The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss all you are traveling for.

So Sunday once again dawned bright and sunny (if a *little* chilly) so of course that meant it was a good day to go riding :) Kerri and I hit the rail trail w/ our ponies -- Iroc the superstar, who was *bouncing* at first cause he figured he was going home >;-P hahaha and Sienna who's done exactly 1 trail ride in her life.

Well it was brilliant. I ended that ride in *such* a good mood. But I have to admit to being rather bemused by my little horse. She is SO different from any horse I've trained before that I'm never quite sure what to expect with her :) Except that I'm rapidly learning that it'll be opposite of what I expect!

hahaha snow, we know, is very scary. Since I tend to agree w/ her on that we just steer around it :) No snow on XC, so I'm not about to make an issue of the random snow patches on the trails. No problem there. But other things puzzle me. For instance -- cyclists are no problem at all. They zoom right by and she doesn't even blink. But the two (incredibly patient) cyclists who very kindly stopped to avoid spooking our horses and waited while we approached them -- well they were terrifying. hahaha she wanted nothing to do w/ approaching these scary creatures. After all, moving cyclists are *clearly* already chasing some other poor beast, so there's no concern to her, but *still* cyclists -- well they're just waiting to POUNCE! hahaha n it probably doesn't help that her rider was too busy laughing at her to provide any reassurance. Poor girl.

Now the last time Kerri and I did this particular trail (I was riding Zel at the time), we got to this one place where they breed great danes. Now for those who don't know, these are BIG, LOUD dogs. And all 11 of them caught site of us at once and charged the fence barking. Now Zel's immediate response was "I'm outta here!" and she left. N since quite honestly I agreed w/ her, I was all for it (who'd really believe that tiny wire fence was really going to contain 11 big riled dogs???). Ker apparently agreed w/ me, but her superpony knew better and was trying so hard to calm everybody down -- nickering to Zel as she flew by and standing calmly while the dogs came to an abrupt (if no less noisy) stop at the fence. Zel was, by this point long gone. hahaha when we did eventually stop we came back part way to meet up w/ Ker and Iroc again. So fastforward to Sunday. I have my supergreen TB who does *not* come with breaks installed and we're getting near where I remember the dogs. Kerri tells me that people ride this trail all the time and apparently we're the only ones who've ever seen the dogs out -- odds of it happening twice are clearly non-existent. You've been reading this blog for a while -- you *know* my luck doesn't work like this. But Kerri's ever the optimist :) Sure enough, we cross the street and DOGS! But one advantage this time -- they saw us, and we them, before we got to the property. And there were *only* five this time (ever seen FIVE great danes at the same time who've decided your pony might make a good afternoon snack???) Sure enough they come charging up barking... N Iroc of course wants to make friends, n Si... Well... She did @ least deign to glance @ them, but then returned to her far more important study of the tires that were lying in the field on the *other* side of the trail :) After all, Iroc was between her and the dogs, in the herd it'd be HIS job was to worry about things on that side of the path and he clearly wasn't concerned. HER job was the other side and the very-scary tires. Sheesh. N yet I strongly suspect even if she'd been on the dog side she wouldn't've been particularly interested. Certainly there was no high-speed escape this time. Still shaking my head over that.

So on this trail we tried both trotting AND cantering (through both Sienna was the brave leader of the pair -- and pretty much everything afterwards since Iroc deemed himself too tired to lead :) and I was very pleased that while the trot was on speed, it did remain a trot until I said otherwise and the canter was actually under control. Woohoo! By the end of the trail she was even chilled enough that I could take pics (here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=244264&id=823765365&l=faa2881fa7) I'm really starting to adore my pony. There's admittedly something to be said for easy. I keep waiting for the "teenage years" to hit. hahaha


On a still horse related but not MY horse related note -- one of my friends sent me this link: http://ca.video.yahoo.com/watch/4151278/11181740 You'll need sound to view it; if all race announcers were like this I'd be watching a lot more racing :) hahaha I love the line about the cars :) Enjoy!