Alfie is absolutely loving these trail ride excursions we are taking. Today we enjoyed the company of Regina riding Cayman.
Since hitting this little trail with Alfie several weeks ago, I’ve noticed a lot of positive change with Alfie. The biggest is the mounting block. He stands. Like a statue. The last 2 weekends, no adjustments were needed. He stands and I get on. This tells me he is happy with our rides.
So before we head out onto the trail, we have to do our warmup. Alfie starts to balk at this notion, as if we haven’t done this exact same warmup every time we ride lol. He firmly plants his feet into the ground and is like nope I’m not moving. Alfie you are so silly, trying to psych me out so maybe I will just turn you around and head out of the arena onto the trail…HA!
With a little persuasion from my strong legs and a light tap with my stick of influence he realizes that some arena work is necessary to be able to go outside. We work on our circles, and even a bit of trot. At this point Regina and Cayman are in the arena warming up and Alfie instantly has more pep in his step when he sees his buddy.
We head out and Alfie is so excited to be with his buddy, he’s actually got an amazing forward walk. In fact, I had to slow him a bit because his nose was actually up Cayman’s behind!
Today’s ride was different – we led for a bit but we also were able to walk side by side. This is new for us. Side by side riding is something we are used to doing in an arena. Out on the trail, we’ve only done it a handful of times usually because Alfie is slower than most horses, and well, to be honest, I always preferred to follow another horse for safety reasons. So if say there is a deer, whomever is first will see it first which will give me time to react. But when you are side by side, you both are first. Today, I felt confident enough to do that. In fact, at one point, we were walking more forward than Cayman.
Alfie had no problem navigating through the small puddles of water today, and he didn’t even care there were frogs in one of them.
My friend Jenna whom Alfie LOVES accompanies us on our rides to take pictures. Her pictures are so beautiful and so incredibly helpful – I can see where my positioning is great and where it needs work. But I can also see the incredible body of Alfie. He’s using his muscles, he has a top line (muscular back), his booty is big and beautiful – just like a quarter horse is supposed to be. But it’s not flabby, it’s muscle.
All in all it was another perfect horsey weekend spent with wonderful friends and amazing horses.❤️🐴
