I still remember the difficult stuff when first starting a horse on the trails. \u00a0Lucky Star discovered that he hated muddy gullies , so he tried to walk on the sides of the steep gully, or climb the gulley and get stuck in the trees on the top. \u00a0Then I remember the stopping at the water crossing and the eventual jumping of the water crossing. \u00a0I remember Lucky casting back and forth on the trail trying to find the right grove. \u00a0I remember running down the steep rocky hills, screeching to a stop at the water crossing…jumping and then trying to walk sideways up the other side. And let’s not forget the tree knee banging as the horse walks on the narrow winding tree filled trail. Lucky has become an excellent trail horse now, but taking a new trail horse out until they gain the experience, it’s the stuff of memories.<\/p>\n
The above didn’t happen today with Cisco. \u00a0So, I’m going to take this opportunity to pass my joy along.<\/p>\n
We rode with Chas and Louie. \u00a0Louie is a young horse with a lot of experience on the trail. \u00a0I asked Chas to lead and off we went. \u00a0Cisco relaxed and followed calmly. \u00a0He didn’t try to ride on Louie’s tail. \u00a0He kept a decent distance behind with me asking him to keep his distance with the lightest of pressure on the bit. \u00a0We moved along with loose reins. \u00a0No charging up, just going along at the speed I requested. \u00a0Oh the joy #1.<\/p>\n
A scary spot came up not too far along the trail. \u00a0It was still fairly open meadow at this point, but the trail narrowed by some trees that had ventured into the meadow. \u00a0Louie didn’t like the look of the narrow spot, so I asked Cisco to lead the way. \u00a0Cisco walked around Louie and led the way through the narrow spot. \u00a0This happened again a couple more times, once when Louie decided he wanted to stop and urinate, except we were headed on the down side of a short steep incline. \u00a0Neither Chas nor I thought this was a suitable place to stretch out, so Cisco led the way again. \u00a0Oh the Joy #2.<\/p>\n
Now we are in the \u00a0narrow trails of the forest. \u00a0The trail winds around the trees. \u00a0The trees want badly to bang the rider’s knees. \u00a0Cisco passed the trees wide enough…without me asking…to spare my knees. \u00a0He knew to go around the trees wide enough to keep my knees safe! \u00a0Oh the Joy #3<\/p>\n
There are other tree parts that want very badly to either decapitate you or scrap you off your horse. These are called low hanging branches. \u00a0Occasionally, you need to stop your horse and ask to side pass or move over to avoid the deceptive killer branches. \u00a0Cisco stopped and moved sideways as I asked. \u00a0On particularly low hanging branch growled in frustration when Cisco neatly stepped sideways and let me drop my upper body down to the saddle horn at the same time! \u00a0Oh the Joy #4<\/p>\n
Louie and Chaz lead the way through most of the forest. \u00a0I do have one complaint. \u00a0There was this cobweb with the spider in the middle of it right in the middle of the trail. \u00a0Chas screamed at the cobweb, but failed to take it down. \u00a0Cisco and I went through the cobweb with the spider. \u00a0I made a violent gesture to kill the cobweb and smack the spider away. \u00a0I did a girl scream too! \u00a0Cisco just plodded right along. Oh the Joy #4<\/p>\n
Cisco walked steadily though a rock filled dry water crossing. \u00a0We did come to a real water crossing. \u00a0He walked through the water. \u00a0He looked at the water and went right through it. \u00a0Oh the Joy #5<\/p>\n
Louie led the way through a mud sucking spot. \u00a0Cisco saw the mud and heard the sucking noise of Louie’s feet. \u00a0We then jumped the mud spot. \u00a0It was a nice smooth jump that anyone would have been able to stay on. \u00a0I’m not going to include the jumping the mud bog as part of the joy, but the jump was smooth and low. \u00a0I made a note to be aware of mud bog spots in future trail rides. \u00a0Oh the partial Joy #6<\/p>\n
Chas’ dog. Sanford, \u00a0came with us on the trail ride. \u00a0Nothing Sanford did made any difference to Cisco. Sandord followed. \u00a0He went to the side of us, He got in front of us. \u00a0He passed the horses. \u00a0Cisco was fine with everything Sanford did on the trail. \u00a0Chas asked me before we started if Sanford would bother Cisco on the ride. \u00a0Since this was my first trail ride with Cisco, I had to reply…”Don’t Know”! Now I know that dogs rustling about in the forest is fine with Cisco. \u00a0I bet deer rustling about in the forrest will be equally a non-event. \u00a0Oh the full Joy #7<\/p>\n
Out of the forest into an area near houses. \u00a0Nothing was going on with the houses, but Cisco didn’t need an adjustment to the scenery change. \u00a0Oh the Joy #8<\/p>\n
We left the houses area and went into the wide open 100 mile view. \u00a0We crossed a long dam. \u00a0A boater was in the water. \u00a0Cisco and Louie now were gaiting along at a smooth very fast flat foot walk. \u00a0Oh the Joy #9<\/p>\n
We came to a small block toilet that looked a little strange in the wide open landscape. \u00a0We did slow down to look at the outhouse. \u00a0We needed a break too, from the effort. \u00a0The horses were really sweating now. \u00a0We had a good breather and proceeded along. \u00a0Oh the Joy #10<\/p>\n
We arrived at the trailers. \u00a0Cisco was a little excited now, but he stood still while I got off. \u00a0My legs and knees were in shock that I had gone for such a long ride and refused to hold my weight. \u00a0I had to hang onto the saddle for more than a few moments before the shock wore off and my lower body decided to be self supporting. \u00a0Oh the Joy #11 for standing still when I needed it.<\/p>\n
Oh the Joy #12 when Cisco loaded right into the trailer. \u00a0I wanted to end on an even number Joy…<\/p>\n
I had twelve huge Cisco joys today. \u00a0I also had much joy to be riding with Chas. \u00a0I had much joy when watching Louie on the trail. \u00a0Chas has told us in an earlier Facebook post that Louie was gaiting wonderfully on the trail. \u00a0I looked over when Louie as doing a flat foot walk side by side with Cisco and almost had a heart stoppage…Louie has an amazing gait. \u00a0He is a beautiful gold champagne with beautiful curly white mane and tail and the cutest head ever. \u00a0I might have to take along a pacemaker the next time I ride with Chas and Louie!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I still remember the difficult stuff when first starting a horse on the trails. \u00a0Lucky Star discovered that he hated muddy gullies , so he tried to walk on the sides of the steep gully, or climb the gulley and get stuck in the trees on the top. \u00a0Then I remember the stopping at the water crossing and the eventual jumping of the water crossing. \u00a0I remember Lucky casting back and forth on the trail trying to find the right grove. \u00a0I remember running down the steep rocky hills, screeching…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,1,125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cisco","category-miscellaneous","category-missouri-fox-trotter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3078"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3082,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078\/revisions\/3082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}