time. In the end I think I picked 4 wood ticks out of Axel's boots when we were done. Must have been the tall grass in the meadow area.