Taking Risks and Getting Better

-

Annual Trail Rides: 176/200 (Bareback 23/40)

The weather is gorgeous and the forecast plans for much of the same for the next five days: blue skies, warm but cool, just barely sweater weather. Despite my reluctance to cross the busy highway when riding solo, I gave myself an extra boost of courage and giddy upped. I have only gone to sector 5 twice this year, in part because nobody wants to cross the highway ... but it was just too gorgeous a day to ride my regular routes.


The second issue is the possibility of falling (Ouch) and being solo, that my horse abandons me to high tail it home, crossing the highway at a gallop and ... tragedy ensues. But my steady Q has been hoof perfect these days, so I squashed those fears and carried on.

I got some lovely gallops in and then got to the long track where I had my big fall in 2019. With some trepidation, but armed with all of our amazing galloping of the last two years, I asked and Q was OFF like a QH racehorse. I pulled him back a bit because I didn't want to race but let him hold a good hand gallop.

It was going well and then WOOSH as Q spotted a fallen white birch glowing in the sunshine, slammed on the brakes and dove into the forest with me half hanging on his neck. But this time, different from 2019, he stopped and ate the green buffet in the bush while I scrambled my ass back in the saddle. I then giggled at him, backed him out of the bush, took a picture of the offending object and then promptly GALLOPED OFF! ❤️ 




Last days of summer!























Comments

  1. TeresaASeptember 21, 2021 at 11:53 AM

    I love this. Taking risks is not about being okay with it but about having the confidence to deal with what comes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. DomSeptember 27, 2021 at 8:31 PM

    I am so far behind on reading blogs, but your posts and photos always make me smile.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Q gets acupuncture

-
Image
There is a wonderful veterinarian-turned-acupuncturist that works in our area, and Q gets an exam and sometimes a treatment once every six months. With our latest saddle restuffing, I thought it was good timing to take a look. This lovely older gentleman has over 30 years of equine acupuncture practice (in addition to 20 years as an equine vet) and many a story to tell but the biggest stories come from his patients and his magic hands. While I have never tried acupuncture on myself, I have been successfully treated for many ailments with osteopathy and I believe in the body as a system that can often heal itself. So today was the day, and I watched him do several treatments before it was our turn. Q had no back pain or soreness, but his weakness in the left hind was flaring up and probably connected with the increased work on collection over the last few weeks. So, he got some needles and then I watched him slowly drift to sleep as he licked my arm slower and slower. After these
Read more

Happy 8th Birthday Mon Amour!

-
Image
Annual Trail Rides: 50/200 A nice time to hit our 25% trail objective. We finally got access to the trails (walking only) and it has been absolutely delightful. Ive also been using these slower rides to be social and go out with boarder friends, and that also has been delightful! Q was a delight on our first time out, as steady as an old cow pony. But yesterday on the way home he reminded me that the dragon needs tending. Navigating through icy patches between trees where the obvious path for Q is to hug the trees where the ice has melted, but that means my knees go knocking into the bark. So I picked up the reins to navigate better and he got fired up. All of a sudden his sides were on fire, and any heat from my leg prompted him into a trot. Which is not what you want on slick ice. So I stopped him. And we would start all over again. This happened 12 times on the last 1 km stretch home. Not fun. After some reflection, I realized that we were in a 12 rabbit situation. Being Florida-bre
Read more

Pocketful of mints, aka the slowroll

-
Image
It has been over twenty-five years since I did a solo trail ride bareback. Today was the day. Q was amazing, and gave me the confidence to ride on the buckle most of the way. When we came up to a road crossing, I got nervous because I could hear an unseen car climbing the road and was afraid it was the roadster sans muffler that had been gunning it up and down the road earlier. So I asked Q to trot, and he steadily complied with the smoothest transitions. Comfy and confident! The last time I had done this was with my first QH Rocky that I moved from Canada to Costa Rica (in the winter - bad idea) to live on the Pacific Ocean with me. We would go ride on the beach and in the ocean and bareback was the way to go. It was mostly walking around and I honestly don’t remember galloping bareback since my poney days as a teenager. Of course my new best friends bareback pad is amazing. It provides a little cushion, gives a stickiness to my seat with the suede-like top and adheres to Q
Read more

Ouch says the ground

-
Image
Zoom, zoom ... ouch. Finally one of the coolest days is here. Sunny, blue skies, low humidity and temps in mid-twenties. Perfect riding weather. Particularly after our surprise storm on Wednesday that left tons of debris and fallen trees and branches on the trails. Surprise storm brewing a few days ago. Within a few minutes, there were huge circular gusts of wind, almost like a Tornado. The next day volunteer crews were out removing the fallen trees. But some trails still have significant debris. I was heading out with trail buddy C and her azteca mare to explore section 5. I told her I needed some media for my summer challenge. She was happy to oblige not quite knowing what other objectives I had in mind. Most of the trail was lovely and I even tackled the jump trail, with a series of cross-country log jumps, for the first time. Q was just simply amazing, leading sometimes or in the back sometimes. The two horses have a trot that is simply in s
Read more

Quaint Krakow

-
Image
We arrived in Krakow on a super short commuter flight from Budapest and spent most of the weekend wandering about the charming town, constantly watching out for rogue trams that want to run us over. Our first afternoon was a delightful stop in the large market square to sit on a terrace, drink local beer, eat a lovely plate of cured sausages and meats with a kickass fresh horseradish purée, and watch the parade go by on National Constitution Day. Somehow, we often arrive in a new city on their national holiday. Krakow town square and basilica In the town square, m any fine carriages and horses are in line, with beautiful women in black hats with white ribbons driving the carriages. Its so unusual to see only women driving so many large carriages, that I took notice. At first, I thought it was because of the parade. Later that day, I watch the carriages circulating with passengers and the pretty lady is up front doing nothing while an old peasant dressed man is driving the carri
Read more