Equestrian Challenge: Day 3

Day 03 - Your Best Riding


Well... this is a loaded question, isn't it? Haha. When I was younger I thought I was a pretty decent rider, and then I started taking lessons, and just sort of melted in a puddle atop of my horse. However, last night, my trainer commented, as I was loping Jingle over poles, "I should have taken a video of the first ride you had here, and compare it to now! It's crazy!"... so, that's a compliment right? ;)

So, I suppose my best riding has been lately, really learning how to communicate better with Jingle to achieve a calmer, peaceful, more willing state between the two of us. Sometimes though, I really don't think it is my best riding haha... horses have a way of humbling you, don't they?

Honestly, all technicalities and refined qualities aside, I would have to say some of my best riding was finding and chasing horses home from the hills. I do think I have a knack for direction, and i'm pretty good at reading where a herd will go, and how they will move. Plus, there's something about chasing horses that makes me fearless - galloping down a cliff, in a hail storm, while jumping logs, and chasing a stud and his band of mares - yeah, i've done that. (Absolutely no word of a lie)

So, I guess that begs the question - what does the statement your "best riding" really mean? For me, it can mean either that learning, meeting, and melding of technical skills in the arena, or the fearlessness I had while chasing horses in the boondocks.

Trail Journal: 5

Putting on my chaps and getting ready to head out

**All photos thanks to the lovely riding-partner, Sarah :)

The last weekend until the big move out west! I got there bright and early and waited for a friend of mine (another Riding Leader named Sarah) to arrive. I discovered that The Rancher had gone to the Innisfail auction and brought home 4 new horses! An older, smaller arab (fingers crossed that she'll turn into a little kids beginner horse), a bay who wasn't approachable (ugh), a big stout palomino (perfect, stout is what we need and kids do love pallys) and a big gronky sorrel, who had nice eyes but a bit of an ugly head (you can't win 'em all). Although 4 new horses to the string is exciting and excellent news, it means that yours truly has to find time to ride all of them out before even counsellors can go on them. A broke horse can suddenly rear it's green head when confronted with a new, chaotic situation such as saddling time in the shed during summer. Also... as we all know, just because they seem broke in the sale ring, don't mean anything. A project for next week my friends!

Sarah on Timber... do you want to be on my blog? haha questions I should have asked before publishing your face on the internet

Sarah arrived and The Rancher told us we could go ride out in the neighbors lease where Jingle was, and hopefully find him. He had been spotted down by the fence line by a guy who lives out there during the week, so we hoped for the best and went to grab some horses. What an adventure grabbing horses was! None of my options could be found, and poor Sarah found hers right off the bat. The entire herd thought it would be hilarious to run and totally mob her and she led her big baby Timber around. I started resorting to plan D, E and F, but again - absolutely none of those buggers could be caught. I've detailed before how tremendously annoying it is that our string is so, so bad at being caught... ugh. So, we headed to the barn, saddled Timber (who was having some serious herd bound insecurities at this point) and I jumped on him to chase in the horse I wanted, Navy, who was across the river. Sarah grabbed Navy and I chased the rest of the horses out, opened up the gates heading to the lease and went to close another gate so the horses couldn't cross back into this particular pasture.

Big Coulee, named after the large gorge/coulee that runs through the entire valley

Let me tell you something... never before have I ever been so astonished in the stupidity of the horse I was handling. Timber literally attempted to WALK THROUGH a barbed wire gate. I almost had a panic attack. He was on top of me for about 4 minutes as a wrestled with this particularly crappy gate, and then, calm as ever, he walked right into it and KEPT GOING. I feared the worst, dropped the reins, dropped the gate, untangled the reins and led him back out of the barbed wire mess. Thank the lord he was fine and not a scrape to be seen, but I was pretty grumpy at this point.

Another shot of big coulee

We FINALLY got everything together, grabbed lunch, and headed out. The lease we were riding on is absolutely spectacular riding. There is a bit of a canyon/gorge in the middle, with massive rock walls on either side, and a stream running down the centre - absolutely breathtaking. We rode the ridge of the gorge for awhile, scouted out the land from some high spots, but not a Jingle in site... ugh. 4 hours later we headed home, with no Jingle with us... total bummer. However, the riding was excellent, as was the company - love you Sarah :) so I suppose I shouldn't complain.

We got back, fed our ponies, let them loose, and then went to go see the new horses. We discovered the Palomino and Sorrel had trapped themselves inside one of our shelters, and the Palomino had got his legs very cut up some how, we assume he put them through a panel and pulled back. We brought him in, sprayed and scrubbed him down - he stood like a gentleman, I was pleased, and then I sprayed him with Vetricyn and let him back out. The next day his cuts looked to be healing, and there wasn't much blood - plus he was walking much, much better, so hopefully that little surface wound doesn't slow him down. I doubt it will.

The ridge to the left is our lease

We eventually got dinner (after having to go to two seperate resteraunts), and by the time we got home my head couldn't hit the pillow fast enough.

Sunday, I expected a quiet, nice and easy going down. My arms ached so bad, and my brain was fried. Of course, when you wish for something calm - the opposite always happens. We were pulling our studs, 2 of which came easily and well natured, the other 2 - not so much. I found myself chasing a band of mares, and one of our studs, Leo, off a hillside, in pouring rain and hail, and then sliding straight down a steep incline - am I crazy? Yes, Yes I am. That's the thing with chasing horses and myself - the rational side of my brain totally shuts down, and then I find myself careening down a cliffside, jumping over logs, hooting and hollering, and it's only when I look back on it do I think, "Am I -explicit word- stupid? I should not do -explicit word- like that"

Waterfalls have sprouted up due to all the rainfall

Once I dried off, we planned to get the last stud, check over the mares and babies and then call it quits. Well... a prospective buyer, and her 3 children and 2 friends appeared... and guess we got to take them out for a ride? That's right - me. I could have fallen asleep on the saddle at this point. I took them to our lookouts so she could get a good lay of the land, and by 5 pm the sun was actually shining, and it turned into a nice ride. The lady was really, really nice, and her families experience and name in the horse world really impressed me. With all the saddness that surrounds the sale of my beautiful, beloved home away from home, I truly hope some really nice, genuine people buy it. These people fit that bill, I approved.

By the time I got back to the city, I was ready to sleep for 16 years. What a weekend. Never a dull moment at the ranch!

The "after-ride" photo

Sarah got these wicked shots of this owl on a hay bale.. i love them, they may have to become my blog header.

Trail Journal: 4

**where art thou camera cord? This is going to be a very wordy, picture less post.. I apologize.

Saturday morning I showed up at the ranch and discovered the owner (We shall here on out called him "The Rancher") had brought home some of the horses during the week. I will admit, my little heart skipped a beat, but slowed down when all I saw was black and white paints, an overo and some quarter horses - no baby tobiano in this bunch. I soon realized it was all the horses that I had seen on my last weekends out, I went around and petted some noses, and gave some kisses, and headed inside.

Once inside, The Rancher told me that he had discovered my horse, however, I knew that since my horse wasn't in the yard... this was probably not the best of news. Apparently, some of our horses had been spotted on a neighbors lease (which is unhabitated, and 10 miles up our lease). The Rancher had driven down and taken out the binoculars, and low and behold, there was my boy... with three little 3-4 year olds. First off, Jingle, why are you being such a creep? Hang out with horses your own age. Secondly, of course he is miles away - the escapades of a wild horse continue.

So, we formulated a game plan, (Okay.. The Rancher formulated a game plan, and I nodded as if I understood what in the world we were doing), I was to go out and catch Marchessa, and her full sister Della, two absolutely massive paint mares, who are total "water hogs", aka, are not bothered by the very high water we are experiencing - we weren't sure how the river crossings were going to be, so we needed horses that wouldn't bat an eye at some fast moving water. The Rancher was to go put a new spark plug in the quad, and hope it runs again. Then, we were to load up our horses, and the quad in the horse trailer - drive to the neighbor's lease, and then try to locate missing horsies.

Welllllll.... Marchessa was in heat, big time, and we don't breed our dude string mares, but she had it in her mind that she was going to get out of the pasture our string is in, and then she was going to parade around every stud field we have until someone paid attention to her. Nope, big mare, your coming with me. After running around like a big idiot for a couple minutes, she settled down and I got a halter on her. We saddled her up and then I had to go get Della.

Della wasn't coming so easy, infact, she crossed a river on me. So, back to the barn I went, got Marchessa, and headed out to chase in Della. Then... once in, I had to catch her, and THEN I had to switch saddles on the two mares. By the time we had the two big mares loaded, and the quad in the stock trailer, it was 11, and we decided to take an early lunch. Have I mentioned how exceedingly annoying it is that our ranch horses are not easily caught in open fields? You never think about it in the summer because we run them into the corrals, sort them, and tie them, and barely any catching is ever done.

The Rancher told me stories of him and his dad heading out 50 years ago to bring in wild horses, and that sometimes it could take them from dawn to dusk to get home from the area we were heading. Great - my horse thinks he's a wild horse. We headed out, and The Rancher took the quad to open the adjacent gates into our land - SUPRISE! Someone had pushed cattle through our lease onto this one, and had left the gates open - thanks, -explicit word here-. Second suprise - the original estimated 5-8 horses was a little underestimated, our entire dude string had migrated to this lease - about 40 horses in total. So, we headed out and chased them home.

The chase was pretty uneventful, Della had a beautiful slow motion jump over a large log, and we had to do the 'ol hand on the horn-legs up and out, through a river crossing but otherwise our ponies headed home in a very non-wild fashion. However, the question of the hour - was Jingle in the herd? The answer my friends is, no. My horse is giving me a big run for my money, and absolutely refuses to just be civilized and come home.

So, alas, Jingle is still out in the wild blue yonder, with his posse of young untamed horses, and hopefully this weekend is the weekend to bring my bad boy home.

Once we had returned home, we sorted and counted the herd, as well as some big kisses, hellos and pets for all my lovebugs that came home to me! Then, we moved a stud and his mares to a pasture, so the dude string could have a bigger run of the land. Finally, we thought our day was almost over, when we spotted some young colts on the hillside, oh-easy peasy, just get behind them, push them into the yard and slam the gate as they go. Or so we thought... The leader of this young crew of babies is a horse named Doc. I have a soft spot for Doc, a beautiful dun, who looks just like his daddy. However, he is a mischeivous bugger. (I will try to get a photo of him soon for you guys to see). Doc loves escapades, and as I quietly pushed them in, he bolted up and around a cliff and straight up a massive hill on me. So up Della and I went, we chased them up and around and through and down and not once would they go back down that hill. This is not the first time I've had to mountain-goat this damn hill, and let me tell you - each time, my swearing gets worse and worse. Children, and those with soft ears, stay clear. There is nothing fun about rock climbing on a horse and then running full speed through a thick forest. They were already fenced in, and couldn't get back out of the lease, so we left them for the night, and we headed in.

The next morning they had come down and we were able to get them into the corral. Doc, not to be bested, grabbed saddle blankets I was moving from one barn to another and danced around the corral with one in his mouth. (This is a horse we once found having a nap in the centre of a massive stack of bales, he had literally burrowed in when no one was looking, and had decided to take a quick snooze while we were heading out for a ride.) He sure is funny, he's had all his ground work done, and I'd love to ride him, but I've never started a horse before, and I'm afraid his mischevious nature probably wont translate to a soft, easy-going ride from the get-go, so i'll leave that conversation for someone more experienced than I.

Sunday was uneventful, a storm rolled in, and I made barn plans, labelled saddles, and took a little nap on some bales. This upcoming weekend is my last weekend out there, next week is all about packing and then, as of July 1st, I'll be moving in permanantly, and getting ready for, i'm sure, another crazy summer!