Saturday fun

Saturday some friends and I went up to Panther Creek, which is about an hour and a half away from us, for a nice long trail ride. I took Koko. No pics, so I'll try to use words. :-) We rode for about three hours. It was really windy, but the sun was shining and the horses didn't seem to mind a bit. We hadn't gone far before we saw four young deer in a field, and they came right towards us- we got to watch them for a few minutes. Shortly after that, Mariah, who was riding next to me, says in this really normal tone of voice, "there's a snake right there!" I was still looking back at the deer and it took a few seconds for the words to sink in. By then we were past it- Koko had, apparently, just missed it by a few inches. Whew! I can't believe I didn't even see it! It didn't bother him apparently, nor did the big, rather annoyed, black snake a few yards further down. Fortunately, those were the only snakes we saw.
We skirted around a few large puddles- Koko hates to get his feet wet when there is any way to avoid it. Because of the heavy rainfall, some of the trails were closed, but the park had opened up some of the snowmobiling trails, which we understood was very rare. Koko did end up having to get his feet wet after all, and I experienced my first creek crossing on a trail (probably his first too) Several of the others went in front, and after a few seconds of snorting and tap-dancing on the edge of the water he made a gigantic leap, landing squarely in the middle of the belly-deep (on him) creek. It was a blast!! We had a lot of fun crossing that creek. On the way back, I made him go across first, and he did very well. :-)
We went over lots of very hilly trail, because we were on the snowmobiling trails most of the time. It was very good conditioning for the horses. Koko was so good the whole time, I was very proud of him- no spooking at anything, though he saw some very different things from what he's used to being ridden at home, or in an arena! He gaited very well too. There was a large bridge to cross, with wooden planks that made a very odd echoing sound- the other horses refused to step onto it, so Koko went in the lead, no problems or hesitation. Apparently an echoing board across a steep drop-off is much safer than a two inch deep puddle!
I think he might just have the makings of an endurance/CTR horse. I didn't have anything to check his heartrate, but he cooled off right away, and when the other horses slowed down a little about halfway back he was still doing his long-strided power walk (and getting impatient when I kept making him stop to wait up on the others! They are not slow by any means in their walking, one is a big-strided TWH and the other is also fairly fast, but they were getting tired and ready to be done... not so Koko!) He just loved the whole experience. Nothing seemed to bother him, other than going through water when he didn't HAVE to, or stopping for the others. He didn't mind stopping in general when everyone was there- we got off once for a few minutes to let them rest their backs, and made a few other pauses- but he didn't see any reason to wait for the others. "They're coming! It's ok!" was what seemed to be his thoughts as he tossed his head and chewed on his bit.
All in all, it was really fun! We're defenitely planning on going back.