Post by fimacg on Apr 2, 2013 8:37:50 GMT
I am so sick of snow we decided to load up both Chompy and Brave and take them to the local country park (at most it is a 10-15 minute drive) but it is over the motorway and all on main roads but would take an hour or two to hack over the hills to get there. but they have NO SNOW!!!!
Anyway both ponies got there OK, I have invested in a dually for the stubborn pig headed mule, (works better on him than the be nice) and he loaded in 10 minutes (both ways)
Anyway We had a lovely time cantering up tracks, getting Brave confident walking over little narrow bridges, I did have to get off and lead him over a couple of times before he was happy for me to ride over.
We found a little beach and were walking them down the beach through the water's edge and up a 2' step back onto the grass. Had an interesting moment when a particularly big wave of about 2" came lapping towards us so Brave had to leap up the step sideways...!!! daft pony
Then we went off road and followed a rabbit/sheep track up a hill, got to one point where we thought we might have to turn around where we had to push through some gorse, whilst negotiating a vertical boulder which had a step up of about 2'6" then sloped for another 2' before returning to grass. Well Brave wlesh mountain pony breeding came to the fore and he just went straight up with very little assistance from me, Chompy decided the gorse was in his way and stopped with his front feet on the boulder and his back feet off to nibble the trail a bit wider!!!
The only problem was after negotiating our way up the hill and having a canter over the top of rabbit city (apparently brave looks like he is skipping across that kind of country as he places his feet very carefully even at a canter). We ten got stuck on the top of the hill with no easy way down... so had to get off and lead them down to the path.
At this point Brave who was ultra confident on rabbit hole infested heathland, decided that a tarmac path was very suspicious and had to hide behind Chompy's bottom!
Around the loch a bit further and we found a mountain bike course, where they had built a proper course with wooden obstacles about 2' high and involved logs etc... well no one was using it so we decided to adapt it for cross country training purposes so were jumping 2 or three of the obstacles where there was clear landing an take off points, after we had done our little course a couple of times, Brave was fired up and took off straight across the middle of the football pitch (fortunately no one there!) I felt like a naughty teenager rather than someone you is going to be 40 next year!
Anyway continued around the loch and the route back to the car had to pass by the childrens play area, and whilst the horses were looking they were behaving well until a Dad decided to ride a flying fox parallel with where the horses were, (about 10' away) result spinning bunny hopping snorting ponies and Mums rapidly calling children away! And we left a steaming pile behind too! But Brave had turned into a 16.2 chestnut dragon with very limited brakes! it took the rest of the ride to calm him down, which was a bit of shame as there were a couple of nice canter stretches but didnt dare let him go as I didn't think I would be able to safely get him back and there were plenty of buggies and dogs around.
Anyway there were more good bits than bad bits to the day and it was great fun to allow the naughty teenage in me to rule for a bit!
Anyway both ponies got there OK, I have invested in a dually for the stubborn pig headed mule, (works better on him than the be nice) and he loaded in 10 minutes (both ways)
Anyway We had a lovely time cantering up tracks, getting Brave confident walking over little narrow bridges, I did have to get off and lead him over a couple of times before he was happy for me to ride over.
We found a little beach and were walking them down the beach through the water's edge and up a 2' step back onto the grass. Had an interesting moment when a particularly big wave of about 2" came lapping towards us so Brave had to leap up the step sideways...!!! daft pony
Then we went off road and followed a rabbit/sheep track up a hill, got to one point where we thought we might have to turn around where we had to push through some gorse, whilst negotiating a vertical boulder which had a step up of about 2'6" then sloped for another 2' before returning to grass. Well Brave wlesh mountain pony breeding came to the fore and he just went straight up with very little assistance from me, Chompy decided the gorse was in his way and stopped with his front feet on the boulder and his back feet off to nibble the trail a bit wider!!!
The only problem was after negotiating our way up the hill and having a canter over the top of rabbit city (apparently brave looks like he is skipping across that kind of country as he places his feet very carefully even at a canter). We ten got stuck on the top of the hill with no easy way down... so had to get off and lead them down to the path.
At this point Brave who was ultra confident on rabbit hole infested heathland, decided that a tarmac path was very suspicious and had to hide behind Chompy's bottom!
Around the loch a bit further and we found a mountain bike course, where they had built a proper course with wooden obstacles about 2' high and involved logs etc... well no one was using it so we decided to adapt it for cross country training purposes so were jumping 2 or three of the obstacles where there was clear landing an take off points, after we had done our little course a couple of times, Brave was fired up and took off straight across the middle of the football pitch (fortunately no one there!) I felt like a naughty teenager rather than someone you is going to be 40 next year!
Anyway continued around the loch and the route back to the car had to pass by the childrens play area, and whilst the horses were looking they were behaving well until a Dad decided to ride a flying fox parallel with where the horses were, (about 10' away) result spinning bunny hopping snorting ponies and Mums rapidly calling children away! And we left a steaming pile behind too! But Brave had turned into a 16.2 chestnut dragon with very limited brakes! it took the rest of the ride to calm him down, which was a bit of shame as there were a couple of nice canter stretches but didnt dare let him go as I didn't think I would be able to safely get him back and there were plenty of buggies and dogs around.
Anyway there were more good bits than bad bits to the day and it was great fun to allow the naughty teenage in me to rule for a bit!
can't wait to do a few long hacks again. what's a flying fox?
.