First ever public trailride riding Twista, and her second big trailride. For only having 2 weeks of real work done with her she did very well I think. It was a brisk fall day and the horses were feeling fresh. She got anxious seeing the other horses all leave at once, and was prancy, and my freind was having trouble with her horse as well, luckily Cowboy Todd was there to help us both. Our first big obstacle was a rocky climb up a narrow trail to the top of a bluff- alot of loose rock, steep dropoff, and only room for one horse safely. And Twista was being pigheaded and either had her nose in another horse's tail or wanting to rush past them and being pissy at being held back. She got her back feet off the trail and started sliding down the dropoff, which was a scary moment, but I booted her and got her back where she needed to be and made her WAIT and follow another horse slowly up the steepest part. The other riders were very considerate of her green-ness and for that I'm grateful. Big trail rides are alot of fun and educational for the greenies, but I still prefer riding in smaller groups where there's a slower pace and more opportuny to fine-tune or correct misbehavior. There it felt like 'if she blows up what if she crashes into another horse???' so I tried to orchestrate things to keep the misbehavior to a minimum so other people shouldnt haveta deal with that. Her things she did well was crossing water, circling her to keep her from pushing ahead when waiting was required- so it gave her something 'busy' to do, and a huge tree had fallen over the trail so all the horses had to scramble up thru brush on a bluff ridge (so I was glad Cowboy Todd had already had us do that) and then we hopped a log for awhile- till the 3rd time she ducked around it so I made her do 3 extra. However, whether that got her excited or if it was the farm we rode thru, she got prancy cuz there were other horses at this farm and she wanted to go see them, but I kept her moving the right way. All in all, I am happy with her progress- 2 weeks ago she hadnt a thought past her belly and never been off the farm and now here she is doing all kinds of stuff. The real test will come when I ride her here, away from her buddies. I know she'll test me then, and it's raining/snowing today so I dunno if I'll get a chance. I can't wait though, now she knows all this stuff it's up to me to keep the ball rolling.
The other part of Independance day was driving the trailer and picking her up. I waited so long for that day! Now I just gotta figure out how to hook it up and I'm all set...
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