I Heart Autumn AND the Trails!

Seattle fall started off quite warm, then in came some nasty storms. From there, it got better, but we've been sitting under this thick layer of cold fog for weeks. The air above was warm in the 70-80 degree range- but we didn't get to benefit at all from it. Finally, this weekend, things changed for us - and after a small storm, the sun and blue skies were beckoning us to go play outside!

So play we did. My friend and I decided to FINALLY go explore the trails off our property. Who better to do that than my wonderful big guy, Ben. So we had a nice warm up/schooling session in our outdoor arena. Ben's canter has seriously just blossomed overnight. I can put him in canter and he just stays, and its slow, and balanced. I showed my friend and she was in shock at how he was going.

But that is not the point of this post...the point is...we finally rode out to the Pipeline trail. Ben was fantastic. He doesn't have much experience out, so I never really know what to expect...but he was honest and wonderful, albeit a bit SLOW. He'd much rather just take it all in at an ambling walk (hmm and maybe stop for some nibbles...naughty!)  vs his friend who wanted to blaze trails. We had a lot of catching up to do.

It was tons of fun. Except on the way back- friend's horse decided to be naughty (he's new, we didn't know what to expect from him) and so she ended up having to get off and school him in hand all the way home. In solidarity, I got off too, and hiked home. Ben was a rock star for that too - having loads of patience while his friend learned to pay a bit more attention to his owner, vs getting home so quickly.

Admiring the distant mountains while waiting for our friends to get ready

So of course the next day we headed out there again, this time for a shorter trip (losing daylight), to make sure the new guy learned his lesson. Learned he did. Ben was the same, and we had a nice on-the-buckle-hack.

Today marks our 3rd session and week of stretches and massage- how time flies. So far, Ben is doing much, much better. Still have a few trouble spots to figure out - but overall things are going much better for the big guy.