Three Rides, One Post

~Susan and *RCR Ah-D-Das in Maine~

Ride # 1 A Low Key Ride Hey! Lookit this give to pressure! I didn’t even “need” to use it last Sunday with Didder because he was so laid back, but we practiced it anyway. I am so impressed with how fast AhD picked up what I was looking for. Sometimes I don’t give his brain enough credit. Kara and Al the Haffie were with us, and they were very impressed. Well, Kara was, anyway. She couldn’t get over how quiet AhD was today. We high-tailed it up to this field so we could canter. It was fun, and there is such beautiful scenery surrounding that field. Afterwards, we let the horses have a treat of dried up grass, and then we thought we would try the wooded trails. WRONG! The snow on the lee side of the field was so high, that the horses were rearing and bucking (sort of) just to get through it! So, we nixed the trail idea, but hey, spring IS coming!

Ride # 2 A High Key Ride Well, today’s ride had both horses doing a complete turn around in attitude! They were go, go, go, and Kara and I had fun, fun, fun! The trails across the street were PERFECT, and I mean perfect. It was not a spring ride, but rather a late winter ride, and a totally beautiful one. It was cold, but we didn’t notice because we had so much fun ramming around on the wonderful groomed trails. Didder was just full of it! Exciting and so rejuvenating to walk, trot and canter (and one run!!!) on a delightfully forward Curly. This is a "wow, that canter was fun "smile. The low point could have been when Kara fell off from a short stop from a canter, but she is agile enough to roll and get right back up, so it was good for quite the giggle from both of us, and really wasn’t a low point at all. We just continued on. And we kept cantering, too. :)

Ride #3 A Medium Key Ride! Sweet! Just AhD and I out with my Labs Grace and Aaralyn. Ruby, my yellow Lab was busy at home taking care of her newborns. My Didder was awesome today. It is cold and windy, WINTER, not spring, so I took right to the woods and we slugged through some high snow spots and ducked branches to get on to that gorgeous trail. We had a pretty jaunty ride. I got one swirl spook, but I just ignored it and kept going. AhD seemed kind of embarrassed about spooking at a flying leaf. Hey, we all make mistakes. He was ready to run anytime I was ready to ask. I was up for a few collected canters, and he threw in a little buck or two to let me know that he really would’ve liked to have been less collected and more stretched out at a dead run. A stern “hey, hey, hey” from me settled him down. He was just feeling really good, like he did yesterday.

We went on this "privet" trail. I didn't feel badly because I figured they only wanted "privecy" from snowmobiles. It was a deer highway down there, tons of sign. This is a gorgeous trail so I have to find out who put up the sign. It is not a dead end, either, but can take us all sorts of places.

AhD stood in this stream for a drink. Check out the icicles. Must have frozen AhD's teeth to have that water sucked in across them.

Sometimes, he would just mosey along the trail, perfectly contentedly, as in the following video. Spring is coming, but it is not here yet. Next weekend??? :)