trail riding

Every time I come back to the site I find someone new! Today it was Prince and Patches from Illinois, and Kaley4 who joined our little and growing group. I notice there are some members out there who haven't yet posted--I'd love to read your stories and see your photos and videos. We've got a diverse and interesting group started, with members in Austria and the Southwest US and Russia and the UK. I'm hoping our community continues to grow, so send yourhorsesports on to your horse friends and riding buddies.

You know, when I left a boarding stable and moved my horse (Volare, the one-eared wonder) home, I worried I'd miss the social life of the barn aisle. After all, for us horse-types, often that's our only source of friends (at least it was for me). But in time I realized that horse friends can come from anywhere--down the street, up the valley, and across the world. I made some new horse friends in Europe last time I went over--it's all because, while our passports are different colors, our passions are the same.

Okay, so a whole day has passed and the two men have not returned my good winter horse blanket or the cooler I lent them to keep their traumatized horse warm while they walked home. Now I'm totally questioning my judgment. Maybe I should have made them keep the horse in my barn, where I could have looked after him, maybe even called the vet and gotten him some care. Or maybe I should have made them haul the horse home in my trailer. They were in such a hurry to get the horse out of the ditch, Scot is now wondering if they were fleeing something or stealing, or just illegal and scared to meet the sheriff who we called right away (as we normally do when a horse falls in the ditch). Whatever the case, I'm sickly worried about the horse, and want my blanket back only so I can ask them what happened.

I did not make it to the horse show this weekend--the flu turned into a whopping case of bronchitis, so Baleno is standing around all braided and ready to go and I'm flat on my back in bed. I'm somewhat relieved, since sometimes the whole dressage thing can be somewhat humiliating--I'm never quite ready, never quite spotlessly groomed, and never quite accurate enough to earn the big scores...somedays I long to go back to the eventing days.

But anyway, had I gone to the horse show I would have missed the big excitement in our neighborhood--a horse in the irrigation ditch. This is nothing new, but it's nonetheless scary and creepy when it happens, and it always involves some guy who thinks he knows the best way to get the horse out of the ditch, and some other guys who need to be experts thinking they know the best way to get the horse out of the ditch, and so forth. In fact, those of us who live near the irrigation ditch and have pulled a horse a summer out of the ditch (at least) really do know how to do it.

I went out early this morning in a futile attempt to beat the wind. My neighbor has an American flag blowing in his front yard, and I use it as a wind meter. If the flag is just flapping, the wind is tolerable, if it is wickedly whipping, the wind will be like riding in a vacuum hose, if it is sticking straight out like it was starched the wind will take your skin off.
When I left the house at 7:30 a.m. it was barely flapping. But the wind was cold. I wore silk long johns, a long sleeve tee-shirt, a flannel shirt, and my collection of polar fleece that is a blue color coordinated combo of socks, gloves, neck sock, vest and riding tights, and over all of that I wore a heavy winter coat. My nose was cold.

"There's no bad weather, just bad clothing."
Wish those were my wise words, but they belong to Paul Turner, proprietor of Trans Wales Trails. He gave me that bit of wisdom as I gazed at the rain streaking the windows of the breakfast room at the trekking center. Of course we were going to ride, even with the weather. This was Wales, after all, and a little rain was no excuse to cancel a good ride.

Paul handed me a dri-z-bone, one of those full length wax riding coats that cover your legs and the saddle, and off we went. Trans Wales is not for beginners. The Welsh love their sturdy, uber-four-wheel-drive cobs (smallish, usually under 16 hands) and love to use them. So Paul and I (I was the only guest during the week, but 11 guests showed up on the weekend) ker-splashed down to a 17th century castle, trotted over to a cafe for lunch, galloped up the meadows in the national park that encompasses the Black Mountains, gazed at the views of the green, green (too green, even, for the word green) valleys below.