My Riding Journal ( For Anyone Who Cares)

Camping ( Week Two )

Thankfully, the second week of camping was a lot happier then the first.

The second week of camping was mostly younger kids but some of us from the previous week came to help out. The Sunday before we left all of the advanced group went to an auction and bought 4 horses and a mule.

I was originally going to bring Cash to the second week of camping, but they ended up using him for camp instead which caused a lot of confusion. Originally, a younger girl named Sydney was going to take Fessick ( The horse i usually take on trails )on the camping trip which is why i didn't plan on taking him, but since they had to use Cash for camp Michelle changed around our horses. In the end Sydney took BB ( Black Beauty ) and i took Fessick.

We changed the camping location for obvious reasons, but since it was such short notice the only place that wasn't full was pretty far away. Since it was kind of late when we arrived, we didn't have the time to go on a trail ride after we had set up camp, so we rode in the arena at night which was pretty fun.

The next day we woke up and fed our horses breakfast, filled waters, mucked stalls, ate breakfast, and made lunches. At around 11, we tacked up and headed out on a trail ride. Since we usually camp at a different place, it had been a while since Michelle had ridden on the trails that we rode on, we spent most of the first day remembering the trails and trying not to get lost. We stopped for lunch in a field that had a couple of benches and Michelle came up to me and asked if i was willing to switch horses with Sydney because she was throwing a mini-tantrum since she didn't get to ride Fessick. BB wasn't really doing anything wrong, she just kept trying to eat. I said that if Sydney really wanted to, i'd switch. We didn't end up switching that day which i was pretty happy about, Michelle told me that she was going to see if Sydney was any better on the way back, and if she wasn't then we were going to figure something out the next day.

The next day we started off riding in the arena, just a walk, trot, canter warm-up. No courses or anything. After we finished with that, we ate lunch and Sophia ( The one in charge of making sure that we didn't do anything too stupid, aka our other trail guide ) told me, Autumn, and Sydney that we were going to switch horses. Autumn was going to ride Fessick, Sydney was going to ride Maisy, and i was going to ride BB. To tell the truth, i was a little bit pissed at Sydney and Sophia even though i said that i'd be fine with switching the day before.

I know that that makes me kind of an ass, but it just annoys me that Sydney always gets what she wants, this isn't the first time that something like this has happened.

All of my bitchy thoughts about Sydney aside, BB was great on trail. It was definitely weird going from a well-built 15.3 gelding to a small 14.2 mare. The only problems that i had with BB was that she kept trying to bite some of the other horses and since she was smaller, whenever we had a water/river crossing i'd be in a little above my knees which sucks because then your jeans and boots are wet for the remainder of the trail. Also, BB is more of in English horse and i'm almost to big for her. 

The next day Michelle brought Spud ( The main horse that i ride ) out for me to ride for barrels. Spuds really hyper, but he's actually pretty slow. Since Michelle was running behind because of traffic, Sophia told me to get Henry ready so that i wouldn't have to wait for Spud to ride. 

Henry was fine when we were walking, but when i asked him to jog he picked up a canter so i lunged him in the round pen for a bit to try and burn off some of his energy. When i got back on he was a little bit calmer and i was able to slow him down to a slow-ish trot, not quite a jog, but close enough. We started doing barrels, first a jog, then at a trot, then a canter, and finally a gallop. My friend Lilly is a AA barrel racer with an actual barrel horse, so it wasn't surprising that she had the fastest times out of everyone.

The second time me and Henry did barrels, the time we trotted it, he was doing really well until we started heading home. I had to keep a little of pressure on my reins so that Henry wouldn't pick up a canter, but Sophia said that we could canter as we were heading home so almost everyone did. As we came off of the last barrel i stopped pulling back so that we would pick up a canter, but instead he decided to take off at a fast gallop. I didn't kick, squeeze or even click, i just stopped pulling back. I had to turn him it what seemed like a million circles before he finally stopped crow-hopping and slowed down to a trot. As soon as Henry starting walking again, he was walking at a pretty slow pace like he had just woken up. 

Michelle brought Spud out not long after, so i continued doing barrels on him. Our times kind of sucked, but he did a really good job considering that he has a really short stride. Our best time for the day was 25.6 so we didn't do as bad as i thought but Lilly put everyone to shame with a time of 19.2.