High 50's sunshine, how can one resist? It's November right? We headed out with our friends Brenda & Shelby again. Boy is it one muddy mess out there. I'd hoped yesterday's warmer temps and sunshine would've dried it up more, but my hopes were for naught. BUT on the positive side, there were no bugs! And once we got to the other side of the highway we knew the trails would begin to be drier.
Both horses were nice and relaxed and it was just a glorious day to be out on the back of a horse. We had been out for a little over an hour and I had just mentioned to Brenda that what always surprises me is with all the horses that are on our street (there are tons of barns) I never have run into any riders other than a couple people from our barn. So we round the corner and G comes to a dead stop high alert! And here come two dressage horses down the trail. Beautiful warmbloods, but the riders seemed so out of place in the woods. Dressed in neat jods, vests, tall shiny black boots, everything "just so" and here I am in a hunter orange helmet and vest; chinks I said to them it was funny that I was just mentioning never seeing anyone else out here, and they mentioned there was a horse trailer at the boat ramp and a few horse and riders, who were dressed like me. I wasn't quite sure what that meant, lol.
So on our merry way toward the boat ramp - the river was pretty high and the breeze was a little brisk off the water. But I was trail riding and nothing was going to ruin it for me. We got to the ramp and were standing for a minute when we saw three riders/horses come off the other trail into the clearing. They waved at us, so we waved back. Yep, they were all dressed like me. They were wearing hunter orange vests, lol. We decided to head back since we'd been out 1.5 hours already and immediately both horses went into "I'm going home mode". We both spent time trying to soften - working circles, serpentines,etc. G began to breathe, Shelby continued to jig. However, the moment we got back into the woods, she stopped and started walking along. Brenda believes that its a Thoroughbred thang....ya know, see an open space immediately want to run. I don't know if that's true of all Thoroughbreds or not, but I'd like to believe that you can change the mindset of any horse IF you find the right tools for the particular horse.
We're on the final long stretch for home when we hear quads coming up behind us. Most guys out there will turn when they see horses or shut down until we're out of sight. Well, one quad turned around and other proceeded to slowly follow us down the trail getting closer and closer. I kept turning my head and shaking it like "what gives"? Both G & Shelby were really good and I was pleasantly surprised that neither one of them got spooky, jiggy or out of sorts. At this point they were probably just happy to be closer to home. After 5 minutes, I finally stopped G and I turned around to face the quad. It immediately stopped and the helmet came off. Here sat a 14-15 year old boy. I asked "do you know about trail etiquette in the State of Connecticut?" He shut off the quad and said "no". I explained that in Connecticut horses have the right of way on trails over quads and bikes. I went on to explain a little bit about horses being prey animals and that usually when something comes up behind them they think it's going to attack - in this case we're lucky that our horses didn't do something dangerous like rear or buck. He said "I'm so sorry". I said "no its okay, you didn't know. But going forward when you're on a trail like this and you see horses, the best thing you can do is shut down or turn around until we're clear of the trail". I went on to say that had he stopped in the beginnning I may have tried to find a spot so we could move the horses off the trail so he could slowly go by, but I had thought he was just being belligerent so I was holding my ground. He was so apologetic, so I tried my best to let him know we understood that he didn't know, but now that he does we can all share the trails. So as we gaited down the trail he sat and waited. When we got to where we go straight the other trail continues off to the right, I waved him on. I waved back, started up and we could hear him slowly come up the trail. I had expected him to open 'er up, but he was respectful. Brenda told me later I did a really nice job of handling the situation - she thought I was going to yell at him, lol.
We got back to the barn and rather than take G to the track to continue working, which is our usual routine, since he came home in a relaxed state of mind, he got to be untacked right away and turned out to graze. It was a nice trail ride and another successful day of communication with my boy.
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