Lovely ride yesterday even if it was a bit wet!

[Jessey]

We set out at 0830 yesterday morning to go to our pleasure ride, we got half way there to find a huge bike (pedal) race in the forest, which blocked a huge amount of the route we planned to use to get to the ride, we found a way around it but it was a bit "off road". We made it to the venue (6 miles) in about 1 hr 15 mins which I was happy with.
We rested the horses for about 20 mins, let them munch the grass and offered water before setting off on the organised part of the ride.
We set off on the 8 mile loop, and got lost in the first mile and didn't realise for a little too long (that will teach us for just following the masses ) It rained quite hard for a little while and I was soaked. We met lots of nice people and our horses were fantastic, Jess was so cute, on a totally slack rein she had her hocks right under her, totally elevated her front end and in complete self carriage jig jogging along at the same pace my friends horse was walking, she kept this up for miles but I never once had to hold her back, she just couldn't contain herself to walk as the other horses were cantering off in front of us she did settle after. There was another downpour just as I was drying off but it wasn't too bad as it was still 16 degrees out. Jess was perfect all day and seemed to really enjoy herself, I have been feeling she needed a change of pace and she seemed to be very happy about it.
We finished the organised bit in 2hrs 30 mins (we went slow as it was my friends first one on her Ex-racer) then we let them rest for an hour with some haylage to nosh on and we had our sarnies.
We set out for home and decided to take a slightly longer route to avoid the bike race (there were literally 100's of cars, tannoy system and bikes flying everywhere) and Jess again made me smile, she went in to homing pidgoen mode, on the way back she was insisting on turning left when I thought we should go straight, but I have learnt not to ignor her as normally she is right and I am wrong and she was indeed right, she took us on a track through a thick part of the forest where there are no real reference points, it was only after we got to the other end I realised where we were, she brought us out exactly where we needed to be on a track we have only ridden once and even then it was from the opposite direction! Luvf my girly
Will upload pics later, didn't get many though as it was raining for quite a lot of the time.

 

[Trewsers]

Clever girl knowing which way to go. Look forward to pics.

 

[Chrisnscully]

Mark Rashid tells a story in one of his books about his horse which at the end of a long day looking for something was finally given its head to go the way it wanted, rather than the way Mark was convinced was right and found what they were looking for.

Scully also seems to be better at weather forecasting than the met office - she is keen to come in some days and usually beats the arrival of rain by minutes!

 

[Jessey]

I was suprised when we did our big ride, we had ridden 70 miles from home and half way through the last day that we rode on our way back to the same camp from the night before, and she knew where we were going as soon as I made the first turn in that direction, she had 100% never been on that route before (we went out on a loop) but she knew for sure the way home. She has got me out of being lost on more than one occasion!

 

[Chrisnscully]

Well, their eyesight is better than ours and their hearing is too - did you know they use the side of their bodies to amplify distant sounds? I guess their knowledge of where they are and where "home" is based on their more acute senses.

 

[Jessey]

I didn't know that, very interesting. She never used to be like it, that was always my other horses job, we would often get lost on our own and go in circles but she has really stepped up since we lost him