Ride Date - 18 Dec99Ride Date - 18 Dec99Our farrier, James hadn't been able to stop by to replace the RF shoe we lost on Wed, so we stuck our new "boot" on and hoped for the best.
Taylor and I had a nice round pen experience. We got some feedback from the "master of feel," Eric aka Corinne's significant other. We had a great clinic. The ground school practiced "sending" at the trot. This was a challenge with all the horses that were in the ring. And we worked on "rocking" back and forth. Boy, you could really see the training that Corinne's been giving him paying off! Just a motion for back... no tools.
The major thrust of the lesson was to keep your horse with you. To do this we did things like ride in a 20 meter circle with 3 of us going right and 3 going left. And then doing "thread the needle." Whew! A few bucks on this one! And then we'd all get in one big line and Corinne'd say to someone in the middle to STOP, the rest had to ride by. And the stopped one had to rock their horse back and forth. Some interesting results!
For the first time I got a chance to lead since everyone did. More importantly this was the first time I was able to get Taylor on the bit in class and the first time we did a low stress, long running shoulder forward in a sitting trot. Cool! And he didn't spook when we got asked to stop and all the horses are trotting by. What a good boy!
The only down was Corinne indicating that only some of the class (Courtney, Derek) were fit enough to ride. And the watcher, Stacy, too. Imagine how Jill felt being grouped with me! Could cause her to start visiting the gym!
Corinne's opinion was that we could go out walking on the trail and stay on the fireroads to avoid the mud pulling off the boot. Jamie suggested that we do this Filter Plant loop. It was a good call! So Taylor and I left around 1:30 and headed down the trail. It was interesting to hear Corinne telling her afternoon class that "they rode a lot better than her morning class." Geez, Stacy gets all the breaks!
We walked down the Canyon Trail (0.6 mi) to the connector fire road (0.1 mi) to Boy Scout Junction.
We walked up Deer Park Fire Road (0.4 mi) to Five Corners.
At Five Corners we stopped to chat with a biker gal who was resting. I think we've seen her before. Then we walked down Shaver Grade (1.1 mi) to Phoenix Junction.
For the first time we headed up Fish Grade (0.7
mi). Taylor had a bit of challenge keeping it at a walk. And it was a little
dicey when the big MMWD truck came rolling by. I think next time I'll take
the inside of the road! We got to the beginning of Filter Plant Road (1.0
mi) about 2:20. It was a pretty walk. We stopped just before the filter plant
to look at a pair of ravens. I watched the first one fly in with some long strings
in his mouth. Thought he might be making a nest, but it's the wrong time of the
year. Then a second one came up with something similar. They sat in the dead tree
and appeared to pick something off the string and eat it. Almost if they had a
string of grapes. I'm clueless as to what they were doing. I was pleased that
Taylor was quiet while I watched.
As we came round the filter plant, we got a great view of Bald Hill, and then (through the trees) Phoenix Lake's dam. About 20 minutes later we hung a left on Eldridge Grade. We did the 0.8 miles downhill. At this point, Taylor was getting really dancy because I hadn't let him trot at all.
We we got back to Shaver Grade, Taylor was really going nuts. I normally let him trot on the flat, and canter up the hill. I finally gave in and let him jog up the hill. It took some of the wind out of his sails by the time we got back to Five Corners.
We ran into several ponies from the barn including Beemer, our 20
year old Morgan next stall neighbor, We chatted awhile and then headed back
down Deer Park Fireroad. Taylor was able to actually walk on the buckle. We
stopped to listen to a bunch of robins. For an East Coast guy trained to treat the
harbinger of Spring, it's wild to hear Robins welcoming the first day of Winter 3 days
hence!
We turned down the fireroad connector (0.1 mi) and stopped several times to get him to chill out. Then we hung a right on Canyon Trail (0.6 mi) and back to the Stables.
We got back to stable and found that our shoer, James and come out to fix Taylor. What a guy! He was there with his gorgeous blonde 3 year old daughter named, Taylor! I teased her that she might grow up and follow in her father's footsteps and we could call her the "farrier princess."
He "four nailed" on a new shoe, and added a couple of nails to the other one. Corinne pointed out that no other shoer would come out on Saturday and that I owed him big time.