Crossing the river here is something I have been doing all along, but knowing where to go once I top up on the other side was what I didn't know, as it tops onto farm fields. Apparently one farmer installed a gate so riders can go through, and another one allows us to ride the edges of his fields and come out on the road without having to go through fences.
I started out at the place of the lady with the champagne Tennessee Walker mare, and we joined up with another lady who is her neighbour and also rides a TW. This lady knows all the crossings.
We had just gone through the gate here
The trail from here went down to the river and the crossing is between our place and the swimming hole.
From there we headed west along the dyke with a short detour to show these ladies the path through the bush that goes to my horse pens.
Crossing #2 was one I have done before too, it has a really steep trail to climb on the other side.
The crossing here has a man made row of rocks placed as a bit of a dam as they draw river water for irrigation; that's their pump shack on the other side.
The bottom part isn't as steep as the top....
We stopped part way up for a view shot. The river is a long way down!
The horses chugged their way up to the top and we broke out on hayfields that sadly are getting plowed up to install yet another orchard. So many orchards in our valley. Since we wanted to ride a little longer we opted to explore a trail that went back down to the river, and we had a bit of a dicey way to get off the trail and over some rather large rocks to get to the river crossing. We all opted to get off and lead our horses down to the rivers edge.
Gussie butt photo! We did use the rocks as mounting blocks to get back on. This crossing was actually in between the 2 other crossings. We headed back up to the dyke once across and went up to the swimming hole.
From there we crossed again (#4) and headed back up the original hill we started out on.
You can see the sweat on Gussie's neck. She has been getting a work out this last week!
Now that I know the routes, I can ride to my friend's place in about 15 to 20 minutes, and from there go for rides on the airport trails. As long as the river is low that is!
I took Moondance out ponying the next day. He ponies like a pro now!
He sure is a cool little horse. Well... not so little! At 5 months old he is over 12.2 hands at the wither (50 and a half inches) and 51 inches at the hip- 12.3 hh. His leg measurement is 16 inches, so he is on target to be 16 hands or close to it, just like all his brothers.
I am going to try for a photo from the front when he has his ears pricked- he has Beamer's ears!
Riding day 45 and 46
4 comments:
You and Gussie are river crossing pro's! Gussie must be getting into really good shape. Gotta get those rides in while weather allows. Moondance looks like he really grew - such a handsome boy!
Wow! Great ride, and I’m so happy Tumbleweed isn’t going to be that tall!! As I get older, it just gets too hard to get up on them when we’re out on the trail. 😂 Leah is tall. That said, Moondance is gorgeous and has such a solid mind. Are you keeping him to replace Beamer?
Linda- the plan is to keep him and get Shayla to show him to advance him from the appendix registry to the regular registry in the AQHA. Since Belle is appendix all her foals are too.I would like to get him shown if I am to keep him as a stallion. So far he is showing that he has the right disposition and he definitely has the conformation to keep his boy bits. And I do love riding stallions rather than geldings. However, since he can't breed Belle and I am not planning on breeding Gussie again, that leaves only Jayne, who is 18 this year. So if he is to have a career as a stallion I will need to stand him to the public, which comes with it's own set of problems. So we shall see.
Nice that you found friends with knowledge about the trails! :)
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