Stepping Out

Hope It Will Be Fun!

My endurance rider friend has three horses--Arabians. Two are seasoned veterans of many endurance rides. One is her youngster just "learning the ropes."  (Side note here:  she won the youngster in a raffle!)

Anyhow, there is a hunter pace on Sunday and she decided it was time to get the young horse out. Her husband rides one of the seasoned horses, but there was no one to ride the other fellow. 

In I step. 

Christina emailed me and asked if I'd like to join them in the pace. 

Talk about jumping back into riding mode full force. I agreed. I will be going over to her barn tomorrow to do some test rides on her horse. Obviously, more reports on this enterprise will follow.

Meantime, I am just about to go out to take Chance out for a ride. It's another lovely day and I found a new trail to ride. Well, it's not actually a new trail, exactly. The farmer up the road has a pumpkin patch for pick your own pumpkins set in the much larger cornfield. The road into the patch opens onto the tree farm which is an nice trail ride from here. Then, the path goes all around the pumpkin patch and comes back out to the tree farm. It makes a nice little loop with good footing and will be a perfect ride for us. I will not have to ride along the NJ Turnpike to get in a full trail circle. 

I walked the trail yesterday to get some exercise and it added nearly 20 minutes to my hike. I know Chance walks faster than I do--at least I hope he does--so I figure the whole ride will take, at most, about 40 minutes since we have to take the long way out through the woods instead of walking along the paved road as I do to get out there. 

Now, all we have to content with are the bugs. I guess I'll put on his fly gear. 

See you tomorrow with news of a new day.