Out and About

 After the clinic and all the work we've been doing I've been really wanting to get out and hack at Coveside. It's such a beautiful location and riding there is good for the soul.  My worry was leaving one horse behind. But I've been doing a lot of work on separating them so I figured I could take Quaid and leave Carmen for the first time. I've also thought about riding one and ponying the other. 

Anyway, before I could reach out to Tanya to see if she wanted to go Julia messaged me that she was home for a visit. So before you could say 'wait, what?' I arranged for all of us to go to Coveside for a ride on the Monday after the clinic. 

We trailered there pretty easily and pulled in at the same time.  I tied Quaid to the trailer and had Carmen ground tied. I was pretty impressed with how quiet he stood in the parking lot. It was busy, there were side by sides, tractors and large equipment moving around. 

Quaid: this is fine

Carmen: does anyone even care that I'm not secured? 

We mounted up and headed off. We decided to go the longer way to the trail to avoid having to go by the large excavator doing some digging.  This meant that we rode by the paddocks and the horses got a little excited. There was also a donkey who was wondering who the heck we were. But everyone walked by with some tension but no shenanigans. 

Tanya took the lead and Suzi was excited. Carmen was pretty cool about the whole thing. Last time I rode Quaid here (last year) he was pretty excited and took a lot of half-halts (that he resented). This time he was much more mature. Still worried a bit but not fussing with the bit or getting annoyed that I kept his pace calm. 

Tanya slightly more excited than Suzi, lol

The nice thing about Coveside is that there are ton of trails but it's completely fenced around the perimeter so, while you can get lost, you can't get lost lost.  

I love walking in the woods. Riding in them is even better.  Suzi was really striding out, Carmen slightly and Quaid was being a little short strides and then trotted to catch up. I let him because, at some point, I do want to trot these. We did a lot of hills. Some of them were quite steep. I was impressed with how he dropped his head and just powered up. Carmen was the same. 

We skirted some fields and walked over bridges and by some buildings and rocks. He looked at everything but was good about going by.  Carmen, as always was completely chill about all of it. 

Now before you start thinking 'my goodness that Quaid is a perfect horse. I'm gonna steal him'. He had a pretty baby moment. About 2/3 into the ride we decided to put Carmen in front and Suzi behind Quaid. Carmen went from total relaxation to more alert. Julia said it was like she realised that she was now in charge and had to be vigilant. She still was fine.  But Quaid was not happy about Suzi being behind him. But not greatly unhappy, just aware and a little annoyed if she got too close. I should have paid more attention to this because he suddenly gave a big buck.  At least I thought it was a buck. Turned out he kicked Suzi!  I was appalled. Fortunately, Suzi was okay. We moved them around again so it wouldn't happen again. In retrospect I realised that he doesn't yet know that he can't work on herd dynamics when being ridden.   More on that later. 

Other than that one incident, it was a good ride. We rode for about an hour and did 5.7 km. Not bad. After we untacked. I made sure that Tanya forgave me. Suzi never did get sore (thank god). 

I am hoping to do this again pretty soon. It's good for us.