Trail Pony

An impromptu trail ride yesterday evening turned out to be one of the best decisions I've made it a while. :) Since I don't know the trails yet & yesterday was only monster pony's second trail ride, I am the mercy of tagging along when one of the trail veterans goes out for a ride. Yesterday we went out around 6:30 & the weather was just beautiful. Still a bit warm, but as the sun started to set a cool breeze settled in and it made me SO excited for the fall weather to finally get here. At any rate, pony did an amazing job. SO amazing. My poor little girl always tags so far behind since her legs are a good 6 inches shorter then everyone else's, so we caboosed it the whole way & trotted to catch up when we fell too far back. We passed two herds of deer - one herd ran across the trail, and a man jogging. One of the front horses spooked and Cheyenne just stopped behind them, but no spook. That's my girl! Although, I'm pretty sure she was so far back she barely saw any of the things, she still didn't react to the other horses spooking, which is awesome in itself. :) She also maintained her composure behind a fussy horse the whole way home. We went to a new area of trails, with lots of roots and uneven ground and she didn't think twice about going over any of it or hesitate one bit. It took a LOT longer than expected to get home & we were riding in the dark. There was just enough light to make out the horse in front and Cheyenne rode home like a CHAMP! She was amazing, not one single teeny tiny issue the whole ride. It was like she'd done it a million times before.

Here's a picture to show how dark it was by the time we made it back to the barn, and that's with the barn light on! :)

I am SO proud of her. She never ceases to amaze me with what she is capable of. :)

Best. Pony. EVER!

Seriously, she is. She has blossomed at our new barn. Since our first bad ride, she has really gotten her act together. SO much so that we went out on our first trail ride last weekend! I was so impressed with her I could have cried. She led almost the entire time, didn't do any real spooking... only thing that made her nervous were a few logs and trees that had fallen, she hesitated a bit when we saw them but walked on anyway. I love her. I love her SO much!

April has been working with her weekly and she is really coming full circle with the respect issue. She is rarely ever pushy now, and respects people's space. That was one of the biggest mistakes I made as a green horse owner, allowing her to become pushy. I of course thought it was cute that she wanted to be right up on top of me all the time "She loves me... we're bonding" Um, no... she's being dominant & pushy. Lesson learned, and corrected. Thank God for a wonderful trainer and support system to set me straight!

My favorite thing Cheyenne has learned is to walk through water. We have a pond out in her pasture so I have started riding & lungeing her through it and she LOVED it! She'll dunk her whole head under water to blow bubbles, it's so cute! :) Here she is playing in the water



& here is April, riding her bareback with just a halter and leadrope!!! She wasn't perfect, but the fact that it was done at all impressed the heck out of me. :)