The kids returned to school last Wed – a 1st & 4th Grader.  They both love their teachers and had a great first week!

1st Day!

2nd Day – Skyler’s first bus ride

On Friday eve I took Sully out alone… Didn’t go quite as I had hoped, but we got a few miles in and found he has some gaits hiding in there!  Other things I now know – He loves water, and will just start wandering down a creek for fun, but HATES horseflies landing on his rump; that is really the only time I have to worry about a buck.

Amanda & I headed out on Sunday for a longer conditioning ride with Sully & Cheyenne. Given their love of water we had wanted to go to Lake Anna and use the swimming area, but they recently posted an issue with algae so we had to change plans and decided to head to a set of trails close by at Preddy Creek instead.   We put some shipping boots on for the ride ; that is always funny to watch the hind legs but Sully seems to know how to walk just fine with them, I assume from his racing days.  These two are now great pals on the trailer and out on the trail together!

We didn’t manage to get him to back off her trailer when we arrived at the trail, but he had enough room to turn once Cheyenne was off and we swung the divider over.  He did just fine tied to the trailer out of sight of her, tacked up easily and calmly – other than when a horsefly was nearby!

Ride Stats

Our ride was pretty darn good for a first time hauling out to new trails! And I think he had his first bike experiences… He was definitely not a fan and had to let Cheyenne lead by the first few, but by the end of our ride he went ride by two groups in the lead without much of a glance!  We had some fun times with him almost laying down in the creek with me on (thankfully popped back up when I asked), many low branches and ducking, my helmet getting snagged on a tree branch…a horse eating bridge, and eventually figuring out how to go through ‘knee knocker’ trails without getting too close to trees!
It was so fun to fly along on him and I know Amanda was just grinning away behind me on Cheyenne too.  She got to lead a bit too, and Sully was just fine to stay behind and keep to a place that he wasn’t crowding her.  Both of us had Scoots on our horses (Sully on front only, Cheyenne on back) and neither of us had any issues – not a whole lot of mud but they stayed on in sticky sandy creek areas we played in a few times.

all done!

I’m pretty ecstatic about this ride and how he handled everything. He is a very simple loader and travels well, as does Cheyenne, and I didn’t see much “picking” at each other when watching them either. When we arrived back home we were able to back him down the ramp of Amanda’s trailer so we are making progress there!  He does need to learn to drink better on trail but will eat.  He also cracked us up with being a “bloodhound” sniffing his way down some trails.  He definitely picked up the pace when we were close to the trailers looping by, but didn’t get upset being asked to turn away from them and continue on. He was sweaty, but not overly so, nor was he huffing much.  We didn’t do much walking in before checking HR at the trailer and he was close to pulse criteria at the trailer so I think we’ll be just fine as we go forward 🙂 

Next trim we are putting on some glue-ons (Love Child or Flip Flop) and this will allow his hooves to continue improving and get us thru this season of competing. His Scoots will also work on the back hooves, and we’ll start working with that setup once his fronts are glued on.

Next big hurdle (aside from drinking rather than playing in water) is camping I think… Got to practice that before we head to a ride!