Winter Trail Ride

Thu Dec 30, 2004

SOMEhow I got suckered into a trail ride yesterday afternoon!! 2+ feet of snow on the ground, 30 degrees, cloudy...but they were working on the indoor arena surface, so it was either go on the trail ride with 3 other people, or no riding! *sigh*.

NO clear trails or paths, we tried following the snowmobile trails but the snow wasn't packed down enough to support a horse (yet), so we struck out into the hayfield next door, plowing through the 2' or so of snow! Unfortunately for 14hh Quzqo, that meant the snow kind of came up over his knees, where the others (all QHs) it came maybe 3/4 of the way up their cannon bones! I felt so bad for the little guy, he was really struggling along. By the time we got to the corner where I fell off on Halloween, he decided we'd gone far enough, and put up a pretty enthusiastic hissy fit about the whole situation..head-tossing, rearing, spinning...surprised me! Luckily the snow was deep (hindered his movement) and I had the "mean" snaffle on him (Tez's old Dee-ring with a noseband), and with a few good sharp kicks to the ribs I got him turned the right direction and caught up to the others.

After a minute or so he decided he'd had enough, and started to turn around...again, more rearing, head-tossing, and getting his head yanked around (thank you Chris Cox!) & a jab to the ribs (I left my whip at the barn), and after the others...he decided "okay, she wants to follow them, we'll FOLLOW THEM!" and tried to take off at a canter (in the 2' deep snow)...I slowed him back down, then cued him for a trot!

Once we got up to the road, we went down a private drive and dinked around on some private trails back there (we have permission), snow was much shallower since it was in some pretty thick woods...back out and back to the barn. By that time Quzqo was huffing and puffing and the last 1/2 mile had me REALLY worried about him...his head was hanging low, his nostrils flaring, he was stumbling...I tried to halt him to rest, but he didn't want to, wanted to keep up...I then noticed he wasn't hanging his head from exhaustion, he was LOOKING at the hoofprints in the snow, and trying to step IN the prints of the previous horses (who were also all stepping in the exact same spots)...considering their strides were longer than his, that was pretty trying for the little guy, but he did it, and I could feel him relax when we got back to the barn and flat ground! Poor little feller...

Back at the barn he got wrapped up in his cooler (he was starting to steam), but what really worried me is it took him about 20 minutes before he got his breath back!! Of course hiking in deep snow is VERY strenuous on its own, plus add the fact he's an out of shape butterball...tsk. I told him we'd never do that again, and after 20 minutes he was breathing normally, warm and dry, and snooping for treats in my pockets, LOL!

Today I think we WILL work indoors. I bet he's sore though!