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Annual Trail Rides: 40/200 Fresh snow, mild temperatures, sunshine and blue skies. Pictures from our club members the previous day were epic with the snow sticking to the trees and creating white tunnel after white tunnel. Narnia improved. On our way home we saw our 83 years young boarder Yoko heading out on trail with her steady eddy. She started riding after retirement at age 60. And the day did not disappoint! Our volunteer groomers had been out in force and made the most amazing tracks on the wide trails that I now affectionately call the Snow Highway. The track was so fast that you could maintain a top speed for long distance without breaking stride and without tiring the horse. The footing was better than our amazing indoor arena footing because it was even, spongy almost springy, and hard packed (no sinking). Q had other plans as he was wired when I arrived. He got a little free lunging and cavaletti schooling in the arena before we took baby stud for a little ride. BO worked on...

Annual Trail Rides: 39/200 Inching up on the second milestone of 20% of my goal, I have been plagued by boredom and repetition on the trail these last few weeks which always seems to be worse on Mondays. I had some good fun this week with fellow boarder C and BO which definitely changed things up a bit. Q has enjoyed testing his boundaries with me as is evidenced by these big bully ears. BO hit some amazing milestones yesterday with her first trot on trail and canter (by mistake, but whatever!) on her baby stud. We started the first trot by having baby stud follow Q on a narrow winding trail to remove some of his "options". These two are paddock buddies and party hard when they are together so the biggest thing we were worried about was that the two would get silly and start boxing like they do during playtime. But that didn't happen. What did happen, during trot #1 was that baby stud got a little excited and was almost on Q's bum, which had the BO holding him back an...

Annual Trail Rides: 38/200 I made the mistake (?) during a Monday Blues episode to complain about being bored on my trail rides. Blasphemy with our incredible footing and increasingly mild and sunny days where we have regular unfettered access to our winter wonderland. And my horse has been just amazing these last rides. But sigh, you can not rationalize boredom away. So fellow boarder C (an international concert violinist, first chair and all) offered to tag along with me on her still somewhat insecure 17h Hanoverian hunter. And then BO asked to have me to babysit her baby stud on his first ridden trail ride (he has been ponied in these woods aplenty). So I got two trail rides today, each very different. In the first, I coached C on how to ask for a canter on her leggy beast with the 12 foot hunter stride while staying behind my andalusians 7 foot cantalope stride. We got it on the second try but it still requires a bit more work. In the second, I just led the way sticking to the narr...

Annual Trail Rides: 34/200 A century ago, local farmers in our town west of Montreal were tired of the sand left in the spring thaw that clogged the streets and ditches and created floods and ice dams to prevent passing. So the farmers got together with the town and the province to fund a reforestation project which we would later call the "Nursery". The reforestation would cover most of the old sand dunes that had been left behind many millennia ago by a retreating glacier. The old sand dunes were a popular place for local families to go for a picnic, or some fishing in some of the creeks and lakes that popped up from underground springs. Our history books show groups of families with their farmhorses pulling big sleighs or wagons filled with children. But it was time to stop the constant erosion the sand dunes were having on the local farms. So in the 1930s began the massive reforestation project. At the time, the population of this town was under a thousand, as there was o...

Annual Trail Rides : 33/200 Well we got our groove back. While we had some nice accompanied rides with fellow boarders earlier this week, it was really our fast solo ride today that did the ticket. It was cold, but I was dressed for success . And Q gave me some great steady rocking horse cantalopes on the buckle. Yeah Q! The challenge of bright sunny days is that it often brings cold with it, and today did not disappoint with a "feel like -18C". But with the protection of the woods, and all of my layers and heated boots, I was only cold for a brief instant during our warm-up. Once the trotting and cantering started I was fine. I was back in the barn within 45 minutes despite my little sidebar chat with some cross-country skiers that I spooked as they paused at one of our intersections. They exclaimed "we didn't hear you coming" as I came out a side trail, and I told them it was my secret pleasure to spook skiers. When I explained to them the irony (because most ...

Annual Trail Rides: 31/200 Ive been feeling a little blasé these last few rides. Not super motivated to ride despite great footing and accommodating weather. Predictions are showing another 80 cm of snow this week, which is way better than the ice storm they were threatening. But my rides are feeling repetitive and monotonous. And then comes B to the rescue. B is a 3 year old palomino appaloosa stallion owned by the BO and he is ready to learn his job. He is such a cutie and sweet. So yesterday I got the privilege of holding the rope while BO got onboard for her first ride. It was quick, and easy, and he just walked around chill as a cucumber. And that’s how you want these things to go. A 5 minute start. It was over almost as quickly as it started and then we went off with our mature mounts and had a lovely trail ride imagining the great low-key mileage B will be getting in the months to come as he builds his strength trail walking. A few more arena rides are on the program as the BO c...

Annual Trail Rides: 29/200 Here in Quebec, Canada, we have variable weather patterns in winter from springlike sunny days of +10C to arctic freeze of -40C. While winter officially goes from Dec 21 to March 20, we find that it really begins on November 1rst to April 30th. SIX MONTHS OF WINTER! Our other three seasons are much shorter as a result. Aside from the cold, winter also brings a new set of challenges for footing. Deep snow, sheets of ice, crusty snow can bring about dangers to horse and rider and also increase fatigue and injury if not careful. For the truly committed, a set of four winter shoes with studs and plastic snowball inserts, can make a world of difference. Particularly if icy conditions are commonplace and restrict turnouts. I currently keep my horse barefoot, and as a consequence there are a cumulative 2-3 weeks a year where turnout is limited if not impossible and trail riding is off the table. I also benefit from an indoor arena when this happens, so it really is ...

Annual Trail Rides: 26/200 After my sassy ride when the dragon decided to play, I planned out my next expedition more carefully. It started with 10 minutes in the indoor arena where I stood in the middle and watched my dragon blow big fast circles around me. He bucked, he charged, he rolled, he did lots of flying lead changes and spins. Its fun to watch! After that, and while all my friends went off to ride in the woods, we stayed behind so he could have some lunch and I would slowly prepare his tack. I brushed him with my trusty “tigers tongue” and gave him time to have a drink, eat some hay and take a breather. By the time I got to the mounting block, the dragon was happy and relaxed. Still very forward, but not silly forward with extra choppy gaits. And it was a good thing. We did lots of trotting and cantering as we were solo and untethered. But there was tons of traffic on trails to navigate. Single and double sleighs blocking the trail, snowshoers lost in the woods, skiers and sk...

Annual Trail Rides: 24/200 After our arctic chill week, we had a nice blizzard blow in that made me a shut-in for 3 days. My horse Q got his daily turnout with his friends but didn’t do much aside from standing around and whipping his big buddy Chester with a stick. Chester is the alpha in this herd but Q loves to use him as protection from the silly bully in the group. Nobody wants to play with the silly bully, so Chester gets used as defense a lot. The plan on Friday was to enjoy the balmy 0C weather for a more adventurous ride of crossing the big field (a treacherous feat in -20C with windchill), cross the road and into another trail sector to visit a long time friend we haven’t seen in a year. Normally this plan is no big deal. Im not a fan of going far when alone, especially in winter. But this time I had a buddy. So it should be no big deal. I warned of snowdrifts in the big field, and that the footing might not help our plan. Caveats aside, we set a time for our Friday departure...