Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Trigger's trainer has been saying I should ride one of her horses for a while now.  She doesn't want me to lose interest in horses.  :-)  She invited me to come out last Tuesday, and when I realized I had other plans, I put her off until Thursday, and then we ended up postponing until today.  I guess she had a few friends lined up to come, but a couple of them bailed due to the cold weather.  However, the trainer (S) and another boarder (A) and I were game.

S sent me out to fetch my mount, and after getting pointed to the correct pasture, I went to go find him.  She said to just call his name and he'd come right up to me.  Well, that wasn't quite true, but when I walked toward the herd of horses, he was like the third one to approach me.  I petted the first one who arrived, an adorable stocky black gelding with a lopped-off tail.  Then the palomino paint colt with blue eyes came up to me, and even though he's pretty young, he clearly loves people, and wanted lots of attention.  Finally, Nevets came up to me, so I scratched and rubbed him a bit, then set about unbuckling the halter to put it on him, but apparently he's friendly enough, but doesn't actually like being CAUGHT.  S hadn't warned me about that, or I might have been a little more strategic with hiding the halter and rope, and being ready to use it when the moment was right.  Oops.  So I ignored him for a bit, paying attention to the other two attention whores.  He came back, but once again would stay long enough to be caught.  By this point, S realized my plight and came out to help me.  Apparently the trick is to at least get your arm around his neck (or something else--she used her hat with string ties), and then he comes willingly.  Well, I'll know next time.  :-)

We tacked up and loaded up without incident, and headed out to a local trailhead.  I've got to admit, I had butterflies when getting on him, but even though he was kind of a head-tosser at times, once I was on him, I felt just fine.

When we first started out, it was snowing pretty hard, and there was a dusting on the ground.

We went through a couple of really cool canyons.  Nevets wasn't too sure about being the first to enter this canyon , which for all he knew, could have had cougars lined up along the top of the walls and coyotes or wolves all along the bottom, but he went bravely after a bit of assurance from me.

S on Frosty, her barrel horse who needed a break from the arena are on the left.  Hope it did him some good an he does a GREAT job for her tomorrow!  A on her coming-three-year-old filly on the right.  This was only her second time out in the big wide world, and she did GREAT!

Maybe we had a little bit of fun today.  Maybe.  :-)

Yup, it was fun!

By the end of our ride, the sky was pretty clear (though an ominous storm was apparent on the horizon), and the temperature had warmed up quite a bit, too.  We had gone up and then down a bit of a hill, and quite steep in places, so the horses were happy to hop on the trailer and go back home.

As I was driving home, the storm I'd seen coming had clearly hit Bend, and the roads were snowy and slippery, and we had a dusting of snow at my house, so it's probably a good thing we rode today, as tomorrow might not be so kind.  :-)

Thanks, S, for inviting me and loaning your horse.  He and I had a great time together.  :)

Oh, and I did say hi to Trigger (he recognizes my voice when I holler at him from across the farm, even from S' truck), and gave him a few treats.  He was cozy out in his paddock with a blanket on.  No nibbles on him of late, but S renewed all the ads out there, so hopefully soon...