4H/Skyline Drive ride

Betsy called today. Hallaleujia! Did I want to ride? Well I kinda didnt want to due to emotional upset over my "man" wanting to break up with me or something to that affect.

But regardless, Falcon was on the trailer by 4:30 pm and I was on my way to Front Royal to meet Betsy and Christie.

Then Betsy called and said they were running 20 min behind due to realizing that there were wasps in the their trailer with the horses and they had to stop and rememdy that situation.

The 4H center was alive and buzzing with campers, ponies, horses etc. Falcon was interested, but well behaved and more concerned with munching on clover. The boy sure does like to EAT!

Betsy and Chris arrived and were saddled up lickety split. But then Betsy couldnt find her helmet. I had an extra on with cobwebs in the trailer. It fit her, so We took off at a walk and a van pulled through the gate. A little girl hopped out and partially closed the gate, but left it wide enough for us to get through....NICE, except that Falcon decided to SPOOK when he got to the van and hopped sideways which landed us in a BIG ditch with a metal culvert.

Wow, How did either of us survive that one?

Ok, on up the road, to the trail which leads to the top of the ridge. It was slower going because Christies horse is 20+ and not in that good of shape.

At the top, through a subdivision and then the ridge trail that I love. Falcon and I were in the lead and took off at a fast flying trot, then a canter. It was GREATTTTTT!

Then Falcon came to a jarring stop, head up, ears pricked. hhhhhhmmm, I didnt have my glasses on, but then saw a "form" walking towards us. It was a black man with a back pack and he was really hoofing it up the trail towards us. I said hello and when he caught his breath he said that there was a "big ass bear" right around the corner.

So we talked to him for a few min. then took off up the trail and never once saw a bear. But we did see plenty of bear scat.

As we headed down the trail, we all got off and walked to stretch our legs some. Falcon put his head down to grab some grass and stepped on his rein. He yanked his head up and snapped the brass snap in half. GREAT! LESSON LEARNED. Always carry extra snaps!

Not only that the rein was stuck between his SHOE and his HOOF. Now, HOW did THAT happen? So I dug that out and before remounting at the creek, Betsy rooted around in her pack and found an xtra snap so I wouldnt have to tie the rein on.

As we reached the backside of the 4H Center the sun was setting and there was a herd of 25 deer in the soccer field. Quite a sight to be hold as their white tails flashed up and off they took.

My GPS stated that we had gone 7.86 miles with our fastest speed at 12.6 mph and an average of 4.6mph. Not a bad ride. And the only reason we had gone that slow was due to Old Sashshey.

Falcon is back on vacation because his shoes are getting loose and since I am heading for Montana. Falcon will be reshod on July 10 and then we will be putting in the miles getting ready for the Virginia Highlands ride in August.

Another ride through the gauntlet

Back to Karens tonight. Sam wasn't home and so Karen had to fix her own wine. I had Falcon saddled up in a jiffy because we were starting much later tonight. Not so with Karen. Grrr, I like her, but this is driving me crazy. Too much wine going on.

I waited for 45 min for her to saddle up and eventually get on Slick. Same ride this time as last only it was hotter with more humidity. The horses were poking along, not interested at all in stepping out.

No wet noodling from Falcon tonight. He had "been there and done that" two nights ago. But the Stallion caused excitement for a few min. and then we were on the mountain trail again.

This time we decided to keep going. The trail was one track with lots of briars and thorny trees along the way. Karen and SLick were in the lead as the path became steeper and rockeier.

Halfway up to the top, Karen stopped, trying to decide whether to turn around or keep going. I yelled, "I dont know, make up YOUR MIND, Im sliding off Falcons back!"
I nudged Falcon and he charged past Slick. I grabbed a branch to prevent it from smacking me in the face-it turned out to have thorns that drove into my hand and stuck there. OUCH!

We reached the top and found that the trail continued to worsen. I hopped off and led Falcon as we started down the other side. It was a great relief when we reached a large level,grassy area. This is where we had started initially and had come full circle.

I hopped off to fix my stirrup because my leg was cramping. Karen had a "smoke" which actually is great for keeping the knats away, while the horses munched grass.

Then darn, my cushion in my stirrup had come unglued! It just wouldnt stick, so I stuck in in my saddle bag and hiked the stirrup up two notches to match my other one with the pad.

The ride down was a pain, with my foot that kept sticking to the remaining glue that wasnt enough to hold the pad but enough to throw my balance off.

Back through the gauntlet, where we stopped to talk to the Stallion's owner. A nice man, but a definite junk collector.
This time we just head to the trailer since it was almost dark. I was glad to be home and decided that I am not making much conditioning progress riding with Karen.

spooks and bucks

Karen called while I was at work and asked if I wanted to go for a ride that evening. I was game and arrived in Stanley at 5:30 pm.
Sam, Karen's daughter came out to say hi and to see if I needed help with Falcon-NOT He is a good boy about loading and unloading.

Karen had just arrived home from work and wasn't ready to ride, so Falcon munched on grass for a spell. Sam brought her mother a glass of wine and the two of them walked off to the barn to get Slick ready.

Two glasses of wine later, Karen was trying to mount Slick, who doesnt stand still and they twirl around in circles until finally Sam grabbed a hold on him and Karen was on and we were off down the road at a walk.

There was a crossroad 0.5 mile away and when we reached that area there road turned to gravel and stated that the state road ended 1.0 mile.

Karen warned, "ok, we are going to trot ok? the whole mile ok? are you ready?" Slick was still walking, Falcon KNOW's what the word "TROT" means and he took off and we soon left them in the dust.

I don't know what Karen was thinking. She must think that I don't ride much, when in reality I ride much more AND longer than she does. Ok, musta been the wine talking!

Falcon was like a wet noodle going down the road. Spooking at every rock and black stump, sign and fence. I gave him stiff nudges with my heels and kept him going at his fast trot.

Karen then hollered, "THERE IS A STALLION at the the end of this road" A Stallion was an understatement.
The residence at the end of the road had JUNK, JUNK, and MORE JUNK on BOTH sides of the road.
The Stallion was hollering on one side and running up and down the sagging fence line.

On the other side of the road the Donkeys brayed and trotted up their sagging fence line, all three animals were dodging rusting trailers and farm equipment.

The Stallion is 29 and a GORGEOUS gray arabian. Falcon wanted to visit and slowed down despite my prompting to keep him moving. Slick and Karen moved ahead and Falcon soon followed.

From there we were on a fire road up the mountain. We went about halfway up (maybe another half of a mile) and Karen decided that Slick was tired (uhhhhmmm not! Karen was tired!)

So we turned around and came back down, back through the rusted animal gauntlet towards Karens place. But then she gained her second wind and took me on another gravel road in her subdivision.

It was a gradual climb up a long hill and Slick took off at a canter (yeah he was tired! haha!) Falcon bunched up and Buck, Buck Bucked! What in the heck???? Took me by surprise. I yanked his head up and yelled. After that we trotted to the top and I hopped off and readjusted his girth. I think the saddle had slipped back and he is sensitive to THAT! grrrr.

Then we faced another hill and this time, Falcon was a good boy and did a nice canter, but then acted up again and attempted to rear a little and buck some more.
We were in a FLOCK of big deer flies and they were really messing with him. No amount of shaking and tossing got rid of them, so we took off cantering for the horse trailer and thankfully arrived unscathed.

Sam met Karen with another glass of wine, while I unsaddled and loaded Falcon and took off for home.

Vacation time

Falcon is on vacation! We have had turbulent weather here in the East and a tornado of sorts ripped a path through the valley. Berrystone Farm (Falcons home) sustained some damage. A beautiful Young maple tree was snapped at its base, the top landing on my car.

The miracle was: only minor scratches to the car, and IF the Truck and horse trailer HAD been parked in their USUAL spot, they would have been SMASHED. But it so happened that I had scheduled for them to be serviced that day and had driven them to work.

Needless to say, I had to cancel my appointment for them in Harrisonburg due to the storms.
Thunderstorms have been frequenting the afternoons and evenings. For the next FOUR days, Temps are to be in the high 90's with a heat index of 110.

The horses are sweating just standing around in the shade. I need to get some electrolytes soon and plan on giving Falcon a vacation until late next week.

Endurance Training Ride

Old Dominion Rides hosted a training ride for newbie members or newbie horses today at Judy Riccis place in Sumerduck VA.

Her place backs up to the Phelps preserve which has thousands of acres and nice two track trails and creeks. Alot of people go there to train their bird dogs.

Falcon did excellant with the trailering and was very interested in all of the other horses being unloaded in the parking lot. He was very alert, but not out of control at all, so saddling and mounting went extremely well.

He wouldn't stand still though, so we walked in large circles waiting for and meeting some of the other people. From the parking area, we had a short jaunt through the woods to Judies place.

Unfortunately, there were tons of people there either just as or more inexperienced then me and some of them were combined with crazy young horses. The majority of us were riding 5 year old horses that had never been in a large group of other horses as such.

The one lady, Becky, leading the group I went in was leading with a horse that had just been gelded and had only been on the trail ONCE! Needless to say Falcon had no trouble soon taking the lead on the trail.

But, backing up. We were told to go in the ring and work some steam off of our horses, but I didnt. Falcon was already trying to bunch up to buck, so I led him in wide circles, then used Judies big circular driveway to work some bugs out of him.

Some horses in the ring were trying to rear, or were rearing. Finally I had to go in the ring for the pre-ride info. There were ribbons flying from the gate in to the ring. Falcon has seem them before when he was there for training, but this day he was silly and ran sideways in to the gate. dumby.

After getting in the ring, I attempted to trot him over a black plastic tube and he decided to be afraid of that too, hit it with his hind leg and started bucking. BAD BOY. After three bucks I regained control and had him walking in circles again.


I yelled at Judie and blamed her because prior to this she had come over to say hello and Falcon had been very happy to see her. Then when she left is when he started acting ornery.

Finally, Falcon and most of the other horses were happy to stand still. The temperature was rising fast and the sun was hot. They reviewed "Vet Stops" and then we divided in to two groups. One faster and one for people who wanted to go slower.

I picked the slower smaller group of 8. Harumph, I think that was a mistake. Once on the trail, Falcon quickly fell in to line and one heavy set lady on an appaloosa joined up with us. Falcon was pushing to get in the lead and the lady on "Hawk" wanted to keep in the back, so we soon left the Appaloosa's company.

Soon we were behind Becky on her newly "cut" stallion/gelding boy an Alkel Teke 16 hands lanky horse who gave Falcon the "stink eye" everytime we got close!

Behind me was a girl on a cute little red arabian that seemed to be going along nicely, but the girl was WHINING, NO don't trot, my stirrups are too short. So we stopped, she fixed her stirrups.

After some trotting she whined "ohhhhhhh no are we TROTTING the whole time? Oh NO I don't wannnnnnnnt to trot, this is a new saddddddddle, he has a bit in in his mouth....whine whine whine.....I forgot his easy boots, he doesn't have shoes on.......whine whine whine.

Then "oh I am so sorry boy, I will NEVER put a bit in your mouth again" on and on. I sped up to Becky and asked her to check on the Whiner. Becky told her to keep moving, that her horse would toughen up and that her horse only had front shoes and she would take it easy on the big gravel, but KEEP MOVING!" grrrrrrrr! hee haw

Then she told the girl to that her helmet was too big. I turned to look and sure enuf, her helmet was way to big, lop sided and turned half sideways. SOME PEOPLE!

After that we came to a HUGE fallen tree in the trail. I dismounted, gave Falcon a long lead and he sprang straight up in the air and hopped over it. Man I was glad I wasn't on his back for that LEAP!
The whiner said, ohhhh oh, I can't do THAT! but she lept off of her horse who came over the tree nicely.

Then we were off trotting again. The Alkle Teke (or however you spell it) was tired of being in the lead brainwise, so Becky let Falcon and I take the lead and off we went at a wonderful pace of 6 mph.

At about the 3 1/2 mile mark I heard behind me "TROT TROT TROT" and a horse was really fighting his rider. The lady on Hawk the appaloosa, asked to pass and off they took at a canter with Becky yelling, slow down, wait for us at the creek, but Hawk was long gone.

We arrived at the creek and Hawks rider was sitting on the edge, dark red in color and not feeling well. I offered her water (she had NONE) and the temperature was 95 in the shade with about 100% humidity.
But she did dowse her head and thought that she might lay in the creek. Becky rode up then and forced her to drink some of her gatorade.

I sponged Falcon for the first time from the saddle. he spooked slightly the first time at the sponge. After that he was happy to be sponged repeatedly and dug and splashed in the creek.

The other riders did the same and then we let them munch on grass while Becky and the other experienced endurance rider, Bonnie evaluated Hawks rider. It was decided that Bonnie would ride on with the rest of us, while Becky stayed at the creek.

From there Falcon led again and we cantered up the hill at about 9.5 mph, then trotted, then walked the last 3/10 of a mile back to the barn. More sponging and then Judie checked Falcons heartrate which was 58. I considered that wonderful. Even though we had only done 5 miles, the heat and humidity were just rediculous. So I feel like his recovery was indeed fantastic.

I decided to go on home after that. Thunderstorms were moving in. When I left Sumerduck it was 94 in the shade, by the time I reached the Blue Ridge/Skyline drive 45 miles away, it was 77 and then in Luray it was 76 degrees. A welcome 18 degree drop. Rain came as I walked Falcon in to his pasture.

Another great ride (except for the Whiner and the Hawks rider who did end up coming back to the barn 30 min after us in much better condition then when she had started.)

I just couldnt believe the number of unprepared riders that either did not bring water for themselves or sponges for their horses and had to borrow. Just redicules. Hopefully they learned something about checking the weather before a ride!

I am learning to trust Falcon more and more, but still tense up and yank on his reins too much when he is being ornery, So I have to get past that. Other than that I am now planning to ride the 30 mile Virginia Highlands ride in August, pending conditioning. YEEE HAW

exploring

Today, I took Falcon out with the plan to head over to the other side of my small mountain and head back on the gravel "Summers Road" which is a 4 mile loop....or at least I think it is.

I took my GPS with me to check it out.

Falcon balked twice upon leaving the barn, but then perked up and took off up the trail with out further ado. I was riding him in my Plantation Saddle, which really doesn't fit his body, but I used the Skito pad with it for extra protection to his back.

Our first obstacle was a shiny red bicycle in the neighbors yard, semi blocking the trail to radio tower hill. He shied slightly and then after minimal encouragement walked up to the bike and then tried to walk OVER it. SILLY BOY!

We had a nice trot/canter up the "Hill" towards the radio tower. At the top, the road drops down the other side pretty steeply. Normally I would not be afraid to ride down a hill with this grade, but there is a lot of gravel on this one, so I dismounted and we walked all of the way down.

But alas, the road was gated off and I couldnt get through. Mounting again, I turned around and took some cleared side trails. One dead ended in thick brush, but I could see the road ahead.
There was no way that I was going to tackle the brush and briars bare handed so we turned around again, and this time headed for home.

Falcon galloped up the road until he was short of breath and then slowed to a trot/walk.

Back at the barn, his sweat marks from the saddle were even with no dry spots, so I suppose the saddle does fit pretty well but seems a little tight at his shoulders. I am comfortable in my Cheyenne, which fits Falcon well, so I guess I will keep that for my endurance treks.

GPS stated that I had gone about 4 miles with all of my backtracking. So that was a good work out with the two hills. Average speed was only 2.9 miles and hour though, with Falcons fasted at 12.3 mph during the gallop uphill.

It was a fun ride.

On Top O' the World

I SHOULD have been cleaning and cooking.....but Betsy phoned and said "lets ride".
I called Karen to see if she wanted to go. She did, but didn't know if her new horse "Slick" had ever been on a horse trailer. So we agreed that I would come an hour early and we would attempt to load Slick.

At 3 pm, I headed to her place about 15 min. away. She brought Slick out and let him meet Falcon through the trailer window. (a neighbor down the road had given Slick to her, Slick is a quarter horse/arab)

Then, around to the back and attempted to load. Slick was pretty calm, but refused to load. Karen encouraged him with snacks and soon he had one foot on the trailer. After the 4th try of stepping on and rushing back off, he walked right on and stood there quietly.

More snacks and then we were off. Up the road about 3 miles to park property. We unloaded and walked the horses around and let them munch on some grass and did some "trotting in hand" work with them.

By then Betsy and Christa had arrived with Tristana and Sashshey. Tris is 10 and Shey is 20+
Slick 8 and Falcon 5. So we had quite the range of horses.

Falcon was a gem for saddling and mounting, then up the trail we went. "Red Gate Road" is a well maintained fire road that heads up out of Lucas Hollow (er I think it was Lucas, there are a ton of "Hollows" in this area) out of Stanley, VA and up to Skyline Drive to Big Meadows.

There are few level areas, mostly uphill and lots of switchbacks. We had a marvelous time walking and trotting.
Then we decided to canter. Falcon and Tris were in the lead cantering nicely when there appeared a very sharp switchback.

Falcon did marvelous and made the turn on a dime (I even STAYED ON!) Tris wasn't as lucky and headed straight for the trees. Betsy had to pull her up to a walk.
The grade was steeper then anyway and Falcon was happy to walk again.

Along the way, creeks were flowing and Mountain laurel was blooming, just a perfect 70 degree day.
The other horses spooked at rocks, but once again, Falcon showed them all up and continued merrily up the trail.

At the top, we got off and walked due to numerous tourists parking off of skyline drive for the views at the lookouts.

Several were saying "oooooooh loook HORSES" and snapping pictures. Christa pulled out her camera and snapped a couple of the 3 of us, then asked a tourist to take a picture of all 4.

It was 62 and breezy on top of the mountain and the VIEWS.....WOWWWWWWWW!
The air was fairly fresh, other than the other 3 girls were smoking. All of the horses except Falcon peeed. He needs to learn that on the trail.

We relaxed on top of the world for about 20 min while the horses munched grass and then we headed back for home.

On the way down a Black Bear scampered across the road in front of us. I don't think Falcon even saw it. We stopped to make sure there wasn't another bear around.

Betsy, in all of her YEARS of riding had never seen a bear while out on the trail, so it was a first for her. Karen never did see it because she was fiddling with a cigarette.

We trotted a good part of the way down, maybe 2 miles worth at least. I HATE trotting downhill and Falcon tends to go sideways since he hasn't built up a lot of muscle yet. It was difficult keeping him straight.

It was a WONDERFUL afternoon/evening. We had started the ride around 4:30 and ended back at the trailers around 7:30 in the eve. WHAT fun...and so much better than cooking and cleaning!